Jenkins's ear: a documented injury and a doubtful scene

The severed-ear story was widely treated as political invention until John Knox Laughton investigated the records in the late nineteenth century. He found contemporary correspondence in which a British rear-admiral in Jamaica complained to a Spanish governor about the mutilation and robbery of a merchant captain. That formal protest gives the injury firmer support than a later political legend. It does not establish the familiar illustrated scene of Jenkins displaying his ear before Walpole in the Commons, which is judged unlikely to have happened. Walpole's reluctance to fight Spain reflected the expense of war and his desire to preserve a period of peace.