Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. capital, (financial) resources.

1657		Trappan Trapt 3: He had left his Clothes behind, and therefore desires his Credit and assistance to equip him in English A la mode France; and this began to be the winding up of his bottom.
1662		Fuller Worthies (1840) II 451: Thus, beginning on a good bottom left him by his father.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 37: She has assiduously avoided any connection with the mother abbesses, and trades entirely on her own bottom.
c.1830		‘A Sporting Surgeon’ Waterfordiana 7: The damsels here are [...] really and truly traders ‘on their own bottoms,’ since each house is inhabited by different girls who pay for their lodgings, dress, board, &c, out of their own ‘earnings’.

2. stamina, endurance, pluck; thus bottom-man, a courageous fighter; bottomless, cowardly; note 17C–18C phr. stand on one’s own bottom, to act independently, to act for oneself.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Bottom, a Man of no Bottom, of no Basis in principles, or no settlement of Fortune, or of no Ground in his Art.
1747		Capt. Godfrey Science of Deference 54: I have mentioned strength and art as the two ingredients of a boxer. But there is another, which is vastly necessary; that is, what we call a bottom... There are two things required to make this bottom, that is, wind and spirit, or heart, or wherever you can fix the residence of courage [F&H].
1760		Derby Mercury 21 Mar. 4/2: I’ll get out this yet, and win meikle good Siller, and get a Bottom of my ain too.
1783		Johnson in Boswell Life (1906) II 461: Sir, he is a cursed Whig, a bottomless Whig, as they all are now.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Bottom [...] in the sporting sense, strength and spirits to support fatigue; as a Bottomed Horse. Among Bruisers it is used to express a hardy fellow, who will bear a good beating.
1788		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn).
1793		Sporting Mag. Jan. I 200/1: His strength, science and bottom give him a rank superior to all others.
1801		Sporting Mag. Aug. XVIII 261/1: Though ‘John Brown was well bred, he had no bottom’.
1805		Sporting Mag. Feb. XXV 283/1: Blake has been long looked on as a bottom-man.
1807		York Herald 27 June 2/5: ‘Bottom in fighting’ is as desirable in a bone-breaker as ‘Bottom in softing’ in a ‘bone-setter’ [...] both must spar as long as each has a leg to stand on .
1812		Mr. Lawson ‘Chaunt’ in Egan Boxiana I 478: Whoe’er has seen Bitton behind, / Will ne’er dispute his bottom.
1825		T. Jones ‘The True Bottom’d Boxer’ in Egan Bk of Sports (1832) 74/1: No crossing for him, true courage and bottom all.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 46: His determination, resolution, game, fortitude, gluttony, bottom, or devil, whichever the reader likes best.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 15 Mar. 2/2: The Pony and Moll [i.e. two prostitutes] [...] may run on the Washington course this spring if they have bottom.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 240: What is emphatically called ‘bottom’ was in favour of the rustics.
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) x: Try the paces and bottom of the colonists, my Lord, and you will find they are not wanting.
1851		M. Reid Scalp-Hunters III 178: It was no longer a question of speed [...] Did my horse possess the ‘bottom’?
1853		N.Y. Clipper 3 Sept. 1/5: Twentieth. Game versus bottom.—Cribb full of heroism, and Gregson no ways destitute of valour.
1862		Cork Examiner 28 Mar. 4/3: An uncommonly quick dog [...] sowing both dash and bottom .
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1879		‘’Arry on Niggers’ in Punch 15 Mar. 113/2: Wot good’s British bottom and grit, / If when the dashed Niggers hinsult us, we can’t bang the beggars a bit?
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 Apr. 2/2: [H]e’s like a frisky, unbroken colt — dashing and spirited at first, but he doesn’t last. Like the colt, he’s got no bottom.
1891		J.A. Riis How the Other Half Lives 246: The thief is infinitely easier to deal with than the pauper, because the very fact of his being a thief presupposes some bottom to the man.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Oct. 16/4: [I]f they could have secured the noble animal a Melbourne Cup would have been within their grasp – such ‘foot’ and ‘bottom’ did the ‘costs’ display in evading capture.
2006		M. Hastings at Guardian 2 Oct. 🌐 [He is] not merely a smartieboots young opportunist who may have no ‘side’, but stands accused of also having no ‘bottom’.