Because the United States was still isolationist during Wallace's foreign service, he was
encouraged not to do anything that would involve the country in foreign disputes. However, Wallace managed to find purpose by assisting with humanitarian issues within the Ottoman Empire. He was prompted on one occasion to use his influence to free some wrongly imprisoned Greeks. Wallace also assisted with various concerns among the Zionists in Palestine. Naturally, he also intervened on behalf of American missionaries and merchants within the Ottoman Empire.
Wallace found enough liberty from his official duties to research his third novel The Prince of India: Or Why Constantinople Fell. His travels allowed him to better describe his book’s setting. While touring the Holy Land, Wallace, his wife, and sister-in-law, Joanna Lane, found every door open to them, courtesy of the Sultan. Wallace stated that he walked the paths described in Ben-Hur and felt as if he had already been there. The Wallaces also found time to tour Europe.
Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland won the election of 1884. Wallace, as a Republican, was obligated to resign his position as Minister. Despite the protests of the Sultan, who had offered him positions in the Turkish government so that he might stay, Wallace returned to Crawfordsville in 1885.
