From this it is evident that the tories of the time of Cromwell and Charles the Second were but the lineal descendants of the thievish wood kernes mentioned by Spenser, or at least the inheritors of their habits. Defoe attributes the establishment of the word in England to the infamous Titus Oates.
“There was a meeting,” says he “(at which I was present), in the city, upon the occasion of the discovery of some attempt to stifle the evidence of the witnesses (about the Popish plot), and tampering with Bedlow and Stephen Dugdale. Among the discourse Mr. Bedlow said 'he had letters from Ireland; that there were some tories to be brought over hither, who were privately to murder Dr. Oates and the said Bedlow.' The doctor, whose zeal was very hot, could never hear any man after this talk against the plot, or against the witnesses, but he thought he was one of the tories, and called almost every man who opposed him in his discourse a tory—till at last the word became popular. Hume's account of it is not very much different from this.
“The court party,” says he, “reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers of Scotland, who were known by the name of Whigs.* The country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the Popish banditti in Ireland, on whom the appellation of tory was affixed. And after this manner these foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use.”
* The word whig is taken from the fact, that in Scotland
it was applied to milk that had become sour; and to this day
milk that has lost its sweetness is termed by the Scotch,
and their descendants in the north of Ireland, whigged milk.
It is evident, from Irish history, that the original tories, politically speaking, belonged to no party whatever. They were simply thieves, robbers, and murderers on their own account. Every man's hand was against them, and certainly their hands were against every man. The fact is, that in consequence of the predatory nature of Irish warfare, which plundered, burned, and devastated as it went along, it was impossible that thousands of the wretched Irish should not themselves be driven by the most cruel necessity, for the preservation of their lives and of those of their families, to become thieves and plunderers in absolute self-defence. Their habitations, such as they were, having been destroyed and laid in ruins, they were necessarily driven to seek shelter in the woods, caves, and other fastnesses of the country, from which they issued forth in desperate hordes, armed as well as they could, to rob and to plunder for the very means of life. Goaded by hunger and distress of every kind, those formidable and ferocious “wood kernes” only paid the country back, by inflicting on it that plunder and devastation which they had received at its hands. Neither is it surprising that they should make no distinction in their depredations, because they experienced, to their cost, that no “hosting,” on either or any side, ever made a distinction with them. Whatever hand was uppermost, whether in the sanguinary struggles of their rival chiefs, or in those between the Irish and English, or Anglo-Irish, the result was the same to them. If they were not robbed or burned out to-day, they might be to-morrow; and under such circumstances to what purpose could they be expected to exercise industrious or laborious habits, when they knew that they might go to bed in comfort at night, and rise up beggars in the morning? It is easy to see, then, that it was the lawless and turbulent state of the country that reduced them to such a mode of life, and drove them to make reprisals upon the property of others, in the absence of any safe or systematic way of living. There is no doubt that a principle of revenge and retaliation animated their proceedings, and that they stood accountable for acts of great cruelty and murder, as well as of robbery. The consequence necessarily was, that they felt themselves beyond the protection of all law, and fearfully distinct in the ferocity of their character from the more civilized population of the country, which waged an exterminating warfare against them under the sanction and by the assistance of whatever government existed.
It was about the year 1689 that they began to assume or to be characterized by a different designation—we mean that of rapparees; so called, it is said, from the fact of their using the half pike or short rapier; although, for our part, we are inclined to think that they were so termed from the word rapio, to plunder, which strikes us as the most appropriate and obvious. At all events it is enough to say that the tories were absorbed in the rapparees, and their name in Ireland and Great Britain, except as a political class, was forgotten and lost in that of the rapparees, who long survived them.
Barney Casey was, as the reader must have perceived, a young fellow of good sense and very acute observation. He had been, since an early period of his youth, domesticated in the family of Mr. Lindsay, who respected him highly for his attachment and integrity. He had a brother, however, who, with his many good qualities, was idle and headstrong. His name was Michael, and, sooth to say, the wild charm of a freebooter's life, in addition to his own indisposition to labor for his living, were more than the weak materials of his character could resist. He consequently joined Shawn-na-Middogue and his gang, and preferred the dangerous and licentious life of a robber and plunderer to that of honesty and labor—precisely as many men connected with a seafaring life prefer the habits of the smuggler or the pirate to those of the more honorable or legitimate profession. Poor Barney exerted all his influence with his brother with a hope of rescuing him from the society and habits of hia dissolute companions, but to no purpose. It was a life of danger and excitement—of plans and projects, and changes, and chases, and unexpected encounters—of retaliation, and, occasionally, the most dreadful revenge. Such, however, was the state of society at that time, that those persons who had connected themselves with these desperate outlaws were by no means afraid to pay occasional visits to their own relatives, and from time to time to hold communication with them. Nay, not only was this the fact, but, what is still more strange, many persons who were related to individuals connected with this daring and unmanageable class were in the habit of attending their nightly meetings, sometimes for the purpose of preventing a robbery, or of killing a family whom they wished to suffer.
One night, during this period of our narrative, Barney's brother contrived to have secret interview with him for the purpose of communicating some information to him which had reached his ears from Shawn-na-Middogue, to the effect that Caterine Collins had admitted to him (Shawn), upon his promise of marrying her—a promise made only for the purpose of getting into her confidence, and making her useful as an agent to his designs—that she knew, she said, that it was not his brother Charles who had brought unfortunate Grace Davoren to ruin, but Harry Woodward, and, she added, when it was too late, she suspected something from his manner, of his intention to send Charles, on that disastrous night, in his stead. But Shawn, who knew Caterine and her connections well, recommended Michael Casey to apprise his brother that he could not keep too sharp an eye upon the movements of both, but, above all things, to try and induce him to set Woodward in such a way that he could repair the blow upon him, which, in mistake, he had dealt to his innocent brother. Now, although Barney almost detested Woodward, yet he was incapable of abetting Shawn's designs upon Suit Balor.
“No,” said he to his brother, “I would die first. It is true I do not like a bone in his body, but I will never lend myself to such a cowardly act as that; besides, from all I know of Shawn, I did not think he would stoop to murder.”
“Ay, but think of our companions,” replied hia brother, “and think too, of what a notion they have of it. Shawn, however, is a different man from most, if not all, of them—and he says he was urged on by a fit of fury when he found the man, that he thought the destroyer of Grace Davoren, speaking to her in such a lonely and suspicious place. It was his intention to have bidden him to stand on his guard and defend himself, but jealousy and revenge overcame him at the moment, and he struck the blow. Thank God that it failed; but you may take my word that the next won't—because Shawn now swears, that without preface or apology, or one moment's warning, he will stab him to the heart wherever he can meet him.”