Jenkins's Ear, the War of

JENKINS'S EAR, THE WAR OF. 1739–1742. After a quarter-century of relative peace, imperial competition in the West Indies broke out into open war in October 1739, eight years after Spanish coast guards had intercepted and searched a ship commanded by Captain Robert Jenkins, officially on a return voyage from Jamaica but thought by the Spanish to be engaging in illegal trade with their ports. The coast guard searched Jenkins's ship, tied him to the mainmast, and removed part of an ear, which Jenkins thereafter carried with him in a box, eager to show everyone (including Parliament in March 1738) this tangible evidence of Spanish cruelty. Jenkins's story helped to stir up anti-Spanish and pro-war sentiment throughout the country and was used as part of the justification for a war that George II, important political interests, and a large part of the mercantile community wanted to wage for glory, aggrandizement, and economic advantage.

The war opened well when, in December 1739, Vice Admiral Edward Vernon captured and ransomed Porto Bello on the Spanish Main. But an expedition against Cartagena in 1740, in which soldiers recruited in the colonies composed a substantial part of the land force, was destroyed by hesitant leadership, effective Spanish resistance, and rampant disease. The conflict thereafter merged into the larger and more important War of the Austrian Succession.

SEE ALSO Austrian Succession, War of the; Vernon, Edward.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Richmond, Herbert. Statesmen and Sea Power. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1946.

Roberts, Penfield. Quest for Security, 1715–1740. New York: Harper and Row, 1947.

Speck, W. A. Stability and Strife: England, 1714–1760. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977.

Williams, Basil. The Whig Supremacy, 1714–1760. 2d ed. Revised by C. H. Stuart. Vol. 11, Oxford History of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.

                        revised by Harold E. Selesky