Robert Jenkins (master Mariner) - Fact Versus Fiction

Fact Versus Fiction

The confrontational nature of English politics in 1738 led many who were opposed to launching a naval war against Spain to doubt the truthfulness of Jenkins' story. No serious research was undertaken until the late 1880s when John Knox Laughton, the founder of the Navy Records Society, uncovered contemporary letters from Jamaica in September and October 1731 which substantiated Jenkin's account of his losing an ear to a Spanish Guarda Costa on 9 April 1731 (Old Style; 20 April New Style). Writing from onboard HMS Lyon at Port Royal, Jamaica on 12 October 1731 to the Admiralty in London, Rear Admiral Charles Stewart confided, "I was a little surprised to hear of the usage Captain Jenkins met with off the Havana." Earlier, on 12 September 1731, Rear Admiral Stewart had written to the Governor of Havana to complain of the "violence and villainies" of a Guarda Costa commander named Fandino who, "about the 20th April last sailed out of your harbor in one of those Guarda Costas, and met a ship of this island bound for England; and after using the captain in a most barbarous inhuman manner, taking all his money, cutting off one of his ears, plundering him of those necessaries which were to carry the ship safe home...".

Contained within the Admiralty records files with the 1731 correspondence from Jamaica was a List of British Merchant ships taken or plundered by the Spaniards compiled in 1737, listing 52 ships, among them, Rebecca, Robert Jenkins, Jamaica to London, boarded and plundered near the Havana, 9 April 1731.

Shortly after Professor Laughton published his "Jenkins's Ear" research in the English Historical Review, a Royal Navy colleague wrote, on 26 October 1889, to inform the historian: "I have a curious book connected with the subject, published in London in 1739, entitled England's Triumph: or a complete History of the many signals victories gained by the Royal Navy & Merchant Ships of Great Britain, for the term of 40 years past over the insulting & haught Spaniards by Captain Charles Jenkins, who has too severely felt the effects of Spanish tyranny. On page 64 is an illustration representing A Spanish Guarda Costa boarding Capt. Jenkin's ship & cutting off his Ear. The 1889 correspondent noted that the 1739 author was named Charles Jenkins, while Laughton's research had proved the real mariner was named Robert Jenkins.

Laughton subsequently examined the 1739 publication and, in writing Robert Jenkins entry for the Dictionary of National Biography he dismissed it as, "a catch-penny chapbook, in which no reference is made to Jenkins's case, except in a worthless frontispiece".