Fencibles

In England county militia regiments were raised for internal defence in the absence of the regular army; but it was not deemed prudent to extend the system to Scotland, the inhabitants of which, it was supposed, could not yet be safely entrusted with arms because of The 'Fifteen' and The 'Forty-Five' rebellions.

Groundless as the reasons for this caution undoubtedly were in regard to the Lowlands, it would certainly have been hazardous at a time when the Stuarts and their adherents were still plotting a restoration to have armed the clans.

Ireland while not united with the Kingdom of Great Britain until 1801 was the destination for several British fencible regiments during the Rebellion of 1798 where they fought in some pitched battles.

[7] Fencible regiments tended to be less effective than regular troops for military duties; with problems of lack of education and vulnerability to disease.

Some Highland fencibles regiments saw action in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, while other performed garrison and policing duties in Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar.

[9] The Royal Fencible Americans was a Loyalist unit raised by the British in Nova Scotia in 1775, that successfully withstood an attack by Patriot forces under Jonathan Eddy at the Battle of Fort Cumberland.

In the early years of the 19th Century, regiments of Fencibles were raised in the Canadas, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.

They were settled in four new outlying villages around Auckland, (then the capital), at Onehunga, Otahuhu, Panmure, and Howick, the largest of the four.