In the year 1739 a strange scene was enacted before the House of Commons in London.  A ship’s captain by the name of Jenkins was brought before that august body, and he showed them a bottle which contained a small, shriveled-up object, which he claimed was his ear.  He said that it had been cut off by Spanish coast-guards when his ship was searched on the high seas.  “What did you do?” he was asked.  And he is supposed to have replied, “I commended my soul to God and my cause to my country.” In his epic History of the English-speaking Peoples, Sir Winston Churchill wrote of this event: “Jenkins’ ear caught the popular imagination and became the symbol of agitation.  Whether it was in fact his own ear or whether he had lost it in a seaport brawl remains uncertain, but the power of this shri…