|
Sale 122
Lot 1711
Great Britain. Sovereign, 1850. S.3852C; Fr-387e; KM-736.1. Weight 0.2355 ounce. Victoria. Young head left. Reverse; Crowned shield. PCGS graded AU-53. In special PCGS Ship of Gold holder which contains One Pinch of Gold Dust recovered from the S.S. Central America treasure.
Special PCGS number 674157.53/35474689. Estimated Value $500 - UP
In 1847 a Greek mob attacked the home of a Gibraltarian merchant named Don Pacifico in Athens at Easter. Because he was a British citizen (with political connections in Portugal and to the Greek Jewish community) a demand was made that the government of Greece repay him for the damages to his home and the monies taken by his attackers in 1848. This was flatly refused on the grounds that the value of Don Pacifico's itemized list of damaged and stolen possessions was impossibly high. When King Otto of Greece stopped paying back a British loan in 1849, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, took matters into his own hands. On 22 January 1850, he directed Admiral Sir William Parker to impose a blockade on the Piraeus and seize the small Greek fleet in order to compel Otto to give satisfaction in the so-called Don Pacifico affair and settle other disputes with respect to the British protectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands. Although this application of gunboat diplomacy had the desired effect of obtaining compensation for Don Pacifico, it was accompanied by diplomatic fallout with France, which, along with Russia, shared in the protection of Greece. In the aftermath of the incident, Parliament closely examined its foreign policy and in June the House of Lords voted to rebuke Palmerston for his approval of Parker's coercive actions. It was, however, proposed in the House of Commons that this censure should be reversed. This motion was carried after four nights of debate and a famous 5-hour speech by Palmerston in which he compared the dignity of the British subject to that of the ancient Roman citizen and the reach of the British Empire to that of the Roman Empire to protect that dignity.
At the same time that 1850 was a year of problematic international entanglements for Parliament, it was also a peculiar and remarkable year for Queen Victoria. On 27 June, she was assaulted by the mentally-ill Lieutenant Robert Pate as she went to her coach following a visit to her dying uncle in Piccadilly. He struck her such a blow on the head with his cane that it crushed her bonnet and drew blood. Victoria survived the attack, but the mark on her forehead remained for more than a decade. Pate was subsequently convicted of assault and sentenced to transportation to Tasmania. Six days after the attack, on 3 July, Victoria was presented with the Koh-i-Noor, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world. This fabulous gem had belonged to Maharaja Duleep Singh of the Sikh Empire, but had been ceded to the Queen in the aftermath of the British East India Company's victory in the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848-1849).
|
| |
| Realized $1,320 |
|
