Note 55 — WÜRZBURG AND VIENNA. SCRAPS FROM A DIARY.

On April 20, 1731, the English vessel Rebecca, Captain Jenkins, is visited by the coast-guards of Havanna, who accuse the captain of smuggling military goods. They find none on board, but they ill-treat him by hanging him first to the yard and fastening the cabin boy to his feet. The rope breaks, however, and they then proceed to cut off one of his ears, telling him to take it to his king. Jenkins returns to London and claims vengeance. Pope writes verses about his ear, but England did not choose to quarrel with Spain just then, and all is apparently forgotten. Eight years after, some insults offered by the Spaniards to English vessels brought up again the topic of Jenkins’s ear. He had preserved it in wadding. The sailors went about London wearing the inscription “ear for ear” on their hats. The large merchants and shipowners espoused their cause. William Pitt and the nation in general desire war with Spain, and Walpole is forced to declare it. The consequences are but too well-known. Bloodshed all over the world on land and sea. Jenkins’s ear is indeed avenged. If the English people were poetical, says Carlyle, this ear would have become a constellation like Berenice’s crown.