The son of Dougal Christie, M.D., an officer in the East India Company's medical service, he was born at Bombay on 5 January 1816.

[3] At this time he was editor of a newspaper, the Kentish Mercury, Gravesend Journal, and Greenwich Gazette, and employed the Chartist Thomas Cooper to edit it.

[5] In 1841, Christie was for a short time private secretary to Lord Minto at the admiralty, and from April 1842 to November 1847 represented Weymouth as Member of Parliament.

[7] In May 1848 Christie was appointed consul-general in the Mosquito Territory, and from 1851 to 1854 was secretary of legation, frequently acting as chargé d'affaires, to the Swiss Confederation.

[3] Christie's position wasn't helped by a quarrel at cards with James Watson Webb, the American ambassador, at the Russian embassy.

[3] The House of Commons debated his conduct, with some MPs like Seymour Vesey-FitzGerald criticising him for taking disproportionate action, to teach Brazil a "lesson".

In the Introductory Note on the ballot, he sketched the earlier parliamentary history from his own perspective: George Grote had introduced a motion on it in 1833, and up to 1839 there had been increasing support, with Thomas Babington Macaulay arguing on its side.

[3] Christie became involved in a personal controversy with Abraham Hayward, who had attacked the memory of John Stuart Mill; it included a now-mysterious incident in the whist room of the Athenaeum Club in May 1873.