Captain Dawson, the Crown's own military engineer, had warned London that the smuggling trade had functioned as a kind of non-aggression pact with France: the French left Mann alone because Mann's harbours were useful to French commercial interests. Parliament had destroyed that arrangement and provided nothing adequate in its place. The island that had protected itself through commerce was now defenceless, and its men were fighting someone else's war. The strategic absurdity went deeper — the Isle of Man sat in the middle of the Irish Sea shipping lanes, a natural base for coastal defence. But the harbours were in ruins. The money that might have made the island a strategic asset had been sent to London.