Robert Jenkins

Robert Jenkins († 1745) was an eighteenth-century British sailor who has gone down in history as the protagonist of the so-called Jenkins Incident, which unleashed the War of the Seat between Spain and Britain in 1739 after being conveniently magnified by the press and political opposition of his country. Biography

In 1731, while captain of the smuggler ship Rebecca in Caribbean waters, Jenkins was boarded by Spanish coast guard La Isabela led by Julio León Fandiño, who cut off his ear in reprisal while telling him (according to Jenkins himself) « Go and tell your king that I will do the same if he dares to do the same. " Upon his return to England, Jenkins made a complaint to King George II of Great Britain himself, providing as proof of the veracity of his story a report which had been signed by the British commander-in-chief in the West Indies. At first the case did not achieve much impact, but this changed in 1738, when Jenkins repeated his story with all the luxury of dramatic detail before a committee of the House of Commons, who came to teach what appeared to be the ear itself amputated (It was later suggested that Jenkins had not kept his ear with him, but rather had been placed in a pillory, presumably to be displayed at the scene of the incident as a warning to other smugglers.)

By way of compensation, he was granted command of a ship of the British East India Company and later became supervisor of the affairs of that company on the island of St. Helena. In 1741 he traveled to this place to investigate the allegations about corruption that fell on the governor of the island, who he relieved from May 1741 to March 1742. He later resumed his naval career, registering an action against a pirate ship in order to keep the command of his own ship and three more under his control.

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