Deservedly high in importance to Great Britain as Bermuda has ever been held as a well-placed sentinel over her West Indies and South American interests and possessions; as a refuge and depot for her fleets and ships in that particular ocean where her envied naval supremacy is in most danger of disputes; and in close proximity to an increasingly powerful and impulsive nation (USA), scarcely deigning to disavow its disregard of any rights found to interfere with long cherished schemes of aggrandizement and acquisition; and hitherto unable, if not unwilling, to control among its people a wild spirit of aggression dangerous to the maintenance of peace.

¿ Hemphill Report on Defence of Bermuda, 1857

I trust that . . . the strategic position of Bermuda will be fully recognised early in this war. It is believed that Bermuda is of as great importance in the Atlantic as Pearl Harbor is in the Pacific.

¿ Captain Jules James, USN, Commandant, Naval Operating Base Bermuda, 1941

Cup Match, the annual Bermuda holiday that includes two days of a cricket match foisting the ends of the island against each other, is once again upon us. Many will attend what others consider to be the most boring game in existence, while others will be occupying campsites in National Parks and roadside venues.

Others yet still have left the island for the cooler northern latitudes and some will stay at home to catch up on household chores, or just to enjoy some peace and quiet.

Among all the citizenry, some will perhaps also give a little time to contemplating the original reasons for such an unusual two-day national holiday, especially as we approach the quadricentennial, or 400th anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda, which began in a way with three men and a dog.

Cup Match celebrates the occupation of the island by people from England, which began in earnest on July 11, 1612, but is dated otherwise to July 28, 1609, when a ship called the Sea Venture sunk on a reef of the east end, with 150 souls and a dog onboard.

Building the Patience and Deliverance, Sir George Somers and company, excepting those who had died and two men left on the island (and the dog, it is presumed), continued to their original destination of Jamestown, Virginia in May 1610. Sir George returned but to die here late in that year and instead of going back to Virginia with wild hogs and cahow foodstuffs from the island, the boat went on to England, leaving behind a third recalcitrant.

Thus for almost two years, three men and "de dog" represented Britain's claim to the colonisation of Bermuda. As there never were any indigenous persons to object to the land grab, so Cup Match celebrates the first, or original settlement of Bermuda by humans.

The other date for celebration at Cup Match is "Freedom Day", or August 1, 1834, when those of African and mixed descent who still lived in slavery at Bermuda were emancipated by the British Government, ending more than two centuries of such existence. That emancipation came about in part due to English human rights campaigners, such as William Wilberforce, whose exertions led in 1807 to the abolition of the Slave Trade in British dominions, and because Britain through its Royal Navy controlled the ocean seas and could enforce its new law against the shipping of enslaved Africans to the New World.

Britain and thus Bermuda was a force to be reckoned with, especially after the American Revolutionary War of 1774-1783. Before that conflict that led to the independence of what are now parts of the United States of America, Bermuda was of no global significance whatsoever. The War changed all of that irrevocably, as the island became home to the largest British Naval Base in the Western Hemisphere, which was called the North America and West Indies Station, headquartered at Dockyard.

When British military might declined as an outcome of the Second World War, Bermuda remained a force to be reckoned with, as the forces of the United States occupied two bases on the island. During that war, the US Army and Navy protected the coasts of the island with heavy artillery and anti-aircraft weapons and covered the seas for hundreds of miles around Bermuda with aircraft patrols. After the hot war, the Cold War gave further value to Bermuda as a station to track Russian submarine activity in the Western Atlantic.

Over those two centuries, eight ships of the Royal Navy were named after Bermuda, including the bizarre "vessel", the mammoth Floating Dock of 1869, now rotting at Spanish Point. The last HMS Bermuda was a light cruiser of the Colony Class, launched in 1941, decommissioned in 1962 and scrapped in 1965. This ship was a force to be reckoned with and using its firepower alone, it could have subdued the pre-American defences of Bermuda on its own.

HMS Bermuda (No. 8) was built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, laid down in November 1938 and commissioned on August 21, 1942. Originally, the ship had 12 six-inch guns, anti-aircraft pieces and six torpedo tubes. During the war, she served in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic and Arctic and finally in the Pacific theatre.

In later years, the vessel was a part of NATO, but was taken out of service after 21 years in 1962. Some silver objects given to HMS Bermuda by the island are now at the Maritime Museum and it is hoped eventually that the rest of the collection will surface here in due course from hither and yon. In 2005, Bermudian W. Keith Hollis made a fine model of HMS Bermuda, which is also at the Museum.

There are unlikely to be any more warships of the name and Bermuda is no longer a force to be reckoned with militarily, its guns and strategic position becoming obsolete in the post-Cold War era. The military money that once underpinned the economy has been replaced by the cash of a different defence mechanism called "insurance", which is a global force that we must reckon with, as but now a pawn in an international game. That new world Bermuda order is something to reflect on, as we celebrate ourselves through the Cup Match holidays.

Dr. Harris thanks Huw Richards of the web site "Briton Ferry 2007 Gallery" for the photograph of HMS Bermuda heading to the breakers' yard in 1965.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. This article represents his opinions and not necessarily those of persons associated with the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 332-5480.