subs. phr. (colloquial).—One’s belongings: hence TO CLEAR (or TURN) OUT BAG-AND-BAGGAGE = to make a good riddance: in depreciation. [O.E.D.: Originally a military phrase denoting all the property of an army collectively, and of the soldiers individually; hence the phrase, orig. said to the credit of an army or general, ‘To march out with BAG-AND-BAGGAGE’ (Fr. vie et bagues sauves); i.e., with all belongings saved … to make an honourable retreat.] BAG-AND-BAGGAGE POLICY = wholesale surrender, general scuttling, ‘peace at any price.’
[1600. SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It, iii. 2. 170. Let us make an honourable retreit, though not with BAGGE AND BAGGAGE, yet with scrip and scrippage.]
c. 1620. MIDDLETON, The Witch (1778), 35. To kick this fellow … And send him downe stayres with his BAG AND BAGGAGE.
1632. JONSON, The Magnetic Lady, iv. 8.
| For dame the doxey to march round the circuit, | |
| With BAG AND BAGGAGE. |
1741. RICHARDSON, Pamela, II. 34. BAG AND BAGGAGE, said she, I’m glad you’re going.
1853. C. READE, Gold! i. Well, then, next Lady-day you TURN OUT BAG-AND-BAGGAGE.
1870. C. H. SPURGEON, The Treasury of David, Psalm cxix. 115. The king sent him packing BAG and BAGGAGE.
1876. W. E. GLADSTONE, Bulgarian Horrors, 61. The Turks … their Taptiehs and their Mudirs … their Haimakams, and their Pashas, one and all, BAG AND BAGGAGE, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.
1882. Daily News, 28 May, 5. 6. Cites the famous Bulgarian pamphlet, precognising the BAG-AND-BAGGAGE POLICY as evidence that Mr. Gladstone will never be a party to restoring Turkish authority.
