The original Sea Fencibles were a naval militia established to provide a close-in line of defense to protect the United Kingdom from invasion by France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Britain's defense rested on two lines: a blockade of French ports provided the first, forward line of defense, and the Sea Fencibles and Martello towers provided the second, coastal, line of defense. The Sea Fencibles lasted from 1798 to its disbandment in 1810, with a break of a few years after the Treaty of Amiens. Later, other countries, including the United States, copied the idea.
Read more about Sea Fencibles: Sea Fencibles, United States Sea Fencibles, 1813-1815, Canada, Civil War
Famous quotes containing the word sea:
“the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies
lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold. Broken,
beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising
in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)