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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Great Americans of History + + +JAMES OTIS THE PRE-REVOLUTIONIST + + +BY JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D. AUTHOR OF A "Cyclopaedia of +Universal History," "Great Races of Mankind," "Life and Times of +William E. Gladstone," etc., etc. + +THE CHARACTER OF JAMES OTIS BY CHARLES K. EDMUNDS, Ph.D. + +WITH AN ESSAY ON THE PATRIOT BY G. MERCER ADAM Late Editor +"Self-Culture" Magazine, Etc., Etc. + +TOGETHER WITH ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS, AND CHRONOLOGY + + + +Near the northeast corner of the old Common of Boston a section +of ground was put apart long before the beginning of the +eighteenth century to be a burying ground for some of the heroic +dead of the city of the Puritans. For some quaint reason or +caprice this acre of God was called "The Granary" and is so +called to this day. Perhaps the name was given because the dead +were here, garnered as grain from the reaping until the bins be +opened at the last day's threshing when the chaff shall be driven +from the wheat. + +Here the thoughtless throng looking through the iron railing may +see the old weather-beaten and time-eaten slabs with their +curious lettering which designate the spots where many of the men +of the pre-revolutionary epoch were laid to their last repose. +The word cemetery is from Greek and means the little place where +I lie down. + +In the Granary Burying Ground are the tombs of many whom history +has gathered and recorded as her own. But history looks in vain +among the blue-black slabs of semi-slate for the name of one who +was greatest perhaps of them all; but whose last days were so +strangely clouded and whose sepulchre was so obscure as to leave +the world in doubt for more than a half century as to where the +body of the great sleeper had been laid. Curiosity, whetted by +patriotism, then discovered the spot. But the name of another +was on the covering slab, and no small token was to be found +indicative of the last resting place of the lightning-smitten +body of James Otis, the prophetic giant of the pre-revolutionary +days. He who had lived like one of the Homeric heroes, who had +died like a Titan under a thunderbolt, and had been buried as +obscurely as Richard the Lion Hearted, or Frederick Barbarossa, +must lie neglected in an unknown tomb within a few rods of the +spot where his eloquence aforetime had aroused his countrymen to +national consciousness, and made a foreign tyranny forever +impossible in that old Boston, the very name of which became +henceforth the menace of kings and the synonym of liberty. + +Tradition rather than history has preserved thus much. In the +early part of the present century a row of great elms, known as +the Paddock elms, stood in what is now the sidewalk on the west +side of Tremont Street skirting the Granary Burying Ground. +These trees were cut away and the first section of the burial +space was invaded with the spade. Tomb No. 40, over which the +iron railing now passes, was divided down as far as where the +occupants are lying. Within the sepulchre were several bodies. +One was the body of Nathaniel Cunningham, Sr. Another was Ruth +Cunningham, his wife. The younger members of the family were +also there in death. + +When the lid of one coffin in this invaded tomb was lifted, it +was found that a mass of the living roots of the old strong elm +near by had twined about the skull of the sleeper, had entered +through the apertures, and had eaten up the brain. It was the +brain of James Otis which had given itself to the life of the elm +and had been transformed into branch and leaf and blossom, thus +breathing itself forth again into the free air and the Universal +Flow. + +The body of the patriot had been deposited in this tomb of his +father-in-law, the Nathaniel Cunningham just referred to, and +had there reposed until the searching fibres of another order of +life had found it out, and lifted and dispensed its sublimer part +into the viewless air. Over the grave in which the body was laid +is still one of the rude slabs which the fathers provided, and on +this is cut the name of "George Longley, 1809," he being the +successor of the Cunninghams in the ownership of Tomb No. 40. + +Here, then, was witnessed the last transformation of the +material, visible man called James Otis, the courageous herald +who ran swinging a torch in the early dawn of the American +Revolution. + +The pre-revolutionists are the Titans of human history; the +revolutionists proper are only heroes; and the +post-revolutionists are too frequently dwarfs and weaklings. +This signifies that civilization advances by revolutionary +stages, and that history sends out her tallest and best sons to +explore the line of march, and to select the spot for the next +camping-ground. It is not they who actually command the +oncoming columns and who seem so huge against the historical +background--it is not these, but rather the hoarse forerunners +and shaggy prophets of progress who are the real kings of men-- +the true princes of the human empire. + +These principles of the civilized life were strongly illustrated +in our War of Independence. The forerunners of that war were a +race of giants. Their like has hardly been seen in any other +epoch of that sublime scrimmage called history. Five or six +names may be selected from the list of the early American +prophets whose deeds and outcry, if reduced to hexameters, would +be not the Iliad, not the Jerusalem Delivered, but the Epic of +Human Liberty. + +The greatest of these, our protagonists of freedom, was Benjamin +Franklin. After him it were difficult to name the second. It is +always difficult to find the second man; for there are several +who come after. In the case of our forerunners the second may +have been Thomas Jefferson; it may have been Samuel Adams; it may +have been his cousin; it may have been Thomas Paine; it may have +been Patrick Henry; it may have been James Otis, the subject of +this monograph. + +It is remarkable to note how elusive are the lives of many great +men. Some of the greatest have hardly been known at all. Others +are known only by glimpses and outlines. Some are known chiefly +by myth and tradition. Nor does the effort to discover the +details of such lives yield any considerable results. There are +great names which have come to us from antiquity, or out of the +Middle Ages, that are known only as names, or only by a few +striking incidents. In some cases our actual knowledge of men +who are believed to have taken a conspicuous part in the drama of +their times is so meagre and uncertain that critical disputes +have arisen respecting the very existence of such personages. + +Homer for example--was he myth or man? The Christ? Where was +he and how did he pass his life from his twelfth year to the +beginning of his ministry? What were the dates of his birth and +death? Shakespeare? Why should not the details of his life, or +some considerable portion of the facts, compare in plenitude and +authenticity with the events in Dr. Johnson's career? + +It seems to be the law of biography that those characters who are +known to the world by a few brilliant strokes of genius have as a +rule only a meagre personal history, while they whose characters +have been built up painfully and slowly out of the commonplace, +like the coral islands of the Atlantic, have a great variety and +multitude of materials ready for the hands of the biographer. + +James Otis belonged to the first of these classes. There is a +measure of elusiveness about his life. Our lack of knowledge +respecting him, however, is due in part to the fact that near the +close of his life, while he was oscillating in a half-rational +condition between Andover and Boston, with an occasional visit to +Plymouth, he fell into a fit of pessimism and despair during +which he spent two days in obliterating the materials for his +biography, by destroying all his letters and manuscripts. He did +as much as he could to make impossible any adequate account of +his career or any suitable revelation of his character as +developed in his correspondence. Over and above this, however, +the materials of his life are of small extent, and fragmentary. +It is to his formal publications and the common tradition of what +he did, that we must turn for our biographical and historical +estimate of the man. In this respect he is in analogy with +Patrick Henry who appears only fitfully in history, but with +meteoric brilliancy; or with Abraham Lincoln the narrative of +whose life for the first forty-five years can be adequately +written in ten pages. + +The American Otises of the seventeenth century were of English +descent. The emigration of the family from the mother country +occurred at an early day when the settlements in New England were +still infrequent and weak. The Otis family was among the first +to settle at the town of Hingham. Nor was it long until the name +appeared in the public records, indicating official rank and +leadership. From Hingham, John Otis, who was born in 1657, +ancestor of the subject of this sketch, removed to Barnstable, +near the center of the peninsula of Massachusetts, and became one +of the first men of that settlement. He was sent to the +Legislature and thence to the Council of the Colony in which he +had a seat for twenty-one years. During this period he was +promoted to the place of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and +while holding this important place he was also judge of the +Probate Court. The family rose and flourished in reputation. + +In 1702, James Otis, son of Judge John Otis, was born. He +followed in his father's footsteps becoming a lawyer and colonial +publicist, afterwards a colonel of the militia, a judge of the +Common Pleas, a judge of the Probate Court, and a member of the +Council of Massachusetts. Just after reaching his majority +Colonel Otis took in marriage Mary Alleyne, and of this union +were born thirteen children. The eldest was a son, and to him +was given his father's name. It was to this child that destiny +had assigned the heroic work of confronting the aggressions of +Great Britain on the American colonists, and of inspiring the +latter to forcible resistance. + +James Otis, Junior, was born at a place called Great Marshes, now +known as West Barnstable, on the 5th of February, 1725. He +inherited from his father and grandfather not only a large +measure of talents but also a passion for public life which +impelled him strongly to the study and solution of those +questions which related to the welfare of the American colonies, +and to the means by which their political independence might be +ultimately secured. + +The character and intellect of Colonel Otis of Barnstable were +transmitted to other members of his family also. The daughter +Mercy, oldest sister of James Otis, was married to James Warren +who made his home at Plymouth. This lady had her brother's +passion for politics--an enthusiasm which could hardly be +restrained. She wrote and conversed in a fiery manner on the +revolutionary topics of the day. Almost coincidently with the +Battle of Bunker Hill she composed and published (without her +name, however,) a biting satire on the colonial policy of Great +Britain, calling her brochure "The Group." Fifteen years +afterwards she published a volume of poems, mostly patriotic +pieces, and finally in 1805 a brief "History of the American +Revolution," which was considered a reputable work after its +kind. + +Samuel Alleyne Otis, youngest brother of James, outlived nearly +all the other members of the family, and was recognized as a +prominent political leader. He, also, had the strong patriotic +and revolutionary bent of the family, was popular and +influential, and was honored with a long term of service as +Secretary of the Senate of the United States. In this capacity +he participated, April 30, 1789, in the inauguration of +Washington, holding the Bible on which the Father of his Country +took the oath of office. The other brothers and sisters were of +less conspicuous ability, and were not so well known to their own +and other times. + +In New England in the first half of the eighteenth century the +sentiment of education was universal. Among the leading people, +the sentiment was intense. Colonel Otis, of Barnstable, was +alert with respect to the discipline and development of his +children. He gave to them all, to the sons especially, the best +advantages which the commonwealth afforded. James Otis was +assigned to the care of Reverend Jonathan Russell, the minister +at Barnstable, who prepared the youth for college. By the middle +of his fifteenth year he was thought to be ready for +matriculation. He was accordingly entered as a freshman at +Harvard, in June, 1739. + +Of the incidents of his preceding boyhood, we know but little. A +tradition exists that he was more precocious than diligent; that +his will was strong; that his activities were marked with a +reckless audacity, which, however, did not distinguish him much +from the other promising New England boys of his age. Something +of these characteristics are noticeable in his college career. +At Harvard he showed an abundance of youthful spirits; a strong +social disposition, and a well-marked discrimination between his +friends and his enemies. At times he applied himself +assiduously, and at other times mused and read rather than +studied. On the whole he did not greatly distinguish himself as +a student. His passion for literature was marked, and he became +conspicuous for his forensic abilities. Towards the end of his +course, his character as a student was intensified, and he was +not often seen away from his books. Out of term time, he would +return to his father's home taking his books with him. At such +times he was rarely seen by his former companions of Barnstable, +because of his habit of secluding himself for study. + +It is narrated that at this period of his life, young Otis gave +strong evidence of the excitable temperament with which he was +endowed. In the intervals of his study his nervous system, under +the stimulus of games or controversial dispute, would become so +tense with excitement as to provoke remark. Nor may we in the +retrospect fail to discover in this quality of mind and temper +the premonitions of that malady which finally prevailed over the +lucid understanding, and rational activities of James Otis. + +The youth did not much effect social accomplishments. He had a +passion for music and learned to play the violin. With this +instrument he was wont to entertain himself in the intervals of +study. Sometimes he would play for company. It was one of his +habits to break off suddenly and rather capriciously in the midst +of what he was doing. Thus did he with his music. It is +narrated that on a certain occasion while playing by invitation +for some friends, he suddenly put aside the instrument, saying in +a sort of declamatory manner as was his wont-- + +"So fiddled Orpheus and so danced the brutes." + +He then ran into the garden, and could not be induced to play the +violin again. + +Young Otis passed through the regular classes at Harvard and was +graduated in 1743. On that occasion he took part in a +disputation which was one of the exercises of his class. +Otherwise his record at the college is not accented with any +special work which he did. At the time of his graduation he was +in his nineteenth year. It had been his father's purpose and his +own that his profession should be the law. It does not appear, +however, that his college studies were especially directed to +this end. At any rate, he did not devote himself at once to the +law, but assiduously for two years (1743-45) to a general course +of study chosen and directed by himself with a view to the +further discipline of his mind and the widening of his +information. It was an educational theory with Otis that such an +interval of personal and spontaneous application should intervene +between a young man's graduation and the beginning of his +professional career. Having pursued this course with himself he +insisted that his younger brother, Samuel Alleyne Otis, should +take the same course. In one of his letters to his father--a +communication fortunately rescued from the holocaust of his +correspondence--he discusses the question and urges the +propriety of the young man's devoting a year or two to general +study before taking up his law books. An extract from the letter +will prove of interest. The writer says: "It is with sincerest +pleasure I find my brother Samuel has well employed his time +during his residence at home. I am sure you don't think the time +long he is spending in his present course of studies; since it is +past all doubt they are not only ornamental and useful, but +indispensably necessary preparatories for the figure I hope one +day, for his and your sake, as well as my own, to see him make in +the profession he is determined to pursue. I am sure the year +and a half I spent in