(War of Jenkins’ Ear) [King George II] His Majesty’s DECLARATION Of WAR against the King of Spain. George R. Whereas many unjust Seizures have been made, and Depredations carried on for several Years in the West Indies, by Spanish Garda Costas, and other Ships, acting under the Commission of the King of Spain… Given at Our Court at Kensington the Nineteenth Day of October, 1739, …

London: Printed by John Baskett…1739, broadside, measuring 20 3/8 x 16 ¼ inches, formerly folded, now flattened, some wear along one fold, some minor worming in blank margins of the four corners, not affecting text, docketed in ink on verso in a contemporary hand: “Proclamation of War King of Great Britain & the King of Spain 19^th Oct. 1739” In Very good clean condition.

The King provides an extensive and detailed list of the grievances which led to his Declaration of War as well as a list of proscribed actions for his subjects in regards to Spain. The depredations by the Spanish against British shipping in the West Indies and elsewhere in America receive special notice.

The War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-43), was a four year struggle between England and Spain, preliminary to and merging into the War of the Austrian Succession, King George’s War (1740-1748). The conflict was named for Robert Jenkins, a British smuggler who lost an ear in a 1731 brush with the Spaniards off the coast of Florida. Jenkins’s story in the House of Commons in 1738, along with the display of his carefully preserved ear, had a tremendous propaganda effect and forced the declaration of war. Commercial rivalry on the seas and disputes over the ownership of Georgia were responsible for the conflict. The War was fought on land and water, with the Caribbean the center of naval operations and the Georgia-Florida borderlands the scene of military warfare.

Upon declaring war, Britain invited the American colonies to supply troops, and the colonial quotas were formed into a four battalion regiment which was sent to the West Indies to link up with a British force for a major attack on the Spanish Main. This was the first foreign war for the colonies which were later to become the United States.

Admiral Edward Vernon captured Puerto Bello on the Isthmus of Panama in 1739, but the following year met with disastrous failure before Cartagena. James Edward Oglethorpe, after having clinched friendship with the Creeks at a great meeting on the Chattahoochee, invaded Florida in early 1740 and seized two forts on the St. Johns River. In the following summer he attacked St. Augustine, but failed to take it. In 1742 the Spaniards with a force of 5000 men sought to end the Georgia colony, but were turned back at the battle of Bloody Marsh, on St. Simon Island. The next year Oglethorpe again invaded Florida without success.

Rare. See Sabin 31997 for the Edinburgh printing of 1739.                                                    $ 8500.00