War of Jenkins’ Ear

Well, maybe that’s a little misleading but what we do know is that poor Captain Robert Jenkins of the brig The Rebecca did have one his lugholes lopped and this, in turn, gave the British an opportunity to have a pot at the Spanish. 

Captain Jenkins apparently lost said ear in 1731 when his ship was boarded by the Spanish coastguards from the good ship La Isabela off the coast of the West Indies.  Jenkins was known to be involved in piracy and the handling of contraband, and upon boarding The Rebecca and seizing the contraband, apparently Captain Julio Leon Fandino ordered that Jenkins be bound to a mast and one of his ears be sliced off with a sword.  He then told Jenkins in no uncertain terms – presumably by shouting into his remaining ear – to return to England and tell King George II that the same fate would befall His Majesty if he allowed it to happen again.

King George II

The ear was duly pickled, presumably in rum, and The Rebecca returned to England with a lopsided ‘jug-eared’ Jenkins in command.  Upon his arrival back in Blighty in 1738 Captain Jenkins reported to the House of Commons and told his tale of woe, presenting the pickled ear to the House.  The event was presented to the King, a report backing up Jenkins’ story furnished by the Commander in Chief in the West Indies and this seemed adequate evidence to give the English a good excuse for declaring war on Spain and it’s empire in 1739. 

The British had been looking for an excuse for some time to have a bit of fisticuffs with the Spanish as they felt their noses had been put out of joint due to the Spanish reneging on the Treaty of Utrecht entered into in 1713 following the War of the Spanish Succession.  This treaty allowed the British to supply a number of slaves to the Spanish colonies together with 500 tons of other goods each year over a thirty year period.  It gave the British a chance to break into the Spanish American market but the British and Spanish were constantly bickering, back-biting and battling in the intervening period between 1713 and 1731, which included the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727-1729, so things were bound to get out of hand.

Sir Robert Walpole

At the end of the Anglo-Spanish War, a further treaty was signed which allowed Spanish warships to stop British traders and check out whether or not the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were being adhered to.  It wasn’t long before the suspicious Spanish were convinced that the Brits were taking advantage (as if!) and began boarding and confiscating cargo.  Naturally the already volatile relationship between Britain and Spain went from bad to worse but Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister at that time, tried desperately to stave off war, even supporting Spain throughout the War of Polish Succession, but the King, the House of Commons and even members of his own cabinet fought tooth and nail to lash out at the Spanish.

Eventually, in 1739, following the exhibiting of Jenkins’ auricle to the House of Commons, poor brow-beaten Bob “the Peacemaker” Walpole had to kowtow and for the next two years the War of Jenkins’ Ear took place.  This led to the War of Austrian Succession between 1740-1748 and, in the meantime, hostilities in America between the Brits and the Spaniards came to a head during King George’s War of 1744-1748. There were many other battles over the intervening years between the Spanish and the British, too numerous to mention in one short article but whether or not Captain Jenkins’ shell-like was actually chopped off by a fuming Captain Fandino or whether it happened during a drunken brawl, or by the hand of an equally miffed crew member, I imagine we’ll never know.  But whatever happened, it seems incredible that one man’s ear could cause such an international kerfuffle.