the same way, after leaving the academy, +was as well spent as any part of my life; and I shall always +lament I did not take a year or two further for more general +inquiries in the arts and sciences, before I sat down to the +laborious study of the laws of my country. + +"My brother's judgment can't at present be supposed to be ripe +enough for so severe an exercise as the proper reading and well +digesting the common law. Very sure I am, if he would stay a +year or two from the time of his degree, before he begins with +the law, he will be able to make better progress in one week, +than he could now, without a miracle, in six. Early and short +clerkships, and a premature rushing into practice, without a +competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes, +and ruined the expectations, formed by the parents of most of the +students in the profession, who have fallen within my observation +for these ten or fifteen years past." + +The writer of this well-timed communication then adds in proof of +his position, the names of several distinguished jurists who +postponed the beginning of their legal studies, or at least their +legal practice, to a time of life quite beyond the conventional +student period. Mr. Otis then declares his conviction that a +young man may well procrastinate his legal studies until he shall +have attained the age of thirty or even of forty years. He +declares his belief that such postponement will as a rule lead to +better result than can be attained by a youth who begins at +twenty, however brilliant his genius may be. + +This view of the case was with James Otis both theory and +practice. He began his legal studies in 1745. In that year he +became a law student under the tuition of Jeremiah Gridley who at +that time was already regarded as one of the most able and +accomplished lawyers in Massachusetts. Preceptor and student +were at the first in accord in their political and social +principles. At the time of the young man's law course, Gridley +was a member of the General Court of Massachusetts. He belonged +to the party called Whig; for the political jargon of Great +Britain had infected the Americans also, and they divided +according to the names and principles of the British partisans of +the period. + +Judge Gridley, while he remained on the bench, took sides with +the colonists in their oncoming contention with the mother +country. Afterwards, however, by accepting the appointment of +Attorney General he became one of the king's officers, and it was +in this relation that he was subsequently brought face to face +with his distinguished pupil in the trial of the most remarkable +case which preceded the Revolutions. + +Mr. Otis devoted two years of time to his legal studies before +beginning the practice of his profession. The study of law at +that time was much more difficult than at the present day. The +student was obliged to begin de novo with the old statutes and +decisions, and to make up the science for himself by a difficult +induction, which not many young men were able to do successfully. + +Law text-books were virtually unknown. Otis did not even have +access to "Blackstone's Commentaries." No authoritative works on +evidence or pleading existed in the English language. + +The student must get down his Acts of Parliament, his decisions +of the King's Bench, his Coke, his black-letter dissertations on +the common law, and out of these construct the best he could a +legal system for himself. To this work Mr. Otis devoted himself +from 1745 to 1747, after which he left the office of Judge +Gridley and went to Plymouth, where he applied for admission to +the bar, and was accepted by the court. He began to practice in +1748--the year of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, when the +political and historical status of Europe was again fixed for a +brief period. + +The young attorney almost immediately took rank at the Plymouth +bar. The old records of the court at that place still show the +frequent appearance of Otis for one or the other of the parties. +In this manner were passed the years 1748 and 1749. It does not +appear that at this time he concerned himself very much with the +affairs of the town or the larger affairs of the commonwealth. +The tax records show his name with an entry to the effect that in +1748 he estimated his personal estate at twenty pounds besides +his "faculty," by which was meant, his professional value. + +A few incidents of this period in Otis's life have come down by +tradition. He soon made a favorable impression on the court and +bar. He gained the good opinion of his fellows for both ability +and integrity of character. This reputation he carried with him +to Boston, whither he removed early in the year 1750. He had +already acquired sufficient character to bring his services into +requisition at places somewhat distant from Plymouth. + +His reception in Boston was accordingly favorable. Beyond the +limits of the colony he became known as an advocate. He was sent +for in important cases, and showed such signal ability as to +attract the admiring attention of both court and people. Already +at the conclusion of his twenty-fifth year he was a young man of +note, rising to eminence. + +There was good ground for this reputation in both his principles +of conduct and his legal abilities. From the first he avoided +the littleness and quibble which are the bane of the bar. He had +a high notion of what a lawyer should be and of the method and +spirit in which he should conduct his cases. He had as much +dignity as audacity, a sense of justice as keen as the purpose +was zealous in pursuing it. + +It came to be understood in the courts of Boston when Otis +appeared as an advocate that he had a case and believed in it. +He avoided accepting retainers in cases, of the justice of which +he was in doubt. Pursuing this method, he was sometimes involved +in law-suits in which he was constrained to turn upon his own +client. + +The story goes of one such instance in which he brought suit for +the collection of a bill. Believing in his client and in the +justice of the claim, he pressed the matter in court and was +about to obtain a judgment when he accidentally discovered, among +his client's papers, a receipt which the plaintiff had signed for +the very claim under consideration. Through some mistake the +receipt had again got back into the man's possession, and he had +taken advantage of the fact to institute a suit for the +collection of the claim a second time. + +Seeing through the matter at once, Otis took the plaintiff aside, +confronted him with the receipt and denounced him to his face as +a rascal. The man gave down and begged for quarter, but Otis was +inexorable; he went back to the bar and stated to the court that +reasons existed why the case of his client should be dismissed. +The court, presided over by Judge Hutchinson, afterward +Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Justice of Massachusetts, expressed +its surprise at the turn of affairs, complimented Otis for his +honorable course as an advocate, commended his conduct to the +bar, and dismissed the case. + +With the spread of his reputation Mr. Otis was summoned on legal +business to distant parts. On one occasion he was called to +Halifax to defend some prisoners under arrest for piracy; +believing them to be innocent he convinced the court in an +eloquent plea and secured the acquittal of the prisoners. + +On another occasion he was summoned to Plymouth to defend some +citizens of that town who had become involved in a riot on the +anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. It was the custom in the New +England towns to observe this day with a mock procession, in +which effigies representing the Pope, the Old Bad One, and James +the Pretender, were carried through the streets to be consigned +at the end to a bonfire. In this instance violence was done by +some of the participants; windows were smashed, gates were broken +down, etc. Mr. Otis conducted the defense, showing that the +arrested persons taking part in a noisy anniversary, and +committing acts that were innocent in spirit, if not innocent per +se, ought not to be adjudged guilty of serious misdemeanor. This +plea prevailed and the young men were acquitted. + +It is to be greatly regretted that the legal pleas and addresses +of James Otis have not been preserved. A volume of his speeches +would reveal not only his style and character, but also much of +the history of the times. The materials, however, are wanting. +He kept a commonplace book in which most of his business letters +of the period under consideration were recorded. But these give +hardly a glimpse at the man, the orator, or his work. Tradition, +however, is rife with the myth of his method and manner. He was +essentially an orator. He had the orator's fire and passion; +also the orator's eccentricities--his sudden high flights and +transitions, his quick appeals and succession of images. + +To these qualities of the orator in general Otis added the power +of applying himself to the facts; also the power of cogent +reasoning and masterful search for the truth which gained for him +at length the fame of first orator of the revolution. The +passion and vehemence of the man made him at times censorious and +satirical. His manner towards his opponents was at times hard to +bear. His wit was of that sarcastic kind which, like a hot wind, +withers its object. + +All of these dispositions seemed to increase his power and to +augment his reputation, but they did not augment his happiness. +His character as an advocate and as a man came out in full force +during the first period of his Boston practice; that is, in the +interval from 1750 to 1755. + +On attaining his thirtieth year Mr. Otis came to the event of his +marriage. He took in union, in the spring of 1755, Ruth +Cunningham, daughter of a Boston merchant. From one point of +view his choice was opportune, for it added to his social +standing and also to his means. From another aspect, however, +the marriage was less fortunate. + +The Cunningham family was not well grounded in the principles of +patriotism. The timid commercial spirit showed itself in the +father, and with this the daughter sympathized. The sharp line +of division between patriotism and loyalty had not yet been drawn +--as it was drawn five years afterward. But it began to be drawn +very soon after the marriage with serious consequences to the +domestic peace of the family. + +It appears that beside this general cause of divergence, the +staid and unenthusiastic character of Mrs. Otis rather chilled +the ardor of the husband, and he, for his part, by his vehemence +and eccentricity, did not strongly conciliate her favor. There +were times of active disagreement in the family, and in later +years the marriage was rather a fact than a principle. + +The result of Mr. Otis's marriage was a family of one son and two +daughters. The son, who was given his father's name, showed his +father's characteristics from childhood, and certainly a measure +of his genius. The lad, however, entered the navy at the +outbreak of the Revolution, became a midshipman, and died in his +eighteenth year. The oldest daughter, Elizabeth, went wholly +against her father's grain and purpose. Just before the +beginning of the Revolution, but after the case had been clearly +made up, she was married to a certain Captain Brown, at that time +a British officer in Boston, cordially disliked, if not hated, by +James Otis. Personally, Brown was respectable, but his cause was +odious. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill. +Afterwards he was promoted and was given a command in England. +Thither his wife went with him, and Mr. Otis discarded them both, +if not with anathema at least with contempt. + +It would appear that his natural affection was blotted out. At +least his resentment was life-long, and when he came to make his +will he described the circumstances and disinherited Elizabeth +with a shilling. The fact that Mrs. Otis favored the unfortunate +marriage, and perhaps brought it about--availing herself as it +is said, of one of Mr. Otis's spells of mental aberration to +carry out her purposes--aggravated the difficulty and made her +husband's exasperation everlasting. + +The younger daughter of the family shared her father's +patriotism. She was married to Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., a young +lawyer of Boston, whose father was General Benjamin Lincoln of +revolutionary fame. The marriage was a happy one, but ultimately +clouded with honorable grief. Two promising sons were born, but +each died before reaching his majority. The father also died +when he was twenty-eight years old. The wife and mother resided +in Cambridge, and died there in 1806. + +The second period in James Otis's life may be regarded as +extending from 1755 to 1760; that is, from his thirtieth to his +thirty-fifth year. It was in this period that he rose to +eminence. Already distinguished as a lawyer, he now became more +distinguished as a civilian and a man of public affairs. + +He caught the rising interest as at the springing of the tide, +and rose with it until it broke in lines of foam along the shores +of New England. He gained the confidence of the patriot party, +of which he was the natural leader. His influence became +predominant. He was the peer of the two Adamses, and touched +hands right and left with the foremost men of all the colonies. + +It surprises us to note that at this time James Otis devoted a +considerable section of his time to scholastic and literary +pursuits. He was a student not only of men and affairs but of +books. Now it was that the influence of his Harvard education +was seen in both his studies and his works. We are surprised to +find him engaged in the composition of a text-book which is still +extant, and, however obsolete, by no means devoid of merits. The +work was clearly a result left on his mind from his student days. + +He composed and, in the year 1760, published, by the house of B. +Mecom in Boston, a 72 page brochure entitled "The Rudiments of +Latin Prosody with a Dissertation on Letters and the Principles +of Harmony in Poetic and Prosaic Composition, collected from some +of the best Writers." + +The work is primarily a text in Latin Prosody in which the author +thought himself to improve on the existing treatises on that +subject. The afterpart of the pamphlet is devoted to a curious +examination of the qualities of the letters of the Greek and +Roman alphabets. + +In this he attempts to teach the distinction between quantity and +accent in the Greek language, but more particularly to describe +the position and physiological action of the organs of speech in +producing the elementary sounds in the languages referred to. +The author declares his conviction that the growth of science had +been seriously impeded by the inattention of people to the +correct utterance of elementary sounds. He also points out the +great abuses in the prevailing methods and declares that these +abuses have so impeded the work of education "that many have +remained children all their days." + +Having written and published his work on Latin prosody, Mr. Otis +next produced a similar work on the prosody of Greek. This, +however, he did not publish, and he is said to have destroyed the +manuscript at the time of burning his correspondence near the end +of his life. + +A conversation of James Otis is narrated by Francis Bowen, in +Jared Sparks's "American Biography" in which the orator is +represented, in speaking of the bad literary taste prevalent +among the boys of the time, as saying, "These lads are very fond +of talking about poetry and repeating passages of it. The poets +they quote I know nothing of; but do you take care, James, [Otis +was addressing James Perkins, Esq., of Boston] that you don't +give in to this folly. If you want to read poetry, read +Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope and throw all the rest into +the fire; these are all that are worth reading." In this brief +comment the severity of Otis's literary taste is indicated and +also something of the rather abrupt and dogmatic character of his +mind. His criticism, though true, can hardly be said to be +judicious. + +In order to understand the part which James Otis played in the +great work of revolution and independence it is now necessary to +note with care the conditions into which he was cast and with +which he was environed at that period of his life when the +man-fire flames highest and the audacity of the soul bounds +furthest into the arena of danger. + +Every man is the joint product of himself and his environment. +His life is the resultant of the two forces by which he is held +and balanced. At the time when James Otis reached his +thirty-fifth year a condition had supervened in the American +colonies which reacted upon his passionate and Patriotic nature +so powerfully as to bring into full play all of his faculties and +to direct the whole force of his nature against the