Lend Me Your Ear

Published Sep 30, 2021, 9:00 AM

Two unique tales from one unique war. Enjoy this curious tour of duty.

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Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. I want you to imagine something for me. I think you can picture it if I give you a few key ideas. The time is the day after Thanksgiving. The setting is your local big box store, and the context is massive best of the year sales on all sorts of hot items like flat screen TVs, WiFi enabled toasters, and the latest mobile devices. Now you might be thinking that I'm describing Black Friday, and you'd be right. But it's the image that comes with the name of massive crowds trampling each other in the mad rush to acquire the items on their list at the best possible prices that I need you to hold onto, because sure, that's a pretty recent American tradition, but that sort of behavior is much much older, and one period in history that was filled with it was the eighteenth century. That's because after about two and a half centuries of discovering and exploring and exploiting the New World, there were a few European superpowers that couldn't seem to stop bumping into each other as they did it. Part of the problem was that back in the mid seventeen hundreds, the way European countries viewed the resources in North America was by thinking of it as all limited. There was only so much to go around, and if England was bringing stuff back home, then Spain or France was missing out, so naturally things got messy. The Anglo Spanish War that ended in seventeen twenty nine also came with a treaty, the Treaty of Seville, and one of the powers granted to Spain was the ability to board British merchant vessels that were running trade routes between the Americas and England if they felt that those merchants were snatching up the limited resources they themselves had claim to. And that's why in seventy one, near Havana, a Spanish coast guard ship called the Isabella pulled up alongside an English merchant vessel called the Rebecca, and Spanish troops came aboard. The captain of the Rebecca, a guy named Robert Jenkins apparently wasn't entirely on the up and up, if you catch my drift. The Spanish found illegal cargo, conflict ensued and in the process, good old Captain Robert Jenkins lost his ear, well not entirely. It was cut off, for sure, but he didn't lose it. In fact, he picked it up and saved it, and from that moment on it became sort of a trophy that he showed to people when he wanted to express his hatred of the Spanish. Well as was want to happen, Tensions between England and Spain continued to grow. Now, the story is apocryphal, so take it with a grain of salt, and it's not entirely clear how much is legend and how much is fact. But it said that during the debates in the English Parliament, Captain Jenkins actually showed up and, wanting to demonstrate just how monstrous and evil the Spanish were, showed everyone his old shriveled ear floating inside a pickling jar, and that they say was the straw that broke the camel's back. England went to war with Spain in seventeen thirty nine. It was a conflict that lasted until seventeen forty eight, and over that nearly decade long fight to the costs were steep. England lost the most at over four hundred ships and thirty thousand soldiers and sailors, but Spain felt the pain as well, losing nearly two hundred ships and forty men. Decades later. That brief bit of fighting, one on a long list of similar wars over the centuries, earned a name from historians, and it's still used today, a name that comes from one of the most of his are pieces of information from the whole ordeal, regardless of whether it really happened or not. They call it the War of jenkins Ear, which of course is more than a little curious. We started today's tour with an introduction to Robert Jenkins, his severed ear, and the war that some say came about as a result of his anger towards the Spanish. But while I can find no record that Jenkins himself fought in the war that bore his name, a good number of others certainly did. One of them was Edward, born in London in four Edward didn't really need to put himself in danger His father served as Secretary of State to King William the Third and was a member of the British House of Commons for over thirty years. So it's fair to say that Word could have settled into life as the son of a well known politician and simply called it a day. Instead, he joined the military. His first experience was at the young age of sixteen, when he took a position on a Royal Naval battleship called the h M S Shrewsbury. And you know what, Edward took the life at sea remarkably well. In fact, the world of the navy almost felt like second nature to him. The next few years saw him quickly rising up through the ranks, moving from ship to ship as his experience and responsibilities grew. By seventeen o six, at just twenty two years of age, he was a captain of his own ship, the h MS Dolphin, and patrolling the Mediterranean for the Royal Navy. After that it was the West Indies and then onto the Baltic Honestly, if Edward had hoped to see a bit of the world as part of the Navy, he was getting his wish and then some so when he left the waves behind for the Halls of Parliament in seventeen twenty one. It's hard to blame him, and that's where in the seventeen thirties he caught win of a disgruntled captain by the name of Robert Jenkins and his severed ear. When the subsequent war with Spain began, Edward was back at sea. He was a vice admiral by then, sitting at the second highest rank in the Navy, and in seventeen thirty nine he managed to capture the heavily armed Spanish port of Porto Bello in Central America. More surprising was just how he got it, using just six ships. He made him a national hero. There were medals made and victory celebrations in London, and if you've ever found yourself walking through the Porto Bello area of London, it has that name because of Edward. You're going to have to pardon the pun here, but clearly he was making waves. There were other victories to follow. Edward and his fleet continued to move around the perimeter of the Spanish holdings in the Caribbean, adding more reasons to celebrate his career to an already long list. In seventeen forty one, He even set his sights on Cuba, but the invasion failed because of the mistakes of another British officer, General to Miss Wentworth. But there were other things to remember about Edward. He refined the training among his sailors, making them more flexible to unforeseen circumstances and ultimately making the entire navy more capable. In fact, he was so obsessed with improving how things were done that he instilled that passion directly into the Royal Navy, where it persisted for generations. Oh and one other thing. During his time at sea. In seventeen forty, Edward gave an unusual order. He decided that his sailors should dilute their rum, literally watering it down to make it last longer and be less potent. And since he was known for wearing a stiff overcoat made of a material called grogram, which had earned him the nickname Old Grog, this new diluted rum took on the same name Grog. Edward was one of the best, and his skill and insight inspired all of the men and women who served under him, and that included one young man, a twenty two year old landowner from the Virginia Colony, who received an officer's commission in seventeen forty on order from that colony's Lieutenant governor, and was sent to serve on Edwards flagship, the h M S. Princess Caroline. And this young officer, whose name was Lawrence, would manage to survive two years of brutal conflict during the War of Jenkins Ear and eventually made his way home in seventeen forty two. He married a year later, and then took over running his father's estate in seventeen forty three when the older man died, on a state that Lawrence named in honor of his beloved Admiral Edward Vernon. When Lawrence died in seventeen fifty two, he passed that estate onto his half brother George, and it's been a part of American history ever since. The Estate of Brothers Lawrence and George Washington Mount Vernon. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how stuff works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the world of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

From the creator of the hit podcast Lore comes a new, bite-sized storytelling experience. Each twice 
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