An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

When the British armed forces un­der Ad­mi­ral Ralph Aber­crom­by seized Trinidad from Spain in 1797 it in­her­it­ed a very weak de­fence and com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work. The whole of the is­land was vir­tu­al­ly un­pro­tect­ed, with the ex­cep­tion of piti­ful bat­ter­ies hasti­ly erect­ed in the 1780s by Don Jose Maria Cha­con at Gas­pa­ree Is­land, Pointe Gourde and Laven­tille (Fort Cha­con). The an­cient Fort San An­dres (now the Mu­se­um of the City of Port-of-Spain) was worse than use­less, with its tiny ram­part and small can­non.Gov­er­nor Thomas Pic­ton–a hard mil­i­tary com­man­der–erect­ed in 1798, a stone Martel­lo Tow­er in Laven­tille which was soon known as Pic­ton's Fol­ly, since it of­fered no pro­tec­tion to the town, rather com­mand­ing a ten­u­ous land ap­proach through the swamps and hills.

In 1804, Gov­er­nor Thomas His­lop fi­nal­ly con­struct­ed a prop­er de­fence post at La Vigie, which he named Fort George af­ter King George III. On the heights over­look­ing Las Cuevas and fac­ing the Caribbean sea, Fort Aber­crom­by was erect­ed.Here, on June 7, 1805, the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer sight­ed a mighty war fleet. At the time, Eng­land was an en­e­my of Re­pub­li­can France and the hap­less of­fi­cer thought he had spot­ted the French Navy en route to de­spoil British Trinidad. With­out con­sul­ta­tion, he spiked his two can­non (ren­der­ing them for­ev­er use­less as weapons) and fled with all haste to Port-of-Spain to car­ry the grim news–on­ly to dis­cov­er that the ships he saw be­longed to the fleet com­mand­ed by none oth­er than the hero­ic Lord Ho­r­a­tio Nel­son, who was pa­trolling the Caribbean in search of the French. There is no record of what rep­ri­mand was met­ed out to the com­man­der of Fort Aber­crom­by for his fool­har­di­ness.

The in­ci­dent did high­light the need for an ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tem, both for civil­ian and mil­i­tary pur­pos­es. The days of tele­graph were far away, so on a high point over­look­ing the Diego Mar­tin Val­ley, a small wood­en house was erect­ed and a queer pole next to it with sev­er­al balls and flags sus­pend­ed on cross­bars.In the Span­ish days, a spo­radic watch had been post­ed here be­cause of its van­tage point. A sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ty was erect­ed at Fort George (where a sig­nal house was lat­er in­stalled, be­ing de­signed by an African prince) and yet an­oth­er on the PoS wa­ter­front at Fort San An­dres.The Diego Mar­tin sig­nal sta­tion be­came known as the North Post and was the first point at which in­com­ing ship­ping was sight­ed. Us­ing a cod­ed sig­nalling sys­tem, it com­mu­ni­cat­ed us­ing the balls and flags with Fort George, the mes­sage be­ing even­tu­al­ly trans­mit­ted to Port-of-Spain via Fort San An­dres. The sig­nal­men used brass tele­scopes to sight the read­ings.The North Post was de­scribed in 1887 by JH Col­lens as fol­lows: "There is a choice of two roads, one lead­ing to the North Post, the oth­er to the Blue Basin; let us be­gin with the for­mer.

At the end of the lev­el we have be­fore us what Broth­er Jonathan would term 'ris­ing ground.' It is a pret­ty steep as­cent, not by any means prac­ti­ca­ble for a trap, nor in­deed for every de­scrip­tion of horse and rid­er; 20 min­utes, how­ev­er, hon­est­ly ex­pend­ed, will bring you to with­in a short dis­tance of the sum­mit, where the slope be­comes more grad­ual, as though na­ture had wise­ly arranged that one of her mas­ter­pieces should not be spoiled by hav­ing the fac­ul­ty of en­joy­ment on the part of the sight-seer dead­ened through fa­tigue."At length the North Post reached, you are 740 feet above the sea-lev­el, and then what a glo­ri­ous vista opens to view! Look­ing sea­wards it is sim­ply sub­lime–to the East and with­in a mile may be de­scried a few small islets, the sea break­ing over them in milk-white foam. Far­ther in the same di­rec­tion To­ba­go may be dis­cerned, while due North, dis­tant 90 miles, the dim out­line of Grena­da and some of the Grenadines may be dis­tinct­ly made out on a clear day. From this point of van­tage all ves­sels ap­proach­ing the is­land are seen many miles off, and their ar­rival telegraphed by sig­nal to Port-of-Spain via Fort George."

The North Post con­tin­ued to be used right down in­to the 20th cen­tu­ry even af­ter tele­graph com­mu­ni­ca­tion ar­rived on these shores, and though the days of the sig­nal pole are long gone, it is still es­sen­tial to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work, since TSTT has erect­ed a satel­lite re­ceiv­er on the site of the orig­i­nal sig­nal sta­tion. The windswept ridge af­fords ex­cel­lent views of the Caribbean Sea and the Bo­cas de Dra­go.