tyrannical +method of the mother country. + +Let us look for a moment at the course of events which had +preceded and which succeeded the crisis in James Otis's life, and +made him the born leader of his countrymen in their first +conflict for independence. + +Great Britain had aforetime permitted the American colonists to +plant themselves where, when, and as they would. Almost every +colonial settlement had been an adventure. The emigrants from +the other side of the Atlantic had been squeezed out by the hard +discipline of church and state. In America they settled as they +might. + +"And England didn't look to know or care." + +In the language of one of the bards of this age, + +"That is England's awful way of doing business." + +She permitted her persecuted children to brave the intolerable +ocean in leaking ships, to reach the new world if they could, and +survive if they might. + +Notwithstanding this hard strain on the sentiment of the +Pilgrims, the Cavaliers, and the Hugenots, they remained loyal to +the mother country. They built their little states in the +wilderness and were proud to christen their towns and villages +with the cherished names of the home places in England. They +defended themselves as well as they could against the +inhospitality of nature, the neglect of the mother country, and +the cruelty of savage races. + +It was only when they grew and multiplied and flourished that our +little seashore republics attracted the attention of the mother +land and suggested to the ministers of the crown the possibility +of plucking something from the new states which had now +demonstrated their ability to exist and to yield an increase. + +Meanwhile, for six generations, the colonists had developed their +own social affairs and managed their own civil affairs according +to the exegencies of the case and the principles of democracy. +Their methods of government were necessarily republican. + +The military necessities which were ever at the door had taught +our fathers the availability of arms as the final argument in the +debate with wrong. The conflicts with the Indians and the +experiences of the French and Indian war had shown that the +Americans were able to hold their own in battle. + +Under these conditions there was a natural growth of public +opinion in the colonies tending to independence of action, and to +indignant protest against foreign dictation. In the sixth decade +of the eighteenth century many of the leading young men of +America talked and wrote of independence as a thing desirable and +possible. + +In 1755, when James Otis was thirty years of age, his young +friend, John Adams, sitting one day in his school house in +Connecticut, wrote this in his diary: "In another century all +Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us +from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us." + +We thus note natural conditions as tending to produce a rebellion +of the American colonies; also the inherited disposition of the +colonists under the discipline of their times; also the growth of +public opinion among the leading spirits--to which we must add +the character of the reigning king and of the ministers to whom +he entrusted his government as the general conditions antecedent +to the revolutionary movement of our fathers. + +But there were more immediate and forceful causes which operated +to the same end. Among these should be mentioned as a prevailing +influence the right of arbitrary government claimed by Great +Britain and at length resisted by the colonists. The right of +arbitrarily controlling the American states was shown in a number +of specific acts which we must here discuss. + +The first of these was the old Navigation Act of 1651. The +measure adopted by the government of Cromwell had never been +strenuously enforced. It was the peculiarity of all the early +legislation of Great Britain relative to the colonies that it was +either misdirected or permitted to lapse by disuse. + +The colonies thus literally grew, with little home direction. +After the navigation act had been nominally in force for +eighty-two years it was revived and supplemented by another +measure known as the Importation Act. + +This statute, dating from the year 1733, was intended to be an +actual device for controlling the commercial relations with the +colonies. By the terms of the Act heavy duties were laid on all +the sugar, molasses, and rum which should be imported into the +colonies. The customs were exorbitant and were from the first +evaded as far as possible by the American merchants. + +This may be regarded as the first actual breach of justice on the +one side and good faith on the other, as between the home +government and the American dependencies of Great Britain. + +The reader will note that the question at issue was from the +first commercial. It was a question of taking something from the +colonists and of giving no equivalent, either in value or +political rights. Had the American colonists been willing to be +taxed and searched without an equivalent, then would there have +been no revolution. + +It will be noted from the nature of the question that the issue, +since it was a matter of the merchants, was also a matter of the +cities. For the merchant and the city go together. With the +country folk of the pre-revolutionary era, the faultfinding and +dispute related always to political questions proper--to +questions of rights as between the king and his subjects; to +questions of institutional forms, the best method of governing, +etc. + +All of these matters, however, could have been easily adjusted, +and if there were an "if" in history they would have been +adjusted without revolution and without independence. The +commercial question, however, involving money rights, and +implying the privilege and power of the Mother Country to take +from the Colonists their property, however small the amount, +could but engender resistance, and if the claim were not +relinquished could but lead to war and disruption. + +The neglected growth of the Colonies had in the meantime +established in the seaboard towns of America, usages and customs +which were repugnant to British notions of regular and orderly +government. The commercial life had taken a form of its own. + +The Americans had built ships and warehouses. They had engaged +in commerce as they would. They had made their trade as free as +possible. They had ignored the old Navigation Act, and when the +Importation Act was passed, it confronted a condition in America. + +It applied to a state of affairs that already existed. + +The American ship, trading with the West Indies and bringing back +to Boston a cargo of molasses or rum, was met at custom house +with an exorbitant requisition. The officer acting under the +Importation Act, virtually said, "Stand and deliver." + +If it were a British ship the resistance to the duty would be +offered by the land merchants rather than by the sea traders; for +the merchants did not desire that the cost of the merchandise to +themselves and their customers should be doubled without some +equivalent advantage. No equivalent advantage was either visible +or invisible. What, therefore, should they do but first evade +and then openly resist? + +There was an epoch of evasion. This covered a period of about +seventeen years, extending from 1733 to 1750. In the latter year +an act was passed by Parliament forbidding the erection of iron +works in America. The manufacture of steel was especially +interdicted. The measure which was in reality directed against +shipbuilding included a provision which forbade the felling of +pines outside of enclosures. It was thus sought by indirection +to prevent the creation of a merchant marine by the American +Colonists and to limit their commerce to British ships. This +measure like the Importation Act was also ignored and resisted. +For eleven years the Americans persisted in their usual course, +making iron, cutting pine timber and building ships, importing +molasses and rum, evading the duties, and thus getting themselves +into the category of smugglers. + +It was this precise condition of affairs which led to a still +more stringent measure on the part of the home government. It +was determined in Parliament to put an end to the evasion and +resistance of the American merchants and importers with respect +to the existing laws. The customs should be collected. It was +deemed best, however, that the new measure should issue from the +judiciary. + +An appeal was made to the Court of Exchequer in England for the +granting of search warrants to be issued in America by the king's +officers for the purpose of ferreting out contraband goods. +These warrants granted by the Court of Exchequer were the Writs +of Assistance, the name of which appears so frequently and with +so much odium in the colonial history of the times. These writs +were granted by the court under pressure of the ministry in the +year 1760. + +The Writs of Assistance were directed to the officers of the +customs in America. But any officer could arm one of his +subordinates, or indeed any other person whom he should +designate, with one of the writs, and the person so appointed +might act in the name of the king's officer. + +The thing to be done was the examination of any place and all +places where contraband goods might be supposed to be lodged. +Whether there were evidence or no evidence, the case was the +same. The document was a writ of arbitrary search. + +Any house, public or private, might be entered at any time; any +closet or any cellar might be opened. Neither the bridal chamber +nor the room of the dead was sacred on the approach of any petty +customs constable or deputy in whose hands a Writ of Assistance +had been placed. The antecedent proceedings required no +affidavit or any other legal formality. The object was to lay +bare the whole privacy of a people on sheer suspicion of +smuggling. + +It could hardly be supposed that our fathers would tamely submit +to such an odious and despotic procedure. To have done so would +have been to subscribe to a statute for their own enslavement. +Nor may we pass from the consideration of these writs and the +resistance offered thereto by the patriots of all our colonies +without noticing the un-English character of these laws. + +Of a certainty Englishmen in whatever continent or island of this +world would never tolerate such a tyrannical interference with +their rights. This was demonstrated not only in America, but in +England also. + +The issuance in England of just such illegal and arbitrary +warrants was one of the causes that led to the tremendous +agitation headed by John Wilkes. The excitement in that +controversy grew, and notwithstanding the repeated arrests of +Wilkes and his expulsions from Parliament, his reelection was +repeated as often, and his following increased until not only the +ministry but the throne itself was shaken by the cry of "Wilkes +and Liberty." Nor did this well-timed ebullition of human rights +subside until the arbitrary warrants were annulled by a decision +of the King's Bench. + +It was the trial of this issue in America that brought on the +Revolution. It was a great cause that had to be pleaded, and the +occasion and the city and the man, were as great as the cause. +The parties to it were clearly defined, and were set in sharp +antagonism. + +On the one side were the king's officers in the province, headed +by the governor. This following included the officers of the +customs in particular. It also included the not inconsiderable +class of American respectabilities who were feeble in American +sentiments, and who belonged by nature and affiliation to the +established order. These were the loyalists, destined to be +designated as Tories, and to become the bete noire of patriotism. + +On the other side was a whole phalanx of the common people--a +phalanx bounded on the popular side by the outskirt of society +and on the high-up side by the intellectual and philosophical +patriots who were as pronounced as any for the cause of their +country, and with better reason than the reason of the many. + +The officers of the province elected by the home folks were all +patriots, but the appointed officers of the crown were quite +unanimous for the prerogative of the crown, holding severe +measures should be taken with the resisting colonists, and in +particular that the Writs of Assistance were good law and correct +policy. + +We should here note the particular play of the personal forces in +the year 1760. There were two notable deaths--the one notable +in Massachusetts and the other in the world. The first was that +of Chief Justice Stephen Sewall of Massachusetts, and the other +was that of His Majesty George II, the + +"Snuffy old drone from the German hive," + +as he is described by the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." The +first was succeeded in office by Thomas Hutchinson, +Lieutenant-Governor of the province under Sir Fraucis Bernard, +who was appointed governor in this notable year 1760 as the +successor of Thomas Pownall, who had succeeded Governor William +Shirley. + +Hutchinson--to use the adjective which John Adams was wont to +apply to himself and other patriots to the manner born--was a +Massachusettensian. He had sympathized with the people, but he +now turned against them. Before Judge Sewall went away it was +said and believed that Governor Shirley had promised the place of +Chief Justice, when the same should be vacant, to no other than +Colonel James Otis of Barnstable, father of the subject of this +sketch. + +But Governor Bernard, Shirley's second successor in office, took +another view of the matter and appointed Lieutenant-Governor +Hutchinson to the high office of Chief Justice. + +It was the belief and allegation of the King's party that this +appointment and this disappointment--the first of Hutchinson and +the second of Colonel Otis--bore heavily on all the Otises, and +indeed converted them from royalism to patriotism. + +Chief Justice Hutchinson himself is on record to this effect. In +his "History of Massachusetts," speaking of his own appointment +to the judicial office, he says: + +"The expected opposition ensued. Both gentlemen (that is, +Colonel Otis and James Otis, Jr.) had been friends to the +government. From this time they were at the head of every +measure in opposition, not merely in those points which concerned +the Governor in his administration, but in such as concerned the +authority of Parliament; the opposition to which first began in +this colony, and was moved and conducted by one of them, both in +the Assembly and the town of Boston. From so small a spark, a +great fire seems to have been kindled." + +The statement of a partisan, especially if he be a beneficiary, +must be taken with the usual allowance of salt. + +It may be that the patriotic trend of the Otises was intensified +a little by a personal pique in the matter referred to. But that +either father or son was transferred from the king's party to the +people's party by the failure of Colonel Otis to be appointed +Chief Justice is not to be believed. Other stories are to be +dismissed in the same manner. + +One slander prevalent about the Custom House ran to the effect +that James Otis had declared that he would set the province on +fire even if he had to perish in the flames. The art of +political lying was known even among our fathers. + +Such was the situation of affairs when the sycophants of the +foreign government in Boston undertook to enforce the Writs of +Assistance. They soon found that they needed more assistance to +do it. The banded merchants, and the patriots generally, said +that the acts were illegal, and that they would not submit to the +officers. The governor and his subordinates and the custom-house +retinue in particular, said that the writs were legal, and that +they should be enforced. The matter came to a clash and a trial. + +The case as made up presented this question: Shall the persons +employed in enforcing the Acts of Trade have the power to invoke +generally the assistance of all the executive officers of the +colony? + +This issue was, in February of 1761, taken into court in the old +Town House, afterwards the old State House, of Boston. There +were sitting the five Judges of the Superior Court of the +province. Chief Justice Hutchinson, still holding the office of +Lieutenant-Governor, his membership in the Council, and his +position of Judge of Probate, presided at the trial. Perhaps +there was never in America an instance in which a high official +so nearly fulfilled the part of "Pooh Bah." + +The trial evoked an attendance of all who could be admitted, and +of many more. The officers of the crown were out in full force, +and resolute patriotism completed the crowd. John Adams was one +of the spectators. + +Another element in the dramatic situation was the fact that James +Otis had, in the meantime, received the appointment to the crown +office of Advocate General, to which an ample salary was +attached. In this relation it would be his especial