Diplomacy & War

The War of Jenkins' Ear, 1739-42

The story was often told how in 1738, during the hearing of evidence before the House of Commons concerning Spanish attacks on British shipping, one of the witnesses, Captain Robert Jenkins, dramatically held aloft, pickled in a jar, one of his ears, cut off by a Spanish sailor when his brig, the Rebecca, was raided off Havana in 1731. Jenkins’s mutilation and escape from Spanish marauders was reported at the time in the press, but there is no evidence that he ever subsequently appeared before the Commons. The suggestion that he had done so, displaying the detached ear, became a central detail of the tale of Spanish brutality against British merchants eagerly taken up by the patriot opposition later in the decade to rouse public anger into demanding action against the Spanish.

Britain’s relations with Spain had for some time been problematic and fragile, owing chiefly to the illicit trade British merchants conducted with the Spanish colonies in America and the Caribbean. The Commons had investigated complaints concerning ‘Spanish depredations’ and demands for reparation during 1729-31. By the later 1730s, however, Spanish officials were taking much tougher measures against British merchants in a determined effort to gain full control over their colonial trade. In October 1737 City merchant groups led by the West India merchants began a concerted campaign of petitioning and agitation in Parliament in which the government was accused of ignoring British commercial interests and in which demands were made for the right to trade unmolested with the Spanish colonies. Their champion was Sir John Barnard, MP for the City and lord mayor during 1737-8. The outcry against ‘Spanish depredations’ produced an intensely patriotic response from the public encouraged by the press against a ministry that appeared to be ignoring British commercial interests. One MP, Joseph Danvers, noted with concern that the opinions of ‘scribblers’ were ‘received with greater reverence than Acts of Parliament’. It was this unfolding crisis in Anglo-Spanish relations that dominated the events leading to Walpole’s fall from office early in 1742.

In March 1738 the House of Commons, in committee, considered the issue at length. The ministry was forced to back diplomacy with force, but they were unconvinced of the economic case for war with Spain. Large sections of the City trading interests felt that the traditional trade with the Spanish kingdom itself was far more lucrative and valuable than that with the Spanish Americas. The ministry’s chief concern was that authorizing the capture of Spanish vessels in reprisal would bring France into the quarrel on Spain’s side. It seemed, too, that Prussia, with whom diplomatic relations had lately taken a turn for the worse, might also join the fray and pose a direct threat to the king’s electorate of Hanover. Negotiations between Britain and Spain produced a final attempt at a settlement without recourse to war. The Convention of Pardo was laid before Parliament in February 1739 but was condemned as dishonourable and a slight to the nation. On 8 March, after a 14-hour debate, Robert Walpole’s ministry obtained the Commons approval of the Convention by the narrow majority of 260 votes to 232.

Public agitation for war continued to grow over the next few months, and the diplomatic situation deteriorated during the summer and early autumn. Both sides refused to honour key obligations under the Convention: the duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state, refused to withdraw the British naval squadron from the Mediterranean, while Spain refused to pay the agreed sum of £27,000 in recognition of damages sustained by British merchants. The Convention thus quickly collapsed. It was apparent in court circles that Walpole was failing to hold his ministry together. His senior colleagues Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke (lord chancellor), especially, began to favour the case for war. Essentially a peace-minister, Walpole fought anxiously to avoid conflict, believing the public clamour to be fundamentally wrong-headed. When the first naval clashes between the two nations occurred in October 1739, followed by the formal declaration of war, Walpole told Newcastle: ‘It is your war, and I wish you well of it.’

It was hoped that Admiral Edward Vernon, commander of the British fleet, would quickly demolish the Spanish position in central and southern America. At first all went well, and in November Vernon captured the Spanish coastguard base at Porto Bello, a feat which he achieved with just six ships. Instantly, he became a national hero. But the fact that he had always been a high-profile Whig critic of the ministry was of no assistance to Walpole, and seemed only to justify still further the patriotic motives for the conflict.

At the same time, Britain’s lack of allies in Europe signaled grave difficulty should she become embroiled on the continent. During 1740 the ministry was forced to moderate its prosecution of the ‘patriot war’, dreading the likelihood that it would bring the French to Spanish aid and lead to open confrontation between Britain and France. For a short while the death of the Austrian emperor, Charles VI, in October 1740 diverted French attention to other continental priorities. But a fresh European war loomed when just a few months later the French pledged support to the alliance of princes and powers ready to deprive the new Habsburg empress, Maria Theresa, of her inheritance. Walpole urged the king not to involve Britain, appalled at the prospect of a war against both France and Spain.

The general election in May 1741 practically wiped out Walpole’s majority in the Commons. When parliament reassembled in December he faced vigorous opposition over British failure earlier in the year to capture Cartagena – Spain’s main gold trading ports – and Cuba. He was also attacked for allowing the treaty which the king (as elector of Hanover) had lately signed with France ensuring the neutrality of the electorate in the conflict now breaking out in Europe. Opponents saw this as subordinating British interests to those of Hanover.

Since 1738 the patriots’ anti-Spanish crusade had played a central part in weakening Walpole’s political position; the king’s recent Hanoverian venture was virtually the finishing stroke. By the time Walpole resigned early in February 1742, the war with Spain overseas had burnt itself out, and Britain now faced a difficult war in Europe over the Austrian succession.

Author: Andrew A. Hanham