The object of his censure was Greece. The condition of that State was such as Palmerston could not overlook. British subjects had from time to time reason to complain of the inefficiency of the law and of the delays and evasions of the Government. A riot, in which a substantial amount of private property was destroyed, at last gave an excuse for intervention. Claims for compensation were presented to the Greek Government, and Palmerston, without advising the sufferers to try the law, and without himself allowing any play for diplomacy, sent a fleet to blockade the Piraeus, and demanded the settlement of all the claims in full. Some of these claims, of which that of the Maltese Jew Pacifico was the worst, were notoriously extravagant or dishonest, and Palmerston, by his hasty action, had made the British fleet an instrument of the most impudent blackmail. France and Russia stepped in, at first with offers of mediation, and then, when Palmerston flouted their suggestions, with vigorous remonstrance. In the face of this opposition such a bad case could not be pressed, and the matter was referred to arbitration. Palmerston's egoism had betrayed him. He had bullied Greece. {213} He gave way to France, and he abased himself before Russia. The note addressed to the Russian Ambassador by Count Nesselrode is perhaps the most humiliating document ever received by an English Minister. "It remains to be seen whether Great Britain, abusing the advantages which are afforded her by her immense maritime superiority, intends henceforth to pursue an isolated policy, without caring for those engagements which bind her to the other Cabinets; whether she intends to disengage herself from every obligation, as well as from all community of action, and to authorize all Great Powers, on every fitting opportunity, to recognize to the weak no other rule but their own will, no other right but their own physical strength. Your Excellency will please to read this dispatch to Lord Palmerston, and to give him a copy of it." To the meek acceptance of lectures like this was Great Britain reduced by Palmerston's "spirited and aggressive" policy. The rebuke was not made less effective by the fact that every word of it might have been addressed to Russia herself. But Palmerston, with his theories of the Balance of Power and his bluster in Spain and Portugal, no less than with his genuine love of national independence and constitutional government, had contrived to offend all the Great Powers in turn, and they clutched eagerly at this chance of reading a lecture to the man who had so often played the pedagogue towards themselves.