duty to +support the petition of the custom-house officers in upholding +the Writs of Assistance and in constraining the executive +officers of the province to support them in doing so. + +This contingency brought out the mettle of the man. When the +revenue officers came to him with the request that he defend +their case, he at once resigned his office, and this being known +the merchants immediately sought his services as counsel to +uphold their protest against the Writs. For his assistant they +selected Mr. Oxenbridge Thatcher. + +Otis accepted the invitation without a fee. His action involved +the loss of his official position as well as his means of living. + +It chanced at this time that his old law preceptor, Jeremiah +Gridley, was selected as King's Attorney, and it fell to his lot +to take the place which Otis would not accept. Thus master and +pupil were brought face to face at the bar in the hottest legal +encounter which preceded our rupture with the mother country. + +The trial that ensued has been described by John Adams, an eye +witness of the whole proceedings. He gives in his works a +description of the conduct of the case as it was presented for +and against the crown, and also notes of Otis's argument. + +After the pleas were presented and other preliminary matters +arranged, Mr. Gridley addressed the court in support of the +government's position. He defended the petition of the +custom-house officials as both legal and just. Two statutes of +the time of Charles II, empowering the court of Exchequer to +issue writs such as those which were now denied, were adduced. +He then cited the statute of the sixth year of Queen Anne, which +continued to inforce the processes which had been authorized in +the twelfth and fourteenth years of the reign of Charles. + +Still more to the point were the statutes of the seventh and +eighth years of William III, which authorized the collection of +revenue "in the British plantations" by officers who might search +both public and private houses to find goods that had evaded the +duty. These statutes Mr. Gridley claimed as a warrant for the +like usage in America. + +In answer to Gridley, Oxenbridge Thatcher,[1] himself a lawyer of +no mean abilities, spoke for the counter petitioners. His plea +was a strong confutation of Gridley's arguments. After this +brief address Mr. Otis rose to continue the plea for the people. + +Of the speech which followed we have no complete record or wholly +satisfactory summary. It is to John Adams, and to the notes +which he made on the occasion, that we must look for our opinion +of what was, if we mistake not, the greatest and most effective +oration delivered in the American colonies before the Revolution. + +Such was the accepted belief of those who heard Otis, and +witnessed the effect of his tremendous oratory. + +Making all allowance for exaggeration, it seems to have been one +of those inspired appeals by which History and Providence at +critical epochs make themselves known to mankind. John Adams, +then twenty-five years of age, passing from his notes of +Thatcher's speech, says of the greater actor: + +"But Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical +allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical +events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic +glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of +impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. American +Independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and +heroes, to defend the Non sine diis animosus infans, to defend +the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an +immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, +ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there +was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the +arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child +Independence was born. In fifteen years, that is in 1776, he +grew up to manhood, and declared himself free." + +We may allow a little for the enthusiasm of a young patriot such +as Adams, but there can be no doubt that his unmeasured eulogy +was well deserved. Such was the description of Otis's speech. + +As to the speech itself we have only a second-hand and inadequate +report. Minot, in his "History of Massachusetts," presents what +purports to be a tolerably full outline of the great address. + +Mr. Otis spoke for five hours, during which time with his rather +rapid utterance he would perhaps deliver an oration of 30,000 +words. Minot's report appears to have been derived from Adams' +notes done into full form by an unknown writer, who probably put +in here and there some rather florid paragraphs of his own. At a +subsequent period, Adams took up the subject and corrected +Minot's report, giving the revised address to William Tudor, who +used the same in his biography of James Otis. From these sources +we are able to present a fair abstract of what were the leading +parts of Otis's speech. In the beginning he said: + +"May it please your Honors: + +"I was desired by one of the court to look into the books, and +consider the question now before them concerning Writs of +Assistance. I have accordingly considered it, and now appear, +not only in obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of +the inhabitants of this town, who have present another petition, +and out of regard to the liberties of the subject. And I take +this liberty to declare, that, whether under a fee or not (for in +such a cause as this I despise a fee), I will to my dying day +oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all +such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the +other, as this Writ of Assistance is. + +"It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the +most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental +principles of law, that was ever found in an English law-book. I +must, therefore, beg your Honors' patience and attention to the +whole range of an argument, that may, perhaps, appear uncommon in +many things, as well as to points of learning that are more +remote and unusual, that the whole tendency of my design may the +more easily be perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the +force of them be better felt. + +"I shall not think much of my pains in this case, as I engaged in +it from principle. I was solicited to argue this case as +advocate-general; and because I would not, I have been charged +with desertion from my office. To this charge I can give a very +sufficient answer. I renounced that office, and I argue this +case, from the same principle; and I argue it with the greater +pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time when we +hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne, +that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of +his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives +of his crown; and it is in opposition to a kind of power, the +exercise of which, in former periods of English history, cost one +king of England his head, and another his throne. + +"I have taken more pains in this case than I ever will take +again, although my engaging in this and another popular case has +raised much resentment. But I think I can sincerely declare, +that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for +conscience' sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose +guilt, malice or folly, has made them my foes. + +"Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to +proceed. The only principles of public conduct, that are worthy +of a gentleman or a man, are to sacrifice estate, ease, health +and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. + +"These manly sentiments, in private life, make the good citizen; +in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say that, +when brought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I +may never be brought to the melancholy trial; but if ever I +should, it will then be known how far I can reduce to practice +principles which I know to be founded in truth. In the meantime, +I will proceed to the subject of this writ." + +After this introductory part we are obliged to fall back on the +summary given by Mr. Adams. According to his report, Otis in the +next place went into fundamentals and discussed the rights of man +in a state of nature. In this part, the argument ran in an +analagous vein to that of Rousseau in the Contrat Social that is, +man in the first place is a sovereign subject only to the higher +laws revealed in his own conscience. In this state he has a +right to life, to liberty, to property. + +Here the speaker fell into the manner of Jefferson in the opening +paragraphs of the Declaration. It is to be noted that Otis +presented the truth absolutely; he including negroes in the +common humanity to whom inalienable rights belong. + +Mr. Otis next took up the social compact, and showed that society +is the individual enlarged and generalized. This brought him to +the question before the court; for the conflict now on was a +struggle of society, endowed with inalienable rights, against +arbitrary authority and its abusive exercise. + +The abusive exercise was shown in the attempts to enforce the +Acts of Trade. Of this kind was the old Navigation Act, and of +like character was the Importation Act. It was to enforce these +that the Writs of Assistance had been devised. Mr. Otis then +continued: + +"Your Honors will find, in the old books concerning the office of +a justice of the peace, precedents of general warrants to search +suspected houses. But, in more modern books, you will find only +special warrants to search such and such houses, specially named, +in which the complainant has before sworn, that he suspects his +goods are concealed; and will find it adjudged, that special +warrants only are legal. In the same manner, I rely in it, that +the writ prayed for in this petition, being general, is illegal. +It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands +of every petty officer. + +"I say, I admit that special Writs of Assistance, to search +special places, may be granted to certain persons on oath; but I +deny that the writ now prayed for can be granted; for I beg leave +to make some observations on the writ itself, before I proceed to +other acts of Parliament. + +"In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed to +'all and singular justices, sheriffs, constables, and all other +officers and subjects;' so that, in short, it is directed to +every subject in the King's dominions. Every one, with this +writ, may be a tyrant in a legal manner, and may control, +imprison, or murder, any one within the realm. + +"In the next place it is perpetual; there is no return. A man is +accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign +secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation +around him, until the trump of the archangel shall excite +different emotions in his soul. + +"In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may +enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and command all to assist +him. + +"Fourthly, by this writ, not only deputies, etc., but even their +menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this +but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us? To be the +servant of servants, the most despicable of God's creation? + +"Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is +the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and +whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his +castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally +annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our +houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. +Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and every +thing in their way; and whether they break through malice or +revenge, no man, no court, can inquire. Bare suspicion, without +oath, is sufficient. + +"This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical +suggestion of a heated brain. I will mention some facts. Mr. +Pew had one of these writs, and, when Mr. Ware succeeded him, he +endorsed this writ over to Mr. Ware; so that these writs are +negotiable from one officer to another; and so your Honors have +no opportunity of judging the persons to whom this vast power is +delegated. Another instance is this: + +"Mr. Justice Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, by +a constable, to answer for a breach of the Sabbath-day acts, or +that of profane swearing. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Ware +asked him if he had done. He replied, 'Yes.' 'Well, then,' said +Mr. Ware, 'I will show you a little of my power. I command you +to permit me to search your house for uncustomed goods;' and went +on to search the house from the garret to the cellar; and then +served the constable in the same manner. + +"But to show another absurdity in this writ, if it be +established, I insist upon it, every person, by the 14th of +Charles the Second, has this power, as well as the custom-house +officers. The words are, 'It shall be lawful for any person, or +persons, authorized,' etc. What a scene does this open. Every +man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness, to inspect the +inside of his neighbor's house, may get a Writ of Assistance. +Others will ask it from self-defence; one arbitrary exertion will +provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and in +blood." + +This extract may serve to show the Demosthenic power of James +Otis as an orator. We cannot within our limits present many +additional paragraphs from his great plea in the cause of his +countrymen. + +To the next division of his argument he confuted the position +taken by Gridley with respect to the alleged legal precedents for +the Writs of Assistance. He showed that the writs were wholly +different from those provided for in the time of Charles II. +Even if they had not been so, the epoch and the manner of King +Charles had passed away. Neither could the Writs be justified by +inferences and constructions deduced from any previous statutes +of Parliament. + +Besides, such odious Writs could never be enforced. They could +never be enforced in the City of the Pilgrims. If the King of +England should himself encamp with twenty thousand soldiers on +the Common of Boston, he could not enforce such laws. He +assailed the sugar tax with unmeasured invective. And over and +above all, this despotic legislation was in direct conflict with +the Charter of Massachusetts. + +Here the orator broke forth in his most impassioned strain +declaring that the British King, the British Parliament and the +British nation, were all guilty of ingratitude and oppression in +attempting to impose tyrannical enactment on the people of +America. Thus he concluded his argument appeal. + +Those who heard the oration were convulsed with excitement. The +King's party was enraged. The patriots were inspired and +defiant. It was in every respect a critical and a historic hour. + +What would the court do with the case? The action of that body +was obscure and double. There seems to have been a disposition +of the Associate Judges to decide for the counter-petitioners; +but Chief Justice Hutchinson induced them to assent to his policy +of withholding a decision. He accordingly announced that the +court would decide the case at the ensuing session. He then +wrote to the home government, and the records show that the +decision was rendered for the petitioners. That is, for the +Custom House officials, and in favor of the Writs. + +The Chief Justice is also on record to the effect that he +continued to issue the Writs; but if so, no officer of the king +ever dared to present one of them in Boston! The famous (and +infamous) Writs of Assistance were as dead as the mummies of +Egypt. + +It is from this point of view that the character and work of +James Otis appear to the greatest historical advantage. There +can be no doubt that his was the living voice which called to +resistance, first Boston, then Massachusetts, then New England +and then the world! For ultimately the world heard the sound +thereof and was glad. The American Colonies resisted, and at +length won their independence. The sparks fell in France, and +the jets of flame ran together in a conflagration the light of +which was seen over Europe, and if over Europe, then over the +world. The Pre-revolutionist had cried out and mankind heard +him. Resistance to tyranny became obedience to God. + +We shall here sketch rapidly and briefly the unsteady way and +unfortunate decline of James Otis down to the time of the eclipse +of his intellect and his tragic death. + +Three months after he had, according to John Adams; "breathed +into the nation the breath of life," he was chosen to represent +Boston in the legislature of the Commonwealth. All of his +colleagues were patriots. Boston was in that mood. + +There runs a story that when he was entering upon his duties he +was counselled by a friend to curb his impetuosity and to gain +leadership by the mastery of self--advice most