Two events occurred in the year 1738, the first of rather less importance than the second, although the first caused national crisis the second changed the world.
Sea-captain Thomas Jenkins returning home in his ship ‘Rebecca’ from the Caribbean had a most humiliating experience when he was attacked by Spanish Guarda-Costa whose commander raided the holds then ordered Jenkins ear to be cut off.
Dramatic scenes followed in the House of Commons when the Captain produced his ear in a glass bottle by way of evidence.
The pressure of the newspapers and of the Opposition in the House led Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole to declare conflict with Spain it became known as the war of Jenkins' ear.
However these alleged events of the Captain's mutilated ear fade into shadows in the ultimate importance of the conversion that year of John Wesley.
The rebirth of John Wesley was by far the outstanding occurrence of 1738; it was one of the determinative features of the entire era. Nothing that happened in the whole course of the century was the source of such a universal harvest of joy, power and life as the change which transformed John Wesley from a 'restless, intolerant and poor-tempered clergyman, too sincere to be satisfied with anything less than truth, and too earnest to dismiss the fierce questionings that arose within him, into a radiant, confident, and supremely happy evangelist.
