He gave varying accounts of his birth, placing it either in Oran, which belonged to Spain at the time, or in Gibraltar, which was a British possession.
[3] In April 1847, in order not to offend a visiting French Jewish financier, a member of the Rothschild family, the government banned the traditional burning of Judas Iscariot in effigy during Greek Orthodox Easter celebrations.
The affair came to a head in January 1850, when the Royal Navy blockaded Athens to force Greece to settle Pacifico's claims and others'.
Through French and Russian intervention, his claims were reduced, the blockade lifted and Greece agreed to pay.
In a vote on an opposition motion, the right of a British subject to appeal for aid anywhere in the world was affirmed by the house with a majority of forty-six.
In an obituary published 21 April, The Jewish Chronicle called him an "individual who … caused so much sensation in the political world.