Behind The Headlines
Jad Adams presents a decade-by-decade rundown of the major events affecting our ancestors’ lives. This month he explores the fourth decade of the 18th century
The major events of 1730–1739
One of the most curious wars in history got its name when the British ship Rebecca, bound for Jamaica, was boarded by Spanish coastguards off the coast of Havana on 9 April 1731.
This was a perfectly proper police operation, because the Spaniards had jurisdiction and were entitled to inspect the vessel, which they suspected was carrying contraband. But the coastguard, Juan de León Fandiño, beat and half-strangled the captain of the Rebecca, Merchant Navy officer Robert Jenkins, torturing him to reveal the contraband. Failing to find anything, the Spaniard “took hold of his left Ear, and with his Cutlass slit it down; and then another of the Spaniards took hold of it and tore it off, but gave him the Piece of his Ear again, bidding him carry it to his Majesty King George” (in the words of a newspaper report).
The coastguard stripped the Rebecca of her cargo and instruments and left, “with the intent that she should perish in her passage” according to a later inquiry. However, Jenkins managed to sail his ship back to London and petitioned the king to take action.
The case was widely reported, and contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion and resentment against the Spanish over their disruption of British trade in their overseas territories.
By 1738 public opinion had been aroused, and a parliamentary inquiry heard tales of further Spanish interference with British shipping. The traders of the South Sea Company had a considerable interest in limiting Spanish action against its business, and were stoking the flames of disagreement.
The war began in 1739 and ended in 1748. The British lost 20,000 men (dead, wounded or captured) and 407 ships, and the Spanish fewer than 10,000 men and 186 ships; in the eventual treaty Britain gave up trading rights for £100,000. Jenkins died in 1743 in command of another vessel.
‘He took hold of his left Ear, and with his Cutlass slit it down’