War of Jenkins' Ear

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

The War of Jenkins's Ear was a conflict between Great Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1748. After 1742 it merged into the larger War of the Austrian Succession.

Under the 1729 Treaty of Seville, the British had agreed not to trade with the Spanish colonies. To verify the treaty, the Spanish were permitted to board British vessels in Spanish waters. After one such incident in 1731, Robert Jenkins, captain of the ship Rebecca, claimed that the Spanish coast guard had severed his ear. The British government, which was determined to continue its drive toward commercial and military domination of the Atlantic basin, used this incident as an excuse to wage war against Spain in the Caribbean. In 1738 Jenkins exhibited his pickled ear to the House of Commons, whipping up war fever against Spain. To much cheering, the British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declared war on October 23, 1739.

One of the first actions was the British capture, on November 22, 1739, of a minor silver-exporting town on the coast of Panama (then New Granada), called Puerto Bello in an attempt to damage Spain's finances. The poorly defended port was attacked by six ships of the line under Admiral Edward Vernon. The battle led the Spanish to change their trading practices. Rather than trading at centralised ports with large treasure fleets, they began using small numbers of ships trading at a wide variety of ports. They also began to travel around Cape Horn to trade on the west coast. Puerto Bello's economy was severely damaged, and did not recover until the building of the Panama Canal. In Britain the victory was greeted with much celebration, and in 1740, at a dinner in honour of Vernon in London, the song "God Save the King", now the British national anthem, was performed in public for the first time. Portobello Road in London is named after this victory and the battle was the most medalled event of the eighteenth century. The conquest of Spain's American empire was considered a foregone conclusion.

The success of the Porto Bello operation led the British in 1740 to send a squadron under Commodore George Anson to attack Spain's possessions in the Pacific specially in the Philippines which were largely unsuccessful.

Battle of Cartagena

The major action in the War of Jenkins's Ear was a major amphibious attack launched by the British under Admiral Edward Vernon in March, 1741 against Cartagena de Indias, one of Spain's major gold-trading ports in the Caribbean (today Colombia). Vernon's expedition was hampered by inefficient organization, his rivalry with the commander of his land forces, and the logistical problems of mounting and maintaining a major trans-Atlantic expedition. The strong fortifications in Cartagena and the able strategy of Spanish Commander Blas de Lezo were decisive in repelling the attack, with heavy losses on the British side. In addition to the unfamiliar tropical climate, Vernon's men succumbed in large numbers to virulent tropical disease, primarily yellow fever.

Several other British attacks took place in the Caribbean with little consequence on the geopolitical situation in the Atlantic. The weakened British forces launched similar attacks against St. Augustine in Florida; Havana, Cuba and Panama; all were repelled. A 1742 Spanish counter-attack upon the British colony of Georgia at the Battle of Bloody Marsh was also repulsed by the British.

The war was also characterised by relatively indecisive naval operations and privateering by both sides. Anson's fortuitous capture of an immensely valuable Manila galleon was more than offset for the Spaniards by their privateers devastation of the British transatlantic trade, operating as they did with impunity in the West Indies and also quite freely in European waters. Meanwhile the Spanish convoys of high yield cargoes proved as unstoppable as ever. During the later Austrian phase of the war the British would visit their high seas frustrations upon French merchantmen.

The war eventually died down due to lack of troops as resources were diverted by war in Europe — many had succumbed to disease — without any gain of territory on either side.

Consequences

Although the war ended in military stalemate, Spain's victory in Cartagena de Indias was crucial in prolonging its safe access to the Atlantic sealanes. British attempts to conquer mainland territory in Americas from Spain were fruitless. The diplomatic resolution formed part of the wider settlement of the War of the Austrian Succession by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

The eighteenth century Anglo-Spanish colonial rivalry continued, however. Several other issues at stake remained unresolved until at the end of the Seven Years' War Spain decided to declare war on Britain in support of an embattled France, leading to the shortlived British occupation of Havana (Cuba) and Manila (Philippines). In the peace, Florida was handed to the British for the return of these cities. Later, Spain availed itself of the American revolutionary war to seize Florida, the Bahamas and (with French assistance) Minorca from Britain as well as staging an unsuccessful Franco-Spanish siege of Gibraltar (1779-1783). The Bahamas were returned to Britain in exchange of the remainder of Florida. Britain's attempts to avail itself of Spain's chaos during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars by trying to seize San Juan (Puerto Rico) (1797), Tenerife (1797) and Buenos Aires (1806 and 1807) ended in defeat.

References

• Tobías Smollet (Tobias Smollett), Authentic papers related to the expedition against Carthagena, by Jorge Orlando Melo in Reportaje de la historia de Colombia, Bogotá: Planeta, 1989.
• The American People - sixth edition by Gary B. Nash and Julie Roy Jeffrey
• Victoria, Pablo (2005) El día que España derrotó a Inglaterra : de cómo Blas de Lezo, tuerto, manco y cojo, venció en Cartagena de Indias a la otra "Armada Invencible" Áltera, Barcelona, Spain, ISBN 84-89779-68-6
• Quintero Saravia, Gonzalo M. (2002) Don Blas de Lezo: defensor de Cartagena de Indias Editorial Planeta Colombiana, Bogotá, Colombia, ISBN 958-42-0326-6, in Spanish

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday March 10, 2008 at 09:13:55 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation