A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4)

Excerpt

While this volume was passing through the press, The English
Historical Review published an interesting article by Prof.  J. K.
Laughton on the subject of Jenkins’s Ear.  Professor Laughton, while
lately making some researches in the Admiralty records, came on certain
correspondence which appears to have escaped notice up to that time,
and he regards it as incidentally confirming the story of Jenkins’s
Ear, “which for certainly more than a hundred years has generally been
believed to be a fable.”  The correspondence, in my opinion, leaves the
story exactly as it found it.  We only learn from it that Jenkins made
a complaint about his ear to the English naval commander at Port Royal,
who received the tale with a certain incredulity, but nevertheless sent
formal report of it to the Admiralty, and addressed a remonstrance to
the Spanish authorities.  But as Jenkins told his story to every one he
met, it is not very surprising that he should have told it to the
English admiral.  No one doubts that a part of one of Jenkins’s ears
was cut off; it will be seen in this volume that he actually at one
time exhibited the severed part; but the question is, How did it come
to be severed?  It might have been cut off in the ordinary course of a
scuffle with the Spanish revenue-officers who tried to search his
vessel.  The point of the story is that Jenkins said the ear was
deliberately severed, and that the severed part was flung in his face,
with the insulting injunction to take that home to his king.  Whether
Jenkins told the simple truth or indulged in a little fable is a
question which the recently published correspondence does not in any
way help us to settle.