Lower-Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c) in retribution for the "wanton destruction of private property along the north shores of Lake Erie" by American forces under Col. John Campbell in May 1814, the most notable being the Raid on Port Dover) to draw United States forces away from the Canadian border. With the re-establishment of a regular army garrison, Bermudians had lost interest in maintaining militias and the Militia Acts were allowed to lapse. There was a brief resurgence of volunteer forces and the militia during the American War of 1812, but these were allowed to lapse again thereafter. The Bermuda Government would not re-raise local reserve forces until pressed by the Secretary of State for War to create the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps eight decades later (although there were a number of short-lived attempts to maintain militia without the contribution of the Parliament of Bermuda). 19th century The increase in British naval and military forces in North America following the defeat of Napoleonic France was to be short-lived. After the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the American War of 1812, economic austerity meant that the British armed forces were drastically reduced, and many of the improvements in organisation and practice gained during the preceding two decades of war were lost. Aside from the reduction in size of the British Army and the military corps of the Board of Ordnance, the Volunteer Force and Fencibles were disbanded, and the Militia in the British Isles became a paper tiger until re-organised in the 1850s. The invalid company of Royal Artillery in Bermuda, which had been depleted due to lack of replacements for personnel who had died or were pensioned or otherwise discharged, was withdrawn and not replaced, and the Militia was allowed by the colonial government to lapse after 1816. Bermuda's importance to Imperial defence was only increasing, however, and the parlous state of its own defence was commented upon by Sir Henry Hardinge in the House of Commons on the 22nd of March, 1839: From 1783 through 1801, the British Empire, including British North America, and the military was administered by the Home Office and by the Home Secretary. Control of the military passed to the War Office and the Secretary of State