salutary to one +of his temperament. But it was much like advising General Putnam +to be calm at Bunker Hill! Otis promised, however, that if his +friends would warn him when his temperature was rising, he would +command himself. + +It is also narrated that his friends did attempt to pluck him by +the coat, but he turned upon them demanding to know if he was a +school boy to be called down! + +At this time the relations between Governor Bernard and the +Legislature were greatly strained. Otis rather increased the +tension. A question arose about a financial measure whereby gold +was to be exported and silver money retained as the currency of +the colony--the former at less than its nominal value--in a +manner to juggle the people into paying their obligations twice +over. The argument became hot and the Council taking the side of +the administration was opposed by the legislative assembly. + +Chief Justice Hutchinson and James Otis got into a controversy +which was bitter enough, and which may be illustrated with the +following letter which James Otis addressed to the printer of a +newspaper: + +"Perhaps I should not have troubled you or the public with any +thoughts of mine, had not his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor +condescended to give me a personal challenge. This is an honor +that I never had vanity enough to aspire after, and I shall ever +respect Mr. Hutchinson for it so long as I live, as he certainly +consulted my reputation more than his own when he bestowed it. A +general officer in the army would be thought very condescending +to accept, much more to give, a challenge to a subaltern. The +honor of entering the lists with a gentleman so much one's +superior in one view is certainly tempting; it is at least +possible that his Honor may lose much; but from those who have +and desire but little, but little can possibly be taken away. + +"I am your humble servant, +"JAMES OTIS, JR." + +This controversy continued for some time, and it is thought that +to it must be attributed much of the animosity displayed by the +Chief Justice towards Otis in the "History of Massachusetts Bay." + +Mr. Otis continued his aggressive policy in the session of the +assembly held in 1762. It was at this session that the +government in the hope of getting a sum of money adopted the ruse +of creating an alarm relative to a French invasion of +Newfoundland. But the patriots would have none of it. They went +so far as to say that if arbitrary government was to be +established in America, it made no difference whether the +Americans should have King Stork or King Log. To this effect ran +a resolution offered by James Otis: + +"No necessity can be sufficient to justify a House of +Representatives in giving up such a privilege; for it would be of +little consequence to the people, whether they were subject to +George or Louis, the King of Great Britain or the French King; if +both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes +without Parliament." + +It is said that when this resolution was offered a loyalist +member cried out in the Virginian manner, "Treason, treason." It +was in this way that Mr. Otis gained the undying enmity of the +King's party in America. + +It was in the period following his legislative service that James +Otis prepared his powerful pamphlet entitled "A Vindication of +the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of +the Massachusetts Bay." In this work he traverses and justifies +the course pursued by the patriot legislature during the sessions +of his attendance. + +Great was the joy of the American Colonies at the conclusion of +the French and Indian War. The Treaty of Paris in February of +1763 conceded Canada to Great Britain and insured the +predominance of English institutions in the New World. + +The animosities of the Americans towards the mother country +rapidly subsided. Meetings were held in the principal towns to +ratify the peace. At the jubilee in Boston, James Otis presided. + +He made on the occasion one of his notable addresses. He +referred with enthusiasm to the "expulsion of the heathen"-- +meaning the French, and then expressed sentiments of strong +affection for Great Britain and appreciation of the filial +relations of the American Colonies to her. + +In these utterances Otis reflected the sentiment of the +Bostonians and of the whole people. The General Assembly of +Massachusetts took up the theme and passed resolutions of +gratitude and loyalty. At this particular juncture the Americans +did not anticipate what was soon to follow. + +The English Ministry was already preparing a scheme for the +raising of revenue in America: The question of the right of +taxation suddenly obtruded itself. The Americans claimed the +right as Englishmen to tax themselves. The English ministers +replied that Parliament, and not the Colonial Assemblies, was the +proper body to vote taxes in any and all parts of the British +Empire. The Americans replied that they were not represented in +Parliament. Parliament replied that many of the towns, shires, +and boroughs in England were not represented. If they were not +represented, they ought to be, said the Americans;--and thus the +case was made up. + +By the beginning of 1764 it was known that the Ministers had +determined to make a rigorous enforcement of the Sugar Act. Than +this, nothing could be more odious to America. + +In the spring of the year just named, the citizens of Boston held +a great meeting to protest against the impending policy of the +crown. As a member of the Assembly and as chairman of a +committee Mr. Otis made a report which was ordered to be sent to +the agent of the government along with the copy of Otis's recent +pamphlet, "The Rights of the British Colonies asserted and +proved." + +At this time Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson was about to become +the representative of the Colony in its contention with the crown +and for some reason, not very apparent, Mr. Otis favored his +appointment. Governor Bernard, however, opposed the measure, and +Hutchinson declined the appointment. Otis's course was censured +by the patriots and his popularity was for the while impaired. +However, he took strong grounds against the Sugar Act, and soon +afterward still more strenuously opposed the Stamp Act. + +He regained the impaired confidence of the people and at the +close of the session of the Assembly he was appointed chairman of +a committee to correspond with the other Colonies, and thus to +promote the common interest of all. This, after the +intercolonial conference which Franklin had promoted, was perhaps +the first step towards the creation of the Continental Congress. +Mr. Otis's letter to the provincial agent went to England, though +it was sent in the name of the Lower House only. In this +document the writer said: + +"Granting the time may come, which we hope is far off, when the +British Parliament shall think fit to oblige the North Americans, +not only to maintain civil government among themselves, for this +they have already done, but to support an army to protect them, +can it be possible, that the duties to be imposed and the taxes +to be levied shall be assessed without the voice or consent of +one American in Parliament? If we are not represented, we are +slaves." + +This document was one of the few American papers which was read +and criticized in the British Parliament. The merits of Mr. +Otis's pamphlet were actually debated in the House of Lords by +Lord Littleton and Lord Mansfield. The latter in the course of +his remarks said: + +"Otis is a man of consequence among the people there. They have +chosen him for one of their deputies at the Congress, and general +meeting from the respective governments. It is said the man is +mad. What then? One madman often makes many. Massaniello was +mad, nobody doubts; yet for all that, he overturned the +government of Naples. Madness is catching in all popular +assemblies, and upon all popular matters. The book is full of +wildness. I never read it till a few days ago, for I seldom look +into such things." + +It was in the course of this pamphlet that the Mr. Otis spoke so +strongly on taxation and representation. "The very act of +taxing," said he, "exercised over those who are not represented, +appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential +rights; and, if continued seems to be, in effect, an entire +disfranchisement of every civil right. For what one civil right +is worth a rush, after a man's property is subject to be taken +from him at pleasure, without his consent?"[2] + +In this was the germ of the stern resistance offered by the +Americans to the Stamp Act. No man in the colonies did so much +to confute the principles on which the Stamp Act rested as did +James Otis. + +When the General Assembly of Massachusetts met in May of 1765, +Governor Bernard urged in his address the duty of submission to +Parliament as to the "conservators of liberty." It was this +recommendation which being referred to a Committee, of which Otis +was a member, led to the adoption of a resolution for the holding +of a Colonial Congress in New York. + +Nine colonies accepted the invitation of Massachusetts, and James +Otis headed the delegation of three members chosen to represent +the mother colony in that prophetic body. + +The story of the contest of the Americans with the home +government on the subject of the Stamp Act is well known. The +controversy resulted on the 18th of March, 1766, in the repeal of +the Act by Parliament. But the repeal was accompanied with a +salvo to British obduracy in the form of a declaration that +Parliament had "the right to bind the colonies in all cases +whatsoever." + +Notwithstanding this hateful addendum, the repeal of the Act was +received in America with the greatest joy. During the excitement +antecedent to the repeal, mobs had surged through the streets of +Boston, building bonfires and burning effigies of officers and +other adherents of the king's party. In one of these +ebullitions, the house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson was +attacked and pillaged. The better people had nothing to do with +it. Many were arrested and imprisoned. + +Governor Bernard was so much alarmed that he declared himself to +be a governor only in name. The partisans of the crown started a +story that James Otis was the instigator of the riots. There is +a hint to this effect in Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts +Bay." But it is evident that the charge was unfounded--except +in this, that in times of public excitement the utterances of +orators are frequently wrested from their purpose by the ignorant +and made to do service in the cause of anarchy. + +Meanwhile on the first of November, Mr. Otis returned from the +Congress in New York, laid a copy of the proceedings before the +Assembly, and was formally thanked for his services. + +During the Stamp Act year, Mr. Otis found time to compose two +pamphlets setting forth his views on the great questions of the +day. There had recently appeared a letter written by a Halifax +gentleman and addressed to a Rhode Island friend. The latter +personage was unknown; the former was ascertained to be a certain +Mr. Howard. The so-called "Letter" was written with much ability +and in a bitter spirit. + +To this Otis replied with great asperity, and with his power of +invective untrammeled. He called his pamphlet "A Vindication of +the British Colonies against the Aspersions of the Halifax +Gentleman, in his Letter to a Rhode Island Friend." A single +passage from the work may serve to show the cogency of the +writer's style and especially his anticipation of the doctrines +of the Declaration of Independence. + +"Is the gentleman," said he, "a British-born subject and a +lawyer, and ignorant that charters from the crown have usually +been given for enlarging the liberties and privileges of the +grantees, not for limiting them, much less for curtailing those +essential rights, which all his Majesty's subjects are entitled +to, by the laws of God and nature, as well as by the common law +and by the constitution of their country? + +"The gentleman's positions and principles, if true, would afford +a curious train of consequences. Life, liberty, and property +are, by the law of nature, as well as by the common law, secured +to the happy inhabitants of South Britain, and constitute their +primary, civil, or political, rights." + +The other pamphlet bearing date of September 4, 1765, was +entitled "Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists, in a Letter +to a Noble Lord." In this the writer discusses the question of +Taxation and in particular the specious claim of the British +Ministry that the home government might justly tax the colonists +to defray the expenses of the French and Indian War. + +In answer to this Otis says, in a manner worthy of an American +patriot in the year 1898, "The national debt is confessed on all +hands to be a terrible evil, and may in time ruin the state. But +it should be remembered, that the colonies never occasioned its +increase, nor ever reaped any of the sweet fruits of involving +the finest kingdom in the world in the sad calamity of an +enormous, overgrown mortgage to state and stock-jobbers." + +The period here under consideration was that in which the Stamp +Act was nominally in force. The law required all legal business +to be done on stamped paper. Therefore no legal business was +done. + +Hutchinson in his History says: "No wills were proved, no +administrations granted, no deeds nor bonds executed." Of course +matters could not go on in this manner forever. Governor Bernard +was induced to call the legislature together. When that body +convened an answer to the Governor's previous message was adopted +by the House, and the answer was the work of James Otis. An +extract will show the temper of the people at that juncture: + +"The courts of justice must be open, open immediately, and the +law, the great rule of right, in every county in the province, +executed. The stopping the courts of justice is a grievance +which this House must inquire into. Justice must be fully +administered through the province, by which the shocking effects +which your Excellency apprehended from the people's +non-compliance with the Stamp Act will be prevented." + +Meanwhile the public agitation continued; the newspapers teemed +with controversy. The administration was firm, but patriotism +was rampant. The party of the people adopted the policy of +embarrassing the government as much as possible. Then came the +news of the repeal of the act, and the jubilation of the people +to which we have already referred came after. + +When the legislature met in May of 1767, James Otis was chosen +speaker; but his election was vetoed by the Governor. The House +was obliged to submit, which it did in sullen temper, and then +chose Thomas Cushing for its presiding officer. The other +elections indicated the patriotic purpose of the House. + +There was almost a deadlock between the legislative and executive +departments. Governor Bernard addressed the representatives in a +supercilious and dogmatic manner, which they for their part +resented with scant courtesy. + +On one occasion they said (the language being Otis's) in a +concluding paragraph: "With regard to the rest of your +Excellency's speech, we are sorry we are constrained to observe, +that the general air and style of it savor much more of an act of +free grace and pardon, than of a parliamentary address to the two +Houses of Assembly; and we most sincerely wish your Excellency +had been pleased to reserve it, if needful, for a proclamation." + +The state papers on affairs--at least that portion of them +emanating from the legislative department--were, up to the year +1769, nearly all prepared by Mr. Otis; but it was generally +necessary to tone down the first drafts of his work. For this +duty the speaker (Thomas Cushing) and Samuel Adams were generally +selected. It was reckoned necessary to put the damper on the +fire! + +The popular tendency at this time was illustrated in a +proposition made by Mr. Otis to open the gallery of the House to +such of the people as might wish to hear the debates. + +Otis continued his correspondence, a great deal of which was +official. His style and spirit suited the temper of the +representatives, and they kept him occupied as chairman of a +committee to answer messages from the Government, and, indeed, +messages from anybody who might assail the patriot party. + +In the meantime the animosity between him and the Governor of the +province waxed hot. The Governor constantly charged the patriot +leader with being an incendiary, and the latter replied in a +manner to convict Governor Bernard of despotic usages and a +spirit hostile to American liberty. + +The next measure adopted by Parliament inimical to the colonies +was the act of 1767 imposing duties on glass, paper, painters' +colors, and tea, and appointing a commission for the special +purpose of collecting the revenues. The commissioners so +appointed