Their locations provided opportunity for ship captains to engage in activities that often included smuggling of contraband and slaves. The beaches in Bermuda are always nearby and almost never crowded. During the 1700s, Flatts emerged as a port second only to St. George's, and continued to expand throughout the 1800s, the island's shipping industry a driving economic force. As she enters the channel the men begin to hail to rouse the village, so that by the time she is ready to drop anchor there are many willing hands on shore to catch a hawser and wrap her in. Candles are now being lit in many houses, and soon the narrow road, deserted only a quarter of an hour ago, is bustling with activity as women and children follow the men to the waterfront.
Greetings are brief and the night's work commences.
That work often included offloading rum from Barbados, bales of silk from wrecking operations in the Caribbean, and other cargo quickly spirited ashore and hidden from authorities. But with the dominance of Hamilton and St. George's as official ports of entry, Flatts began to decline, and by the middle of the 1850s its glory years had vanished. Bermuda has indeed hoisted sails, but its fate is manipulated not by chance but by determined political and economic policies. The city's skyline stretches higher even as Hamilton itself inches outward, absorbing every potential chunk of commercial and industrial real estate. Commensurate with this brisk development has been a marked population exodus from within the city, hastened by increased commercial use of existing and new buildings.