Jenkins Ear

The War of Jenkins' Ear between Britain and Spain, a conflict of severed pride and imperial ambition, was the making of a man. Between 1740 and 1744, George Anson circumnavigated the globe as the commander of the HMS Centurion, enduring crippling losses to scurvy, shipwreck, and the vast indifference of the sea. The Fates smiled upon the expedition in June of 1743, near the sunlit waters of the Philippines. There, the Spanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga fell into Anson's grasp, laden with silver coins and ingots, gold dust, and rare perfumes of the East: silks, porcelain, and spices that spoke of faraway lands. From the heart of peril, he sailed home with more than treasure. He bore legend. His share of the spoils was immense, a fortune that in 1747 allowed him to purchase Shugborough, then a humble country house. In time, the house and gardens were adorned in neoclassical lines and Rococo elegance, a monument to the sea's bounty and human daring. Yet riches did not corrode the man. A lady from South Carolina once observed of Anson: "He was generous without profusion, elegant without ostentation; and, above all, of a most tender, humane disposition; his benevolence extensive even to his own detriment... he never dances, nor swears, nor talks nonsense." Words to live by, though I'm rather fond of dancing. Perhaps he failed to hear the music, but he certainly knew his measure of grace.