were to reside in the colonies. + +This measure, hardly less odious than the Stamp Act, was +strangely enough resisted with less vehemence. Several of the +popular leaders were disposed to counsel moderation. Among these +was Otis himself. But nearly all outside of the official circles +were united against the new act. They formed associations and +signed agreements not to use any of the articles on which the +duty was imposed. This was equivalent to making the act of no +effect. + +In the legislative assembly of 1768, Mr. Otis was appointed with +Samuel Adams to prepare an important paper on the state of public +affairs. This they did by drawing up a petition which has been +regarded as one of the ablest of its kind. + +There is some controversy as to who actually wrote this famous +paper, but it appears to have been done mostly by Mr. Otis, +though the refining hand of Samuel Adams may be clearly seen in +the style. The publication of the paper still further strained +the relations between Governor Bernard and the representative +branch. + +Meanwhile, the news of the assembling of the Colonial Congress in +New York had produced a sensation in England, and the petition of +the Massachusetts legislature added to the temper of the +ministry. In May of 1768, Bernard sent to the assembly a +requisition that that body should rescind the resolution which +they had passed for sending a circular letter to the other +colonies. + +To this Mr. Otis, acting for the assembly, prepared a reply +which, while it was not less severe, was more respectful and +concessive than were most of his communications. At the +conclusion he says: + +"We have now only to inform your Excellency, that this House have +voted not to rescind, as required, the resolution of the last +House; and that, upon a decision on the question, there were +ninety-two nays and seventeen yeas." + +In this manner the controversy dragged on through the years +1768-69, but in the summer of the former year an event occurred +which roused the people to a high pitch of excitement. Some of +the custom-house officers seized a vessel belonging to John +Hancock. For this they were assailed by a mob which burned the +boat of the collector of customs. The officers fled to the +castle. It was for this business that a body of British soldiers +was first sent to Boston. + +On the 12th of September, 1768, a great meeting was held in +Faneuil Hall, but the crowd was such as to make necessary and +adjournment to Sewall's Meeting-house. James Otis was moderator +of the meeting. The presence of British soldiers, evidently sent +to Boston to enforce the decrees of an arbitrary government, was +sufficient to bring into play all the elements of patriotism. + +The British soldier's coat in the old town was of the same color +as the scarf which the picador shakes in the face of the enraged +animal! The effect in either case was the same. + +At the meeting just mentioned, Mr. Otis presided and spoke. A +report of what occurred was written (presumptively by some enemy +of the patriots), and was sent as a report to the British +ministry. In this Otis was charged with saying, "In case Great +Britain is not disposed to redress our grievances after proper +application, the people have nothing more to do, but to gird the +sword on the thigh and shoulder the musket." Doubtless this +report was a perversion of the truth. + +Other meetings were held, and resolutions were the order of the +day. On the 22nd of June, Faneuil Hall was again crowded. James +Otis, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock were +selected as representatives to meet Committees of other towns in +a convention. At this meeting it was voted that the people +should arm themselves. The convention met with delegates present +from nearly ninety towns. The movement against the ministerial +scheme had already become revolutionary. + +Meanwhile in 1768, the general assembly was unceremoniously +prorogued by Governor Bernard, but in May of the following year, +the body was re-convened. On the meeting day the building was +surrounded with British troops. + +Otis made an address, declaring that free legislation would be +impossible in the presence of an armed soldiery. He moved the +appointment of a committee to remonstrate with the Governor, and +to request the withdrawal of the soldiers. To this the Governor +replied evasively that he had not the authority to order the +withdrawal of the military. Otis in answer reported that the +Governor's reply was according to English law, more impossible +than the thing which the Assembly had petitioned for. + +The matter resulted in the adjournment of the body to meet at +Cambridge, in the chapel of Harvard College. Assembled at that +place the legislature was addressed by Otis with impassioned +eloquence. The people as well as the legislators were gathered. + +"The times are dark and trying," said the speaker. "We may soon +be called on in turn to act or to suffer." "You," he continued, +"should study and emulate the models of ancient patriotism. To +you your country may one day look for support, and you should +recollect that the noblest of all duties is to serve that +country, and if necessary to devote your lives in her cause." + +The House soon prepared a paper to be sent to the British +Ministry denouncing the administration of Governor Bernard and +protesting against the further presence of a British Soldiery in +Boston. On the 27th of June, 1769, the representatives went +further and prepared a petition, praying for the removal of +Bernard from the government. This they might well do for the +king had already recalled him! + +The Governor went away in such odor as the breezes of the Old Bay +have hardly yet dissipated. He went away, but in the fall added +his compliments to the Americans by the publication of sundry +letters in which they were traduced and vilified. To this James +Otis and Samuel Adams, were appointed a committee to reply. They +did so in a pamphlet entitled "An Appeal to the World, or a +Vindication of the Town of Boston," etc. + +It was in these tumultuous and honorable labors and excitements +extending over a period of fully ten years that the intellect of +James Otis became overstrained and, at length, warped from its +purpose. + +We may regard his rational career as ending with the year 1769. +In September of this year it was noticed that he had become +excitable, and that his natural eccentricity was accented at +times to the extent of rendering his conduct irrational. + +It was at this time that he published in the Boston "Gazette" +what he called an advertisement, in which he placarded the four +commissioners of customs, on the ground that they had assailed +his character, declaring that they had formed a confederacy of +villainy, and warning the officers of the crown to pay no +attention to them. + +On the evening of the following day, Mr. Otis went into a +coffee-house where John Robinson, one of the commissioners whom +he had lampooned, was sitting. On entering the room, Mr. Otis +was attacked by Robinson who struck him with his cane. Otis +struck back. There was a battle. Those who were present were +Robinson's friends. The fight became a melee. + +A young man named Gridley undertook to assist Otis, but was +himself overpowered and pitched out of the house. Mr. Otis was +seriously wounded in the head, and was taken to his house, +bleeding and exhausted. The principle wound appeared to be +inflicted with a sword; it was in the nature of a cut, and an +empty scabbard was found on the floor of the room in which the +altercation occurred. + +On the morrow, Boston was aflame with excitement. Otis was +seriously injured; in fact he never recovered from the effects of +the assault. He brought suit against Robinson, and a jury gave a +judgment of two thousand pounds damages against the defendant. +The latter arose in court with a writing of open confession and +apology, and hereupon the spirited and generous Otis refused to +avail himself of the verdict. + +Could he have thrown off the effects of the injury in like +manner, his last years might have been a happier sequel to a +useful and patriotic life. + +During the sessions of the Assembly, in the years 1770 and 1771, +James Otis retained his membership, but the mental disease which +afflicted him began to grow worse, and he participated only at +intervals (and eccentrically) in the business of legislation. + +In May of 1770, a town meeting was held in Boston, and a +resolution of thanks was passed to the distinguished +representative for his services in the General Assembly. This +was on the occasion of his retirement into the country, in the +hope of regaining his health. At the close, the resolution +declared: + +"The town cannot but express their ardent wishes for the recovery +of his (Mr. Otis's) health, and the continuance of those public +services, that must long be remembered with gratitude, and +distinguish his name among the Patriots of America." + +From this time forth the usefulness of James Otis was virtually +at an end. In the immortal drama on which the curtain was rising +--the drama of Liberty and Independence--he was destined to take +no part. The pre-revolutionist in eclipse must give place to +the Revolutionist who was rising. John Adams came after, not +wholly by his own ambition, but at the call of inexorable +History, to take the part and place of the great Forerunner. + +What must have been the thoughts and emotions of that Forerunner +when the minute men of Massachusetts came firing and charging +after the British soldiers in full retreat from Concord Bridge +and Lexington? With what convulsion must his mind, in +semi-darkness and ruin, have received the news of the still +greater deed at Bunker Hill? History is silent as to what the +broken Titan thought and said in those heroic days. + +The patriot in dim eclipse became at times wholly rational, but +with the least excitement his malady would return. In +conversation something of his old brilliancy would return in +flashes. For the rest, the chimes in that high soul no longer +played the music of reason, but gave out only the discords of +insanity. He was never reduced to serious delirium or to violent +frenzy, but he was an insane man; and under this shadow he walked +for the greater part of ten years, during which Independence was +declared and the Revolution fought out to a victorious end. + +It was in this period of decline and obscuration that James Otis +witnessed through the gathering shadows the rise to distinction +and fame of many of the patriots whom he had led in the first +campaigns for liberty. John Adams and Hancock were now at the +fore battling for independence. Among those who rose to eminence +in the immortal eighth decade was Samuel Alleyne Otis, who in +1776 was elected a representative in the great Congress of the +Revolution. James did not live to see his brother become speaker +of the House, but he witnessed in 1780 his service as a member of +the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts. Afterward, in +1787, he was a commissioner to negotiate a settlement with the +participants in Shay's Rebellion. With the organization of the +new national government he became Secretary of the Senate of the +United States, and served in that capacity until his death, April +22, 1814. + +In 1781, Mr. Otis was taken by his friend, Colonel Samuel Osgood, +to the home of the latter in Andover. There the enfeebled +patriot passed the remainder of his life. He became very obese, +and his nervous excitability to an extent subsided. + +He was amiable and interesting to his friends. His health was in +some measure restored, but his intellectual strength did not +return. He thought of going back to Boston, and in one instance +he accepted and conducted a case in the court of Common Pleas; +but his manner was that of a paretic giant. + +The favorable turn in Mr. Otis's condition was at length arrested +by an attempt on his part to dine with Governor Hancock. At the +dinner he was observed to become first sad and then to waver into +mental occultation. He was taken by his brother, Hon. Samuel +Alleyne Otis, to Andover. The event convinced the sufferer that +the end of his life was not distant. + +Strange, strange are the foregleams of the things to come! On +one occasion he said to his sister, Mrs. Warren, "I hope when God +Almighty in his Providence shall take me out of time into +eternity, it will be by a flash of lightning!" The tradition +goes that he frequently gave expression to this wish. Did the +soul foresee the manner of its exit? + +A marvelous and tragic end was indeed at hand. On the 23d of +May, 1783, only a few months before the Briton left our shores +never to return but by the courtesy of the Republic, a +thundercloud, such as the season brings in New England, passed +over Andover. + +James Otis stood against the lintel of the door watching the +commotion of the elements. There was a crash of thunder. The +lightning, serpent-like, darted from heaven to earth and passed +through the body of the patriot! Instantly he was dead. + +There was no mark upon him; no contortion left its snarling twist +on the placid features of him who had contributed so much of +genius and patriotic fire to the freedom and future greatness of +his country--so much to the happiness of his countrymen. + +On the 24th of the month the body of Mr. Otis was taken to Boston +and was placed in modest state in his former home. The funeral +on the 25th was conducted by the Brotherhood of Free and Accepted +Masons to which Mr. Otis belonged. The sepulture was made, as +narrated in the first pages of this monograph, in the Cunningham +tomb in the Old Granary Burying Ground. In that tomb, also was +laid six years afterwards, the body of Ruth Cunningham Otis, his +wife. Out of this brief narrative of a great life, let each +reader for himself deduce as he may, the inspiration and purpose, +without which American citizenship is no better that some other. + +Since the first pages of this monograph were written (in March +1898,) the Sons of the American Revolution have marked the grave +of James Otis with a bronze reproduction of their armorial badge, +and a small tablet, as seen in the Illustration on this page. + +[1] John Adams attempts to classify the pre-revolutionary orators +of New England according to their ardor and influence. "The +characters," says he, "the most conspicuous, the most ardent and +influential, from 1760 to 1766, were first and foremost, above +all and over all, James Otis; next to him was Oxenbridge +Thatcher, next to him Samuel Adams; next to him, John Hancock, +then Doctor Mayhew."