War of Jenkins' Ear (1739 -1748
The War of Jenkins' Ear (1739 -1748, Spanish: Guerra del Asiento) stemmed from one of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of the Spanish Succession and gave British traders a thirty-year trade agreement (Asiento), to deliver an unlimited number of slaves and 500 tonnes of merchandise into Spanish colonies in the Americas every year. However, hostilities during the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–20), the blockade of Porto Bello (1726), and the Anglo-Spanish War (1727–1729) suspended trading activities.
Under the Treaty of Seville (1729), Spanish warships had the right to stop British ships to verify that the terms of the Asiento were being respected.
The crew of the Spanish patrol boat La Isabela was doing this when they boarded the brig Rebecca off the coast of Florida in 1731.
The Rebecca's captain, Robert Jenkins' ear was severed, allegedly by the Spanish ship's commander, Julio León Fandiño, during a scuffle, but the incident failed to attract much attention at the time.
While relations between the two nations had been strained, between 1732 and 1737, Sir Robert Walpole's Whig government sided with Spain during the War of the Polish Succession.
But as opposition to Walpole grew, so did anti-Spanish sentiment in Britain.
Over time, tensions in the Caribbean and rising anti-Spanish sentiment brought the issue to the forefront.
The Tory opposition exploited the opportunity to attach Whig Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole's foreign policy.
The South Sea Company hoped outrage against Spain would escalate into action on the basis that a successful war would deliver improved commercial opportunities in the Spanish Americas.
Interests involved in the slave trade were also eager to ensure the Spanish were not allowed to renege on the lucrative Asiento, which gave British slavers open access to Spanish America.
When Jenkins was ordered to testify before a committee of the House of Commons in March 1738, he reputed produced the severed ear, pickled and enclosed in a wooden box as part of his evidence.
Following his testimony and petitions from merchants in the West Indies, the opposition in Parliament voted on 28 March 1738 to request the King to seek redress from Spain. When diplomacy had failed to deliver a satisfactory outcome, on 10 July 1739 George II authorised maritime reprisals against Spain.
Ten days later, a fleet under Vice Admiral Edward Vernon departed for the West Indies, while another squadron under Admiral Nicholas Haddock headed for Gibraltar, which provoked an immediate reaction. Philip V suspended the Asiento and confiscated all British ships in Spanish ports. The British demanded that the Treaty of Seville provision, which permitted Spanish officials to board British vessels, be annulled.
The two sides met at Pardo to negotiate a diplomatic resolution, but the resulting Convention of Pardo, signed in early 1739, proved unpopular in Britain.
By October, both sides had repeatedly violated the terms of the convention, and the British officially declared war on 23 October 1739, a day after Vernon attacked Venezuela's main port, La Guaira.
Success there, and in the subsequent assault on the poorly defended town of Porto Bello on the Isthmus of Panama prompted the dispatch of Commodore Anson's squadron to attack Spain's possessions in the Pacific
