France is the country across the English Channel from Britain. The wars with France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries directly affected the Isle of Man, prompting the raising of the Royal Manx Fencibles and volunteer corps for the Island's defence, and driving significant military activity in Manx waters.

The Island was named in an Anglo-French treaty long before that. The truce between France and England of 1389 included the Isle of Man by name, and it was signed for the Island twice over, by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, as its sovereign in the Scottish interest, and by William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, as the King of Man whom England recognised.

The French claim stayed in the royal style for centuries. Manx patents of the eighteenth century still open with the King as George the Third, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith.

The wars reached individual Manx families. Lieutenant John Frissell, son of the High Bailiff of the same name, was wounded in the battle of the first of June 1794, and afterwards married a French marchioness and settled in France. Two of his brothers were also in the navy. Captain John Quilliam steered the Victory into action at Trafalgar. The Island's own forces were organised in battalions under Lieutenant-Governor Alexander Shaw as Major Commandant, and Major Taubman pressed the Home Office to date the Fencibles' commission from August 1798.