stone fortifications (and buildings) in the English New World, the first coastal artillery, and are today the oldest English New World fortifications still standing. Together with St. George's town, the forts near the town (including the Castle Islands Fortifications) are today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In addition to the full-time artillerymen, all of the colony's men of military age were obliged to turn out for militia training and in case of war. They were organised as infantry and (after the Civil War, which had demonstrated the importance at that time of cavalry and mounted infantry) a Troop of Horse. 1701 to 1768 In 1701, the threat of war led the English government to post an Independent Company of regular soldiers to Bermuda, where the militia continued to function as a standby in case of war or insurrection. The company, a detachment of the 2nd Foot of the English Army, arrived in Bermuda along with the new Governor, Captain Benjamin Bennett, aboard , in May 1701, and was composed of Captain Lancelot Sandys, Lieutenant Robert Henly, two sergeants, two corporals, fifty private soldiers, and a drummer. General William Selwyn had objected to their detachment. Despite this small regular detachment, the militia remained Bermuda's primary defence force. Following the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the Independent Company was removed. A company of the 9th Foot was detached from Florida, reinforced with a detachment from the Bahamas Independent Company, but this force was withdrawn in 1768, leaving only the militia. 1793 to 1815 Regular soldiers invalided from continental battlefields as part of the Royal Garrison Battalion had been stationed in Bermuda between 1778 and 1784 during the American War of Independence, but were withdrawn following the Treaty of Paris. US independence cost the Royal Navy all of her continental bases between the Canadian Maritimes and the West Indies. As a result, following the American War of Independence the Admiralty began purchasing land around Bermuda, especially at the under-developed West End, with a view to establishing a dockyard and naval base there. The Royal Naval establishment began with facilities in St. George's Town in 1795, after the naval surveyors had spent a dozen years charting the barrier reef that encircles Bermuda in order to discover the channel that enabled access for ships of the line to the northern lagoon, as well as to the Great Sound, Hamilton Harbour, and the