They anticipate great spoils in case of another war with the United States.

The War of 1812 brought considerable riches to Bermuda and a generation later, conflict with the United States was again on the horizon.

Fortunately that war did not materialise, but in preparation the British at Bermuda advanced their work on an enhanced defence of the Island through the building of fortifications at the Dockyard and St. George’s. Bermudians boasted that the Island had remained “in obscurity, until their defences had become strong enough to defy the world”.

Such was the American concern of the new works at Bermuda and the British West Indies islands that in 1842, Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State, sent a secret agent to assess the situation.

His name was Albert Fitz, who immediately was made aware that Bermudians were “particularly jealous and distrustful of American visitors, and also of Frenchmen, whom they consider our probable allies”.

Nonetheless, Albert, playing the tourist, was able to get about and look at the fortifications then erecting, with the possible exception of the dockyard at Ireland Island, which was out of bounds to anyone “disconnected” with that naval establishment. Once back at his hotel, he made sketches of the forts and these have survived in the National Archives at Washington. Since no British plans of the period exist, this is an example that spying is good for recording heritage sites.

Agent Fitz noted that there were no fortifications between the dockyard and the Martello Tower at Ferry Reach and thus the Americans could land their forces on the South Shore beaches and march east to attack St. George’s and west to assault the dockyard. He notes the presence of signal stations at Ireland Island, Gibbs Hill, Government House and Fort George and comments on the access to Bermuda’s harbours by channels through the reefs.

Timlin’s Narrows by Hinson’s Island had recently been blasted to allow ships with a draught of 14 feet to enter Hamilton Harbour.

None of the great forts of St. George’s Parish were completed by Fitz’s visit in January 1842, with the exception perhaps of Fort St. Catherine. From gossip, he surmised that the British Government was thinking of buying Prospect Hill in Devonshire Parish for a great military camp, as it had “an uninterrupted view of the sea upon every side”.

From Bermuda, Secret Agent Fitz extended his “holiday” to the Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados, the last he ranked as first in strength in the British West Indies.

The locals made him aware that the climate in the Caribbean was deadly to the European soldier, so that it was intended “to raise two more Regiments at Sierra Leone”, that is, African soldiers to man the West Indies stations for the British.

Such regiments were already deployed at St. Helena, the west coast of Africa, British Guiana, the West Indies and British Honduras.

However, all the forts in the West Indies were fast going to ruin and only at Bermuda were new works being constructed.

The strategy in the Caribbean would be to reply on the guns of the ships of the Royal Navy, rather than the shore batteries. Fitz painted the contrast, for while he was at Bermuda, the Fleet, comprising seven ships-of-the-line, was at anchor at Grassy Bay off the dockyard.

These vessels of war mounted almost 300 cannons, three times the number in the Bermuda forts of the day.

Throughout his visits Fitz stated that “great caution and assiduity have been requisite”.

“I have confidence in asserting, that in no instance, has a suspicion been excited of the real purpose of my tour, and that the whole transaction remains a profound secret.”

And so it did until Professor Anthony Brescia published Fitz’s report in 1994 in the Journal of the Bermuda Maritime Museum.

A spy and his sketchbook: Fitz’s 1842 ‘vacation’