Origins of "Brown Bess"

An interesting article. It's hard to argue with the Curator of Arms of the Royal Armouries. Here's an example of what he terms "false etymologies" which I collected long ago, and which seemed logical to me. Maybe not?

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NOTES AND QUERIES, 27 MARCH 1858

Brown Bess - When was the musket first so called? As the musket was
always kept bright until a recent period, was it called Bess before?

A. Holt White

Brown Bess, in its primary meaning, is equivalent to brown barrel.
Bus, in Dutch, is the barrel of a gun; in Low Germ. büsse, in Swed.
byssa. Hence our English Bess, as applied to a gun-barrel. (Conf. in
Med. Latin, bus-bas, Fragor scloporum et certaminis.) The Dutch bus
appears often in composition. Hand-bus, a pistol; literally, a
hand-barrel. Bus-schieter, a gunner; literally a barrel-shooter. We
have the Dutch bus (a barrel) in three English names of fire-arms:
viz. arquebus, obus, blunderbuss. At the first of these three,
arquebus, we must look a little more closely, would we trace the term
Brown Bess to its primaeval source. The most formidable of cross-bows,
before fire-arms came into general use, was one which shot a ball, or
pellet, from a barrel. Specimens may yet be seen. Now this was the
original arquebuse (i.e. arc-bus, or arc-et-bus, bow and barrel). In
process of time, as gunpowder came into use, the arc disappeared, and
the buss, or barrel, remained. Hence arquebuse, though it properly
implies a bow fitted with a tube or barrel, came into use as the old
appellation of a soldier's firelock. And hence the name of Bess (Bus,
Büsse, or byssa), which the musket has borne more recently. Bess, or
bus, is the last syllable of the old arquebuse or harquebus, cut off
for seperate use, just as in the more recent instance of bus from
omnibus. The barrels of firelocks were sometimes browned. Sometimes,
however, they were required to be kept bright. Could we ascertain who
first in mercy obtained the browning of the barrel, we might have some
prospect of ascertaining the first introduction of the term "Brown
Bess." Doubtless it was some hero of the fight, not the field-day. For
a further illustration of the term Brown Bess it may be proper to
remark, that in Northumberland, according to Halliwell, a gun is known
by the not very elegant title of black bitch. Now, like bus in Dutch,
büchse is in German a gun-barrel. ("Büchse, 2. ein eisernes Rohr zum
schiessen:" an iron tube for shooting.) May we not infer, therefore,
that black bitch was originally "black büchse," i.e. black barrel, in
conformity with brown barrel, or Brown Bess? "Formerly," says Zedler,
"and before the invention of gunpowder, arquebuse signified a bow with
a barrel (Bogen-Büchse), which is the literal meaning of the word."

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