--Works of John Adams, Vol. X, p. 284. + +If we should insert in this list the name of John Adams himself +his place would be between his cousin and Hancock. + +[2] In a further discussion of the prerogatives of the crown Mr. +Otis said: "When the Parliament shall think fit to allow the +colonists a representation in the House of Commons, the equity of +their taxing the colonists will be as clear as their power is, at +present, of doing it if they please." + + +THE CHARACTER OF JAMES OTIS BY CHARLES K. EDMUNDS, PH. D. + +In viewing Washington as the "Father" of our country, as he +certainly was in a sense which we of to-day are coming more and +more to appreciate, in classing Hamilton and Jefferson as +brothers of Washington in his great work, and in ascribing to +Franklin even a greater share in establishing "The United States +of America" than to any of these three, we are apt to forget +those patriots who did so much to keep alive the spirit of +liberty and justice in our land during the troublesome times +preceding the actual rupture between England and her American +Colonies. While we ascribe great and merited praise to those who +not only helped to lay the foundation but also actually began to +build the superstructure of our nationhood, let us not forget +those who by reason of the slightly earlier day in which they +strove needed even a clearer vision to follow the same plans. +They labored before the day had dawned, and yet they held ever +before them the same high-minded general principles of liberty +and justice which actuated the lives of those who took up their +work after them, when the light of Independence was fast breaking +on our shores. Among these pre-revolutionists there is none +more worthy of remembrance and admiration than James Otis, the +foremost advocate of his time in the Colonies. Very vigorously +he toiled in sowing seed the fruits of which he himself was not +to see, but which under the nurture of other able hands and in +the providence of the God of Nations budded at last into "The +Great Republic." Thus it becomes the purpose of this article to +recall briefly the most striking characteristics of him whose +name must always be intimately associated with the ardent debates +and the troublesome events which foreshadowed the great struggle +between the greatest of colonizing nations and her greatest +Colonies. + +The exigency of these times was great; and men of courage and +capacity, wise in council and prompt in action rose to meet it. +They were not men ennobled merely by their appearance on the +stage at the time when great scenes were passing. They took a +part in those scenes with a degree of aptness and energy +proportional to the magnitude of the occasion and throughout +displayed high qualities of character. + +Otis's part was played not so much in the revolution itself, as +in the agitations and controversies by which it was heralded and +its way prepared. "Admirably fitted by his popular talents, legal +acquirements, and ardent temperament, to take an active share in +the discussion respecting the comparative rights of the Colonies +and the British Parliament, and in preparing the minds of his +countrymen for the great step of a final separation from England, +and having exhausted, as it were, his mental powers in this +preparatory effort, his mind was darkened when the contest really +came, and he remained an impotent spectator of the struggle, by +which the liberties of his native land were at last permanently +established." + +The Life of James Otis as narrated by William Tudor is one of the +most pleasant and instructive in the whole range of American +biographies, and leaves few particulars in the personal life of +Otis to be gathered by the subsequent investigator. The sketch +by Francis Bowen in Jared Sparks' Library of American Biography +furnishes additional and valuable illustrations of the character +and services of Otis, which were secured from the third volume of +Thomas Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, (first published +after Tudor's Life of Otis appeared), from the copies of papers +in the office of the English Board of Trade relating to the +colonial history of Massachusetts, and from the private +correspondence of Governors Bernard and Hutchinson with the +English Ministry, during the time of Otis's public career. These +sources throw much light on the conduct of Otis as the chief +political opponent of the these two colonial executives. + +It is the purpose of the present article merely to emphasize the +three striking traits of his character,--his impetuosity and +earnestness, his high integrity and devotion to truth and +justice, and his marked ability as an advocate before the bar. + +In reading the memoirs of James Otis one is struck from first to +last with the impetuosity, the earnestness, the ardent temper of +his nature. This was at once the secret of a great measure of +his power and also the partial source of his mental undoing. As +a student at Harvard, the last two years of his college life were +marked with great assiduity in study, and while at home during +the vacations in this period, he devoted himself so closely to +his books, that he was seldom seen by his friends, and often it +was not known that he had returned, till he had been in his +father's house for some days. Such severe application doubtless +served to sow the first seeds of mental derangement, which +falling on the fertile soil of his feverish disposition and +nutured by the constant and intense argumentative strife of his +later political career, finally found their fruition in the +mental collapse which so distressingly darkened his latter days. +When participating in the common amusements of youth he exhibited +all the vivacity of an excitable temperament. + +The earnestness of his nature led him to resign a lucrative +office, renounce the favor of government, abandon the fairest +prospects of professional emolument and distinction, and to +devote himself to the service of his country with unflinching +courage, quenchless zeal, and untiring energy. + +As an orator the impetuosity of his speech and the earnestness of +his voice and manner were so impressive, that they forced +conviction upon his hearers even when his arguments did not reach +their judgment. Such was the fluency and animation of his +language, whether written or spoken, that though it was sometimes +coarse and defective in taste, it was always, as will be seen +from the examples quoted in this paper, extremely effective. + +In political controversy the impetuosity of his nature led him to +be irascible and harsh towards his opponents and sometimes hasty +in judgment. But towards those whom he liked he was equally +effusive in expressions of regard, and was generous, +high-spirited and placable. + +The fiery and impetuous temper of Otis is well illustrated +by the following anecdote given by Tudor, who, however, does not +vouch for its authenticity. Upon first taking his seat in the +house, a friend sitting near, said: "Mr. Otis, you have great +abilities, but are too warm, too impetuous; your opponents, +though they cannot meet you in argument, will get the advantage +by interrupting you, and putting you in a passion." "Well," +said Otis, "if you see me growing warm, give me a hint, and I'll +command myself." Later on when a question of some importance +arose, Otis and this friend were on the Boston seat together. +Otis said he was going to speak, and his companion again warned +him against being irritated by interruptions from the opposition. + +He soon rose, and was speaking with great fluency and powerful +logic, when Timothy Ruggles interrupted him; he grew warm in +reply, and his friend pulled his coat slightly. Otis scowled as +he turned round, but taking the hint moderated his tone. Soon +afterwards, Mr. Choate, of Ipswich, broke in on him again. This +aroused his temper, and his coat was pulled a second time; +turning round quickly he said in an undertone to his monitor, +"Let me alone; do you take me for a schoolboy?" and continuing +his address with great impetuosity he overwhelmed his opponent +with sarcasm and invective. + +Without doubt James Otis was a strong man,--a man of strong and +positive character, whose friends and enemies were equally strong +in their feelings of like and dislike. The men who were ranged +as his enemies have for the most part been relegated to a second +place on the page of history (this does not apply to Thomas +Hutchinson, who in his official capacity was Otis's chief +political opponent, but who did not exhibit the personal enemity +of Bernard and others); while those who were his friends stand +out boldly among the notable characters of the past. As Otis +himself remarked concerning Charles Lee, we are not at a loss to +know which is the highest evidence of his virtues--the greatness +and number of his friends, or the malice and envy of his foes. +But friends and foes alike agree in ascribing to him a very +ardent temperament, though with the latter it is unjustly +regarded as violent. There is a great contrast between the +estimate of Otis given by Hutchinson (quoted below) and that +exhibited in the following extract from a long letter written by +Governor Bernard to Lord Shelburne, near the end of the year +1766, which is entirely filled with a review of Otis's career and +character, and is a curious specimen of studied calumniation. +The introductory remarks show sufficiently well the spirit of the +whole. "I would avoid personalities, but in the present case it +is impossible. The troubles in this country take their rise +from, and owe their continuance to, one man, so much, that this +history alone would contain a full account of them. This man, +James Otis, Esq., was a lawyer at Boston when I first came to the +government. He is by nature a passionate, violent, and desperate +man, which qualities sometimes work him up to an absolute +frenzy.--I say nothing of him, which is not known to be his +certain character, confirmed by frequent experience." + +While sympathy for Otis made the public commonly ascribe the +alienation of his reason chiefly to the injuries received during +his encounter with Robinson in the British Coffee House, it is +fairly certain that the commencement of the disease dates further +back, and that the blows on the head hastened and aggravated an +already incipient malady superinduced by very different causes. + +In the ardor and assiduity of his devotion to the colonial cause +Otis had overtaxed his mental powers. His fine faculties that +had been exerted so strenuously, and with such striking effect, +in the service of his country, were sinking under the excitement +and the effort which had sustained them in the heat of action. +For ten years he had abandoned the ordinary practice of his +profession and renouncing all recreation had given his entire +time and thought, himself, verily, to the "great argument" which +involved the welfare of the Colonies, and as we now see it, of +the world. To allow one idea exclusive occupancy of the mind and +constantly to ponder a single topic, is a very frequent and +almost sure cause of mental distress. It was his highest merit +and at the same time his greatest misfortune, that Otis permitted +this political controversy to have such an absorbing and despotic +command of his attention that melancholy consequences gradually +appeared and left little hope of his final restoration. His +excitable and passionate temperament allowed the fire to be soon +kindled, and nourished the flame in which his intellect, strong +as it had been, was ultimately destroyed. + +Otis's mental malady first appeared in a form which was mistaken +for mere eccentricity of humor, and some time elapsed before his +oddities of fancy and conduct deepened into acknowledged +insanity. An incident which might have aroused the suspicions of +his friends occurred during the legislative session of 1769, when +at the close of a powerful and ingenious speech by Brigadier +Ruggles in which he had made a deep impression, Otis at once +arose and in an impassioned tone and manner which struck awe upon +all those present, exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker, the liberty of this +country is gone forever, and I'll go after it;" and turning round +immediately left the House. Some members stared, some laughed, +but none seemed to suspect the true cause of this odd behavior. + +How, after the encounter with Robinson, this mental disease made +inroads on his fine powers, we best know from John Adams, who on +September 3, 1769, wrote: "Otis talks all; he grows the most +talkative man alive; no other gentleman in company can find space +to put in a word. He grows narrative like an old man." On +September 5th occurred the encounter with Robinson, one of the +Commissioners of Customs, at the British Coffee House, which +greatly aggravated his mental disorder. From this time on he was +a subject of some perplexity to the Whig leaders, though the +spell with which he influenced the people was long in breaking. +On January 16, Adams again wrote: "Otis is in confusion yet; he +loses himself; he rambles and wanders like a ship without a helm; +attempted to tell a story which took up almost all the evening. * +* * In one word, Otis will spoil the club. He talks so much, and +takes up so much of our time, and fills it with trash, +obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense, and distraction, that we have +none left for rational amusements or inquiries. * * * I fear, I +tremble, I mourn, for the man and for his country; many others +mourn over him with tears in their eyes." + +In connection with Otis's charge against Hutchinson as to +rapacious office-seeking the following extract from John +Adams's diary is of curious interest. After detailing certain +detractions of which he had been the victim, the diarist breaks +out testily: "This is the rant of Mr. Otis concerning me. * * * +But be it known to Mr. Otis I have been in the public cause as +long as he, though I was never in the General Court but one year. + +I have sacrificed as much to it as he. I have never got my +father chosen Speaker and Counselor by it; my brother-in-law +chosen into the House and chosen Speaker by it; nor a +brother-in-law's brother-in-law into the House and Council by it; +nor did I ever turn about in the House, and rant it on the side +of the prerogative for a whole year, to get a father into a +Probate office first Justice of a Court of Common Pleas, and a +brother into a clerk's office. There is a complication of +malice, envy, and jealousy in this man, in the present disordered +state of his mind, which is quite shocking." (Oct. 27, 1772.) + +In this incapacity of Otis, who at last had to seek confinement, +Samuel Adams came to the front of the opposition to Hutchinson as +representing the government policy, and in nothing did he show +more adroitness than in the manner in which he humored and +exploited the colleague, whom, though sick, the people would not +suffer to be withdrawn, as is shown by the following resolution: + + +RESOLUTION ADOPTED AT A TOWN MEETING IN BOSTON, MAY 8, 1770. + +"The Honorable James Otis having, by advice of his physician, +retired into the country for the recovery of his health; Voted, +That thanks of the town be given to the Honorable James Otis for +the great and important services, which, as a representative in +the General Assembly through a course of years, he has rendered +to this town and province, particularly for his undaunted +exertions in the common cause of the Colonies, from the beginning +of the present glorious struggle for the rights of the British +consituation. At the same time, the town cannot but express +their ardent wishes for the recovery of his health, and the +continuance of those public services, that must long be +remembered with gratitude, and distinguish his name among the +patriots of America." + +During short periods of sanity, or of only partial aberration, +Otis's wit and humor, rendered more quaint and striking by the +peculiarities of his mental condition, made him the delight of a +small circle of friends. The following anecdote, admirably told +by President Adams, presents in a very graphic manner the +peculiarities of his character: + +"Otis belonged to a club, who met on evenings; of which club +William Molineux was a member. Molineux had a petition before +the legislature, which did not succeed to his wishes, and he +became for several evenings sour, and wearied the company with +his complaints of services, losses, sacrifices, etc., and said, +'That a man who has behaved as I have, should be treated as I am, +is intolerable,' etc. Otis had said nothing; but the company +were disgusted and out of patience, when Otis rose from his seat, +and said, 'Come, come, Will, quit this subject, and let us enjoy +ourselves; I also have a list of grievances; will you hear it?' +The club expected some fun, and all cried out, 'Ay! ay! let us +hear your list.' + +"'Well, then, Will; in the first place, I resigned the office of +the Advocate-General, which I held from the crown, that produced +me--how much do you think?' 'A great deal, no doubt,' said +Molineux. 'Shall we say two hundred sterling a year?' 'Ay, more +I believe,' said Molineux. 'Well, let it be two hundred; that +for ten years, is two thousand. In the next place, I have been +obliged to relinquish the greatest part of my business at the +bar. Will you set that at two hundred more?' 'O, I believe it +much more than that.' 'Well, let it be two hundred; this, for +ten years, is two thousand. You allow, then, I have lost four +thousand pounds sterling?' 'Ay, and much more, too,' said +Molineux. + +"'In the next place, I have lost a hundred friends; among whom +were the men of the first rank, fortune, and power, in the +province. At what price will you estimate them?' 'D--n them,' +said Molineux; 'at nothing: you are better without them than +with them.' A loud laugh. 'Be it so,' said Otis. + +"'In the next place, I have made a thousand enemies; among whom +are the government of the province and the nation. What do you +think of this item?' 'That is as it may happen,' said Molineux. + +"'In the next place, you know, I love pleasure; but I have +renounced all amusement for ten years. What is that worth to a +man of pleasure?' 'No great matter,' said Molineux; 'you have +made politics your amusement.' A hearty laugh. + +"'In the next place, I have ruined as fine health, and as good a +constitution of body, as nature ever gave to man.' 'This is +melancholy indeed,' said Molineux; 'there is nothing to be said +on that point.' + +"'Once more,' said Otis, holding his head down before Molineux; +'look upon this head!' (Where was a scar in which a man might +bury his finger.) 