Definitions for "Tories"
Political party that believed that the king should keep firm control of the colonies
Tories (sometimes called Loyalists) hesitated to take up arms against England. They may have been as much as one-third of the colonists in 1776. Many were royal appointees, Anglican clergymen, or Atlantic merchants. They were poorly organized and of limited help to British armies, but the Patriots persecuted them. The term derived from late-seventeenth-century English politics when the Tory party supported the Duke of York's succession to the throne as James II. Later the Tory party favored the Church of England and the crown over dissenting denominations and Parliament.