Note 217 — TO THE READER.
Reading edition
These famous expressions of party distinction were just coming into fashion. Whig, a contraction of Whigamore, is a word used by the peasantry in the west of Scotland in driving their horses, and gave a name to those fanatics who were the supporters of the Covenant in that part of Scotland. It was first used to designate an insurrection of these people in 1648, called the Whigamore's road. It has been less accurately derived from the sour-milk used by these people, called whig. But the former use of the word was much more likely to afford a party appellation.—The Tories owe their distinctive epithet to the Irish banditti, who used the word Toree, or "give me," in robbing passengers. Hence, in the old translation of Buchanan's History, the followers of Buccleuch are called the Tories of Teviotdale. As, from religion and other motives, the Irish were almost all attached to the Duke of York, the word Tory was generally applied to his party by the opposite faction, who, on the other hand, were called Whigs, as having embraced the fanatical and rebellious principles of the Scottish covenanters. The Duke of York's followers are supposed to be thus described by his Grace himself, in a lampoon called "Popish Politics unmasked:"
I have my teagues and tories at my beck, Will wring their heads off like a chicken's neck. — — — — — — — — — — Others wo'nt serve you but on constant pay, My hounds will hunt and live upon their prey; A virgin's haunch, or well-baked ladies breast, To them is better than a ven'son feast; Babes pettitoes cut large, with arms and legs, They far prefer to pettitoes of pigs.
One of the first applications of the word Tory to a party purpose, occurs in "a True Relation of a late Barbarous Assault committed on Robert Pye, Esq." in which one John Bodnam, of Brunguin, in the county of Hereford, "an obstinate and violent papist," is said by the author to have defended himself against the constable and his assistants "so well, or rather so ill," that they were forced to retire and leave him "than which a Toree or an Outlaw could have done no more." Finally, the justice having appeared in person, Mr Bodnam, "in good earnest let fly at his head with a hedge-bill," which, the author says, is "no bad argument for the truth of the black bills prepared for the papists in Ireland." This paper is dated 1681.