[3] Seriously injured, he spent the next few years championing the Greek cause in letters to the British government, self-promotion that entailed his appointment in 1831 to Sir Stratford Canning's mission to Istanbul to settle the border between Greece and Turkey.

[1] Urquhart's principal role was to nurture the support of Koca Mustafa Reşid Pasha, intimate advisor to the Sultan Mahmud II.

[1] He struck such an intimate relationship with the government in Istanbul that he became outspoken in his calls for British intervention on behalf of the Sultan against Muhammad Ali of Egypt in opposition to the policy of Canning.

[1] In 1835, he was appointed secretary of embassy at Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, but an unfortunate attempt to counteract Russian aggressive designs in Circassia, which threatened to lead to an international crisis, again led to his recall in 1837.

In 1835, before leaving for the East, he founded a periodical called the Portfolio, and in the first issue printed a series of Russian state papers, which made a profound impression.

[6][7] Personally, Karl Marx himself, in correspondence with his friend Engels, considered Urquhart a "form of maniac" in his accusations of Palmerston and the worship of the Turks.

[8] In 1838, Urquhart published a book, Spirit of the East, where he examines Turkey and Greece, while also drawing on work previously done by Arthur Lumley Davids.

[10] The action of the United Kingdom in the Crimean War provoked indignant protests from Urquhart, who contended that Turkey was in a position to fight her own battles without the assistance of other powers.

[11] In 1856 (with finance from ironmaster George Crawshay) he became the owner of the Free Press (renamed the Diplomatic Review in 1866), which numbered among its contributors the socialist Karl Marx.

[13] This attracted the attention of Irish physician Richard Barter who sought Urquhart's help in building such a bath at his hydropathic establishment in Blarney, County Cork.