By the 1760s the ruling classes, both in Britain and in the American colonies, applied the term "Cracker" to Scotch-Irish and English settlers of the remote southern back country, as noted in a passage from a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth: "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who migrated to Texas and often change their places of abode."