Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus became common pursuits.

No wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an existence, to find traces of the tories in our household words.

Few, however, are now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have so truly historical a foundation:-- 'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story ?' 'I went to the wood and shot a tory:' 'I went to the wood, and shot another;' 'Was it the same, or was it his brother ?' 'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out, Three times through the bog, and about and about; Till out of a bush I spied his head, So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.' After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions, and, a great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate, they betook themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged the replanting of the kingdom by their frequent murders of the new Scotch and English planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so runs the language of the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed and despoiled, than to apprehend or convict the offenders.' In order, therefore, for the better encouragement of strangers to plant and inhabit the kingdom, any persons presented as tories, by the gentlemen of a county, and proclaimed as such by the lord lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws and traitors; and any persons harbouring them were to be guilty of high treason.[1] Rewards were offered for the taking or killing of them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of the ancient native race, were to make satisfaction for all robberies and spoils.

If persons were maimed or dismembered by tories, they were to be compensated by 10 l.; and the families of persons murdered were to receive 30 l.' [Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement, p.163, &c.] The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to the imprisoned Irish nation.

They rushed across the Shannon to see their old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full of hope that the king for whom they had suffered so much would reward their loyalty, by giving them back their inheritances--the 'just satisfaction' promised at Breda to those who had been unfairly deprived of their estates.