The King's Orange Rangers, also known as the Corps of King's Orange Rangers, were a British Loyalist battalion, raised in 1776 to defend British interests in Orange County, Province of New York and generally in and around the New York colony, although they saw most of their service in the Province of Nova Scotia. In 1776 Sir William Howe accepted an offer from William Bayard of New York to raise a battalion to be called the King's Orange Rangers. Rangers were a type of light infantry that had served the British Army during the French and Indian War. In the 1770s, Liverpool was the second-largest settlement in Nova Scotia, after Halifax. Unlike Halifax, nearly everyone in Liverpool was a New England Planter. The town was at first sympathetic to the cause of the American Revolution, but after repeated attacks by American privateers on local shipping interests and one direct attack on the town itself, Liverpool citizens turned against the rebellion. The King's Orange Rangers were disbanded in the autumn of 1783. Those officers and men who wished received land grants in the area of Quaco, New Brunswick.