With the exception of a Martello Tower, mounting a twenty-four pounder, on a pivot, at “Whalebone Bay”, no other fortification is to be found until you reach the garrisoned town of “St. George”; the heights of which are crowned with works of great strength, constructed in accordance with the most approved principles of modern warfare.

>HOSE words are to be found in the 1842 report of an American spy at Bermuda, Albert Fitz, who was sent to the island to ascertain its defences and make suggestions for its successful invasion by military forces of the United States. The great works on the heights were Fort George and Fort Victoria, the former is now Bermuda Harbour Radio and the latter reduced to a shadow of its former self by its reduction in the building of a hotel in the early 1960s.

That was a prime example of killing the golden eggs that the discerning visitor wants to see, to make a Bermudian omelette out of an ancient metaphor.

The linchpin of such an invasion from our American cousins was the Martello Tower at Whalebone Bay or Ferry Point, that fort being the Humpty Dumpty of Bermuda’s defences. If the Martello fell, all the king’s (well, actually the Queen’s at the time) horses and all the king’s men could not put Bermuda back together again.

We would have become the Puerto Rico of the North, so to speak, except one presumes we would still be speaking English, albeit the American variety. A couple of centuries later, independent or not of Britain and the European Union, that is the likely fate of Bermuda, not “whither the Fates lead us”, but where the Americans decide we can go.

For the present, the only American invasion took place in 1941 on a friendly basis when their military arrived to set up camps and bases, and assumed the coastal defence of the island, a role continued into the 1990s and perhaps even secretly agreed for the future.

Who knows what treaties have been signed on Bermuda’s behalf, in the event of 21st-century hostilities?

Meantime, the Martello Tower was never put to the test and yet stands as Bermuda’s only egg-shaped fort, a monument to a concept of fortifications that arose in the early Napoleonic periodBK>In 1794, a small round tower on Cape Mortella on the coast of Corsica saw off an attack by the superior-armed HMS Fortitude, at a ratio of three guns in the fort to 32 on the decks of the then inappropriately named warship. Bending the Italian, Mortella became Martello and the rage of fashion in the British worldview of fortifications. Over the next 20 years, 103 Martello towers were erected on the east and south coasts of Britain, against a possible French invasion. Others into the 1840s were built in the Channel Islands, the Orkneys, South Africa and Canada. Jamaica, Bermuda and possibly Barbuda were not left out in this rash, with the last such tower constructed at Key West in 1873.

The towers were built to variations of an original design, but that at Bermuda is a classic of the type built on the south cost of Bermuda. It is unique because it is not built of brick, as most of the others were of that ilk, but of the local hard-stone, as illustrated in a report by its engineer, Captain Thomas Blanshard, RE, in the ear1820s.

The Stone for Building is of two kinds. That which is used by the people generally is a sand Stone varying much in quality . . . The Limestone [hard-stone] is about equal in hardness to that at Plymouth, it is quite impervious to the wet and is therefore well suited for the Martello Towers, and as it may be worked with great exactness, repairs will not be required for years. It is in great quantity at Ireland [Island] but is coarse in parts and unsound from sand holes. The Works there will be faced with it entirely. That obtained from a Quarry [Shorehills near the Biological Station] near St. Georges is very excellent, but is now scarce. The Ferry Tower is built of it.

A distinctive feature of the south coast towers and therefore that at Bermuda is their Humpty Dumpty, or egg-shaped, plan. The bulge in what should be a round dimension is caused by the insertion of a staircase up to the roof, or gun platform, and down to the magazines from the main floor at the level of the drawbridge across the ditch.

That causes an increase in the thickness of the masonry, given an egg-shaped plan to the tower. The bulge always faced the direction from which the enemy was expected, as it gave a bit more protection to the tower under fire. In the instance of Bermuda, even if we had no documentary evidence, it is clear from the tower’s geographical arrangement that the attack was expected from the main island at Hamilton Parish or from the waters of Ferry Reach, for that is what the bulge fs.Captain<$> Minor Knowlton, another American spy, recorded the scenario: Castle Harbour is “advantageously situated so as to push small gunboats or gun steamers through St. Georges Ferry on the reduction of the Martello Tower and thus cutting all water communication between the two fortified extremities of the islands without having to incur the fire of the strongest works to accomplish it”.Happily for heritage, the attack never came and Bermuda’s unique Martello Tower has survived. Along with other forts under the custodianship of the Ministry of the Environment, Bermuda’s only Humpty Dumpty fort is being put back together again by the Minister’s men. Along with a new gun on the roof platform, it should be ready once again to receive any American attack by mid-summer.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments can sent to harris@logic.bm or by telephone tat 799-5480.