Alpha Book

In
the face of the popular excitement aroused in England by this and
similar incidents, Sir Robert Walpole, the peace-loving prime minister,
was unable to restrain his fellow-countrymen from declaring war against
Spain.
[Sidenote: The "War of Jenkins's Ear," 1739]
It was in 1739 that the commercial and colonial warfare was thus
resumed,--on this occasion involving at the outset only Spain and Great
Britain,--in a curious struggle commonly referred to as the War of
Jenkins's Ear. A British fleet captured Porto Bello, but failed to take
Cartagena. In North America the war was carried on fruitlessly by James
Oglethorpe, who had recently (1733) founded the English colony of
"Georgia" [Footnote: So named in honor of the then reigning King George
II (1727-1760)] to the south of the Carolinas, in territory claimed by
the Spanish colony of Florida.
[Sidenote: War of the Austrian Succession. King George's War, 1744-
1748]
The War of Jenkins's Ear proved but an introduction to the resumption
of hostilities on a large scale between France and Great Britain.


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