TORY. This name hen now, for about two hundred years., served to designate one of two principal political parties in this country. It is not to be expected that for ao long a Ono the name has been always associated with one uniform set of political principles, or that any formula could be devised which would accurately describe Toryism at every period of its history. Extending, like the name of the other principal political party, from the legislature through every clam of the com munity, it would naturally, where the number of persons to be brought to concur In any change is so large, preaervo any meaning which it him once acquired for • length of time, and throughout perhaps a general consistency of meaning; but on the other hand, engaged ns the Whig and Tory parties of the legislature have been without intermission in a struggle for power, which power in attended by profit, they have been always exposed to the temptation, from whose insensible work ings even the best disposed men are not secure, of altering and adapt ing opinions so an to facilitate the gaining what they fight for, or the keeping what they have pined ; and the far more numerous members of tho party who are without the legislature would generally follow tholes whom they hook upon as their leaders, and by whose success every adherent of the party has some hope of being benefited.
The name Tory, as well as the name Whig, end the existence of two parties in the state corresponding to those which have now been known for a long time as Widg and Tory partial, date from the reign of Charles II. "It was In the year 1679," says Mr. Hallam, "that the words 'Whig and Tory were find heard in their application to English factions ; and though as senseless as any cant terms that could be devised, they became instantly as familiar in use as they have since continued. There were then indeed questions in agitation will& rendered the distinction more broad and intelligible than it has generally been in later tunes. One of those, and the most important, was the Bill of Exclusion, in which, as lt, was usually debated, the repnblican principle, that all positive institutions of 'society are in order to the general good, came into collision with that of monarchy, which rests on the maintenance of e royal line, as either the end or at least the necessary means of lawful government. But as the exclu sion was confessedly among those extraordinary measures to which men of Tory principles are sometimes compelled to resort in great emergencies, and which no rational Whig espouses at any other time, we shall better perhaps discern the formation of these grand political sects in the petition for the sitting of parliament, and in the counter addressee of the opposite party." (' Constitutional llistory of England,'
vol. ii. p. 592.) The first Tories opposed the Exclusion Bill and sup. ported Charles II. in his endeavour to prevent a renewal of the attack upon his brother, by successive prorogation)] of the parliament. The origin of the name is referred by Roger North, a very hot Tory, in a curious passage, to the connection of the party with the Duke of York and his popish allies. " The Exclusioners, he says, " observing that the Duke favoured Irishmen, all his friends, or those accounted such by appearing against the Exclusion, were straight become Irish ; thence Bogtrotters, and in the copies of the factious Language the word Tory was entertained, which aiguified the moat. despicable savages among the wild Irish ; and being a vocal clear-sounding word, readily pronounced, it kept its hold, and took possession of the foul mouths of the faction, and every where as these men passed we could observe them breathe little else but Tory." (' Examen; p. 321.) Thus Dr. Johnson's first interpretation of Tory in his Dictionary is, " A cant term, derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage ;" and Mr. Moore, in his' Memoirs of Captain Rock,' sarcastically refers the history of the Tory party to a general ' History of the Irish Rogues and Ramat/rem' Dr. Johnson proceeds to give an explanation of the word Tory, which is perhaps as good a short general description of the principles of Toryism as is to be given :—" One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England." In other words, the maintenance of things as they have been, or, when some groat change has taken place against the will of this party, things as they aro, has from the beginning been the prime characteristic of Toryism. The term, as indicating an existing party, is now nearly obsolete; no party, and few individuals, would choose to designate itself or themselves as Tory.
The history of the Tory party, rising and falling in the state, may be traced in a series of articles in Knight's • Companion to the Newspaper' for 1834, 1835, and 1836, entitled ' Changes of Administration and History of Parties ; ' or in Mr. G. V. Cooke's' History of Party,' 3 vole. 8vo, which is on the whole a useful publication, though its accuracy is not to be implicitly depended on.