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| 2209 HMD Bermuda |
In the decades following American independence, Britain was faced with two threats to its maritime supremacy. The first was Napoleon's France, which battled for supremacy in Europe, closing continental ports to British trade, and also unleashed a storm of privateers from the French West Indies in order to cripple British trade in the New World. The second was United States, whish had its own interest in breaking Britain's supremacy on maritime trade.
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| 2210 Clocktower at the HMD Bermuda |
As a result, the Royal Navy commissioned its own light vessels, built along the lines of traditional Bermuda sloops, and began to buy islands at the West End of the chain, and in the Great Sound, with the view to building a naval base and dockyard. Initially, it developed property in and around St. George's, but soon relocated all of its facilities to the West End, and the core of the base, the Dockyard, began to take shape on Ireland Island.
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