The British and the Spanish were having a bit of a ding dong, they were swiping their gold from South America and we were stopping them when they sailed it across the Atlantic back to Spain.
In 1729 the Spanish were getting mightily ticked off with us doing that and demanded stop and search rights on all British vessels as they said we were nicking their gold from their vessels, which we were but we were not going to admit to it, and that was like a fuse inching its way towards a powder keg and when the British brig Rebecca was boarded by the Spanish coastguard boat La Isabela we got into a fight and my ear was cut clean off by a Spanish commander who threw it at me and said that he would do the same to the King if he ever got his hands on him.
I was ordered to testify before Parliament and I took along the severed ear as part of the hearing and as the Spanish seadogs had hurled insults at Britain’s honour which was a clear provocation to war, and because they had lopped off my ear, the slur against the King could not go unanswered so Britain called it the Battle of Jenkins Ear and declared war on Spain and British warships attacked a Spanish port in Venezuela and to be extra sneaky, the British squadron entered the Venezuelan harbour while flying Spanish flags.
The Spanish commander of its fleet was a one eyed, one armed and one legged veteran which makes it even worse that they gave our lads a right kicking but my ear goes down as the most famous body part to start a war.
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