The War Of Jenkins’ Ear: The Forgotten Struggle For North And South America 1739-1742, by Robert Gaudi

By and large, the War of Jenkins’ Ear, or what is alternatively and less colorfully known as the Anglo-Spanish War of 1739-1742, has been largely forgotten everywhere, especially because it was a war fought with considerable incompetence by both the English and the Spaniards. Each side managed to have at least a couple of brilliant campaigns, but not enough to overcome the ramshackle incompetence and immense waste of life that was involved on all sides. If the Spanish could celebrate the successful defense of St. Augustine and Cartagena, the British were able to sack Porto Bello and defend Georgia against superior numbers. If Spain had Don Blas, Britain had people like Admiral Vernon and Oglethorpe. Of interest to American readers, this book also gives a cameo role to a certain Virginia officer named Captain Lawrence Washington, who got a fatal case of tuberculosis while serving as one of the Virginia militia officers in the Caribbean front. One of the few possible decisive aspects of the war, not immediately evident at the time, was the way it hardened attitudes between Americans and British in a way that would become increasingly challenging to the survival of the British Empire in North America.

This book is a decent-sized work at nearly 350 pages of length in its core material. The book begins with a prologue that shows how the author became familiar with Vernon medals and was put on the trace of the War of Jenkins’ Ear. This is followed by a discussion of the incident by which one honest Captain Jenkins lost his ear after being tortured by a member of the Spanish coast guard off the coast of Cuba (1). The author then provides some deep background to the conflict (2) as well as a discussion of the 18th century diplomatic and political and economic contest between England and Spain, including industrial sabotage and massive smuggling, that led to the outbreak of war (3). After this, there is a discussion of Admiral Vernon and his initial moves against Spain in Panama to avenge previous English losses (4). After that comes a discussion of Oglethorpe’s life history as well as his unsuccessful invasion of West Florida (5). Two chapters cover the massive fiasco that was the attempt by a massive and incompetently led English amphibious force that sought to take Cartagena de Indias from the Spanish (6, 7), leading to the death of tens of thousands of soldiers and sailors. This is followed by a discussion of Spain’s calamitous failure of an invasion of Georgia, thwarted by Oglethorpe (8). A short chapter covers the efforts of the English at Santiago, Panama (again), and Ruatan (9). Then a chapter that seems to be out of another story altogether discusses the circumnavigation of the globe by a small English squadron that managed to get a successful prize that made its survivors wealthy when they got back to England (10), as well as a discussion of the unsatisfactory end of the war (11). The book then ends with a bibliography and index.

Overall, there is a lot to enjoy about the book. Its subject matter ranges from numismatics to discussions of smuggling and financial bubbles (the notable South Sea Bubble in particular), to a rare circumnavigation of the globe to the corruption inherent in trying to make money off of the asiento contract. There is a lot of military and diplomatic history as well as political history to be found here, and those who appreciate works about the more famous (and more decisive) French & Indian War will also find much to appreciate in this earlier conflict that in many ways was a preamble to much of Britain’s strategy against Spain that was successfully undertaken between 1760 and 1762 in that latter conflict. It is striking just how few big ideas that the British had when it came to imperial wars against the Spanish, and included in those were: take Havana, take Florida, take Manilla. Even the backup plans here are the sort of plans that the United States was still using in 1898–take Santiago and Manilla and win fleet actions. If the War of Jenkins’ Ear was poorly managed on both sides, and led to a lot of misery and not much else, and quickly became subsumed in a larger and more portentous conflict in the War of Austrian Succession, which marked Prussia’s entrance as a Great Power on the European continent after its successful seizure of Silesia, there is still a lot here that resonates with future conflicts and provides important context to wars of imperialism fought against Spain for a long time to come.