Edward Vernon had been a captain in the navy since 1706 and was the son of a Secretary of State. He owed his rapid rise to family influence, and no conspicuous service is recorded of him. During the peace he had been for several years member for Ipswich, and had been among the loudest-mouthed of those who first assailed the “profligate” administration of Sir R. Walpole, and then imitated him in everything except his love of peace and his admirable finance. The navy now and then produces a person who “has the gift of the gab ‘although’ he was bred to the sea,” and is continually playing the British seaman to the gallery. Vernon was the example of the type in his generation. He was as brave as any man, but too proud of what he ought to have taken for granted. He was clever, but far too conscious of his cleverness. Withal he was arrogant, had no control over his temper, and was afflicted with an insatiable vanity. Already he had boasted that he would take Porto Bello with six ships. When the war began, he was sent with nine vessels to keep his promise. Vernon left in July 1739, and reached Jamaica late in October. On the 20th November he sailed into Porto Bello with six ships, and took it almost without resistance. The fortifications were not complete, nor were all the guns mounted. The garrison was crippled by tropical fever and was seized by a panic. They ran from their guns under the fire of our ships, and the town was captured with less loss than has often accompanied the taking of a sloop. Vernon behaved with humanity when in possession of the place. This easy success threw the nation into a delirium of joy, and turned Vernon’s head completely. He became convinced that all fortifications could be taken by merely rushing at them. In the position of unchecked authority he held in his own squadron, surrounded by men who deferred to him in obedient silence even when they did not toady him, his arrogance and self-assertion swelled till they grew to the proportions of mania. Vernon made an idle demonstration off Carthagena on the 6th March 1740, but nothing else was done.