The Washington Post, July 4th, 1997
At midnight June 30, Bermuda became the crown jewel of the British Empire. Britannia once commanded tea from Ceylon, tobacco from Virginia and rubber from Malaya. It now sports shorts. This has been a bad century for empire. The end of both (century and empire) was neatly marked by the return of Hong Kong to China. Which produced this even more melancholy fact: Britain, which gave the world Australia and New Zealand, now has exactly one Pacific possession, Pitcairn Island, population 54. And the only reason the Union Jack still flies over Pitcairn -- its inhabitants descended mostly from Fletc...
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