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History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books I - XIV], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
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Book 10. At Reinsberg. 1736-1740 - __ The Ear Of Jenkins Re-Emerges |
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_ BOOK X. AT REINSBERG. 1736-1740 (Chapter V cont.)
"LONDON, 1st APRIL, 1738. In the English House of Commons, much more in the English Public, there has been furious debating for a fortnight past: Committee of the whole House, examining witnesses, hearing counsel; subject, the Termagant of Spain, and her West-Indian procedures;--she, by her procedures somewhere, is always cutting out work for mankind! How English and other strangers, fallen-in with in those seas, are treated by the Spaniards, readers have heard, nay have chanced to see; and it is a fact painfully known to all nations. Fact which England, for one nation, can no longer put up with. Walpole and the Official Persons would fain smooth the matter; but the West-India Interest, the City, all Mercantile and Navigation Interests are in dead earnest: Committee of the whole House, 'Presided by Alderman Perry,' has not ears enough to hear the immensities of evidence offered; slow Public is gradually kindling to some sense of it. This had gone on for two weeks, when--what shall we say?--the EAR OF JENKINS re-emerged for the second time; and produced important effects! "Where Jenkins had been all this while,--steadfastly navigating to and fro, steadfastly eating tough junk with a wetting of rum; not thinking too much of past labors, yet privately 'always keeping his lost Ear in cotton' (with a kind of ursine piety, or other dumb feeling),--no mortal now knows. But to all mortals it is evident he was home in London at this time; no doubt a noted member of Wapping society, the much-enduring Jenkins. And witnesses, probably not one but many, had mentioned him to this Committee, as a case eminently in point. Committee, as can still be read in its Rhadamanthine Journals, orders: 'DIE JOVIS, 16* MARTII 1737-1738, That Captain Robert Jenkins do attend this House immediately;' and then more specially, '17* MARTII' captious objections having risen in Official quarters, as we guess,--'That Captain Robert Jenkins do attend upon Tuesday morning next.' [Commons Journals, xxiii. (in diebus).] Tuesday next is 21st March,--1st of April, 1738, by our modern Calendar;--and on that day, not a doubt, Jenkins does attend; narrates that tremendous passage we already heard of, seven years ago, in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida; and produces his Ear wrapt in cotton:--setting all on flame (except the Official persons) at sight of it." Official persons, as their wont is in the pressure of debate, endeavored to deny, to insinuate in their vile Newspapers, That Jenkins lost his Ear nearer home and not for nothing; as one still reads in the History Books. [Tindal (xx. 372). Coxe, &c.] Sheer calumnies, we now find. Jenkins's account was doubtless abundantly emphatic; but there is no ground to question the substantial truth of him and it. And so, after seven years of unnoticeable burning upon the thick skin of the English Public, the case of Jenkins accidentally burns through, and sets England bellowing; such a smart is there of it,--not to be soothed by Official wet-cloths; but getting worse and worse, for the nineteen months ensuing. And in short--But we will not anticipate! _ |
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