'What do you think of this? And, what is +worse, my friends think I have a monstrous crack in my skull.' + +"This made all the company very grave, and look very solemn. But +Otis, setting up a laugh, and with a gay countenance, said to +Molineux, 'Now, Willy, my advice to you is, to say no more about +your grievances; for you and I had better put up our accounts of +profit and loss in our pockets, and say no more about them, lest +the world should laugh at us.'" + +This whimsical dialogue put all the company, including Molineux, +in a good humor, and they passed the rest of the evening very +pleasantly. + +One of the few fragments in Otis' handwriting now extant, is a +memorandum made during the two years of transient sanity just +preceding his tragic death. Returning one Sunday from public +worship, he wrote: "I have this day attended divine service, and +heard a sensible discourse; and thanks be to God, I now enjoy the +greatest of all blessings, mens sana in copore sano" (a sound +mind in a sound body). But this gleam of reason was as transient +as others that had preceded, and with Bowen we willingly draw a +veil over the sad record of this most terrible misfortune of our +hero. "To be among men, and yet not of them; to preserve the +outward form and lineaments of a human being, while the spirit +within is wanting, or is transformed into a wreck of what it has +been; is surely one of the most impressive and affecting +instances of the ills to which mortality is exposed. It enforces +with melancholy earnestness the moral lesson, that the only +objects of the affections are the character and the intellect; +and when these are destroyed, we look upon the external shape and +features only as on the tomb in which the mortal remains of a +friend repose. We even long for the closing of the scene, and +think it would be far better if the now tenantless and ruined +house were levelled with the ground." + +A nice sense of honor was perhaps the second most striking point +in Otis's energetic and strongly-marked character. Called by +reason of his fame as an advocate to the management of suits even +at a distance from home, and receiving the largest fees ever +given to an advocate in the province, he yet disdained to suffer +the success of any of his cases to rest on any petty arts or +undue evasions. Conscious of possessing eminent abilities and +sufficient learning he undertook to advocate no cause that he did +not truly and fully believe in. His ardent pleading and the +fairness of his dealing before the courts was the result of his +firm belief in the justice of his cause. Nothing but truth could +give him this firmness; but plain truth and clear evidence can be +beat down by no ability in handling the quirks and substitutes of +the law. + +It was from this source as from no other that Otis drew his power +as a pleader. He was as John Adams records concerning his speech +on the "Writs of Assistance," "a flame of fire," but he was a +flame of fire set burning to consume the dross of injustice and +to purify and rescue the gold of liberty and fair-dealing. +Thomas Hutchinson, before whom Otis often pleaded and whose +testimony is of the greatest weight when we remember that Otis +was his political opponent, has said that he never knew fairer or +more noble conduct in a pleader than in Otis; that he always +disdained to take advantage of any clerical error or similar +inadvertence, but passed over minor points, and defended his +causes solely on their broad and substantial foundations. In +this regard Otis seems to satisfy Emerson's definition of a great +man, when in his essay on the "Uses of Great Men" the latter +declares: "I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere +of thought, into which other men rise with labor and difficulty; +he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in +large relations; whilst they must make painful corrections, and +keep a vigilant eye on many sources of error." + +Indeed, it can be said of Otis as Coleridge said of O'Connell, +"See how triumphant in debate and action he is. And why? +Because he asserts a broad principle, acts up to it, rests his +body upon it, and has faith in it." The world is upheld, as +Emerson says, by the veracity of good men; and so the great power +of Otis as an advocate before the civil bar in the minor cases of +his career, and as an advocate of the people in the larger court +in the great case of his life, for the liberty of opposing +arbitrary power by speaking and writing the truth, arose almost +entirely from his absolute integrity and fairmindedness. +Clarendon's portrait of Falkland applies equally as well to Otis, +--"He was so severe an adorer of the truth that he could as +easily have given himself leave to steal as to dissemble." In +short, Otis acted aright, and feared not the consequences, and +thus became a power in the community because of his personal +character. + +The great popularity that he immediately acquired he used for no +sinister or selfish ends. He stooped to none of the arts of the +demagogue; he was never carried away by a blind spirit of +faction. He opposed the arbitrary design of the English ministry +with great spirit and firmness, though with some indiscretion; +but he was no advocate of turbulent dissensions or causeless +revolt. He allowed himself to be ruled by the greater moderation +and prudence of his associates, while he inspired them with his +own resistless energy and determination. + +No imputation can justly be thrown on the sincerity of his +patriotism, although the attempt was made by some of his +contemporaries. + +When in 1764, Otis, as chairman of a committee of the Assembly +appointed to consider the status of the Sugar Act, favored the +commission of Hutchinson as a special agent of the Colony to go +to England and present the claims of the colonists, he was +accused of inconsistency in opinion and action, and of +dereliction of duty as the acknowledged leader of the patriotic +party. Combined with the extraordinary appointment of +Hutchinson, which however never took effect owing to the +opposition of Governor Bernard, Otis was also charged with a too +absolute recognition of the supremacy of Parliament in his +pamphlet on the Rights of the Colonies. As his father had +recently received a judicial appointment, of no great importance, +however, some persons went so far as to suspect Otis's fidelity +to the cause, among whom was John Adams, as we see from his diary +quoted elsewhere in this paper. People talked of a compromise in +which he was supposed to be engaged for gradually withdrawing all +resistance to the proceedings of the ministry. + +Such charges, however, were but the indications of the +unsteadiness and injustice of fickle popular favor. The +sacrifices which Otis made for the cause, as told of by himself +in the narrative given in this paper, were far too heavy for his +patriotism to be doubted for an instant, and any remaining doubt +must certainly be removed by a glance at the official +correspondence of Governor Bernard in which he is from first to +last regarded as the chief opponent of the prerogative and is +subjected to much calumny on that account. + +The selection of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson as the special +agent of the Colony, though appearing at first sight somewhat +strange, is easily explained and appears as the best possible +choice. He was a native of the province, and as such thoroughly +acquainted with its interests and desirous of promoting them. A +few years before he had given sound advice to both Houses in +relation to the very matter of the Sugar Act, counselling them +not to apply for a reduction of the duty, lest they should appear +as indirectly consenting to pay it under any circumstances; +advice which had prevailed against the preconceived opinion of a +majority of both branches of the legislature. Moreover, +Hutchinson's attachment to the interests of the crown, and his +intimate relations with the ministry, would enable him to +prosecute the suit of the province to great advantage, whereas a +known leader of the popular party in Massachusetts would not be +received with much favor at the Board of Trade, whatever his +errand. + +As to Otis's rather unstinted recognition of the prerogatives of +the crown and the right of Parliament to tax the Colonies, we +remark that he had undoubtedly the same ends in view as the other +popular leaders, but he differed from them in the choice of the +means, the selection of arguments, and the proper mode of +conducting the controversy. All certainly desired to be exempt +from taxation and to secure freedom of trade; the question was +how best attain these ends and reconcile their pretensions with +the acknowledged principles of English law? Otis opposed both +the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act on the same broad principle on +which Hampden in England resisted the payment of ship-money, +namely, that neither measure was sanctioned by the +representatives of the people on whom these contributions for the +support of the government were to be levied. He was too good a +lawyer to question openly the abstract supremacy of Parliament, +or to deny the technical "right" of this body to tax America, or +to do anything else. But he affirmed that he could not +justifiably exercise this right unless representatives elected by +America were admitted to sit in the House of Commons. "When +Parliament," said he, "shall think fit to allow the colonists a +representation in the House of Commons, the equity of their +taxing the colonists will be as clear as their power is at +present of doing it, if they please." These opinions did not +coincide with the sentiments of the greater part of the people at +this period, and they were displeased with the explicit and +comprehensive terms in which Otis acknowledged the authority of +Parliament; they did not care to be reminded of their subjection +in such positive language. Otis's incautious use of words may +have led him to exaggerate the sovereignty of England over her +Colonies, but the course which he pursued was undoubtedly the +most judicious one for the interests of America. + +That this criticism and disaffection concerning Otis was of short +duration, and justly so, is shown by the fact that at the end of +the legislative session he was appointed chairman of the +committee charged with securing the co-operation of the other +Colonies in a united effort of opposition to the scheme for +taxing America. That he was sufficiently alive to the true +interests of the Colonies and watchful of any imposition upon +their rights as subjects under the English Constitution, we may +cite one or two brief extracts from the letter of instructions to +the provincial agent in England, written by him and adopted by +the representatives. "The silence of the province," he says in +regard to the Sugar Act, "should have been imputed to any cause, +even to despair, rather than be construed into tacit cession of +their rights, or an acknowledgment of a right in the Parliament +of Great Britain to impose duties and taxes upon a people, who +are not represented in the House of Commons." "Ireland is a +conquered country, which is not the case with the northern +Colonies, except Canada; yet no duties have been levied by the +British Parliament on Ireland. No internal or external taxes +have been assessed on them, but by their own Parliament." + +"Granting that the time may come, which we hope is far off, when +the British Parliament shall think fit to oblige the North +Americans, not only to maintain civil government among +themselves, for this they have already done, but to support an +army to protect them, can it be possible that the duties to be +imposed and the taxes to be levied shall be assessed without the +voice or consent of one American in Parliament? If we are not +represented, we are slaves." + +The charge that Otis turned from his support of the government +policy because his father failed to receive the desired +appointment as Chief Justice is as unfounded as it is improbable. + +The office of Chief Justice was worth not over a hundred and +twenty pounds sterling a year, and as Colonel Otis's practice at +the bar was worth much more than this, and his seat in the +legislature gave him all the power and reputation he needed, the +loss of the Chief Justiceship could not have been a very great +concern to him. On the other hand one of the first measures of +Otis in coming into public life was to resign his office as +Advocate-General which was worth twice as much as the seat on the +bench. Of course a person of his fiery disposition felt keenly +the insult involved in the rejection of his father, and doubtless +the event imbittered his language towards Hutchinson; but it +would hardly be likely to shape his whole political career when +public questions of such great moment were at stake. + +There was no trace of meanness or selfishness in his disposition. + +To be sure, Otis's admitted superiority over his legal associates +and the natural impetuosity of his nature sometimes made him +excessively dogmatic, and his manner though courteous even to a +fineness towards those whom he liked was imperious and even +unguarded toward his political enemies. At one time, having +cited Dormat (the noted French jurist, 1625-1696, author of "The +Civil Laws in their Natural Order," 1689) in the course of an +argument, Governor Bernard inquired "who Dormat was." Otis +answered that "he was a very distinguished civilian, and not the +less an authority for being unknown to your excellency." Yet +notice the high-minded courtesy exhibited in the following +incident: When Charles Lee was in command of the left wing of +the army with his headquarters at Winter Hill, in what is now +Somerville, he refused to have an interview and conference with +his old friend Burgoyne, then lately arrived in Boston, looking +toward the restoration of an amicable understanding between the +colonies and the mother country. Four months later, a letter +came from the Old World containing a warning that Lee was not a +man of trustworthy character. Otis was at that time the +executive head of the provisional government which had been +formed in Massachusetts, during one of the last of his lucid +intervals. On behalf of the government he sent a letter to Lee, +quite touching for its fairminded simplicity. The council had +come into possesssion of a letter from Ireland making very +unfavorable mention of Lee. It produced no impression upon the +council. "On the contrary," says Otis, "we are at a loss to +know which is the highest evidence of your virtues--the +greatness and number of your friends, or the malice and envy of +your foes." This was a most delicate and effective way of +offering good advice. + +When he had suffered so cruelly at the hands of Commissioner +Robinson and his companions at the British Coffee House, and had +been awarded damages by the court, Otis's high spirit revolted at +the idea of receiving pecuniary compensation for a personal +insult; and Robinson's release drawn up by Otis himself is to be +found in the files of the Supreme Judicial Court of +Massachusetts, along with Robinson's written acknowledgment and +apology. + +Next to his impetuous devotion to the true relations of things, +the source of Otis's power lay in his adequate preparation for +the life of an advocate. Bred to the law at a time long before +the pathway had been smoothed by the multiplication of elementary +works and other modern improvements, he yet fully mastered that +abstruse science, which perhaps does more to quicken and +invigorate the understanding than many of the other kinds of +learning put together. As a sufficient foundation for his later +legal studies he had pursued at Harvard, the foremost college in +the colonies, not only the regular undergraduate classical +course, but also the three years of work required for the +Master's degree. Moreover, in conformity with his views on the +necessity of a generous and comprehensive culture of the mind as +a means of success at the bar, or in any professional career, +Otis did not plunge at once from his collegiate courses into the +routine of the legal office; but allowed himself two years of +self-directed general study with a view toward further +disciplining his mind and widening his information. The subjects +thus pursued and the general culture which he acquired served to +open and to liberalize his mind in nearly the same proportion as +the assiduous study of the law was next to invigorate and quicken +it. In conversation with his brother he remarked, "that +Blackstone's Commentaries would have saved him seven years' labor +pouring over and delving in black letter." He appears to have +formed a very correct judgment respecting the nature of +professional education and the best means of mastering its +abstruse details. He constantly inculcated upon the young men +who came to study in his office the maxim, "that a lawyer ought +never to be without a volume of natural or public law, or moral +philosophy, on his table or in his pocket." + +After two years of practice in Plymouth, he removed to Boston +(1750), where he found the larger field which was demanded by his +superior training and abilities; and he very soon rose to the +front rank of his profession. + +The regard which he entertained for his master in the law is well +shown by his conduct as the opposing advocate during the hearing +on the Writs of Assistance, when Otis having resigned his post of +Advocate-General of the Province in order to champion the +people's cause, the vacancy was filled by the appointment of +Gridley. Otis held the character and abilities of his former +teacher in very high respect, and allowed this differential +feeling to appear throughout the trial. "It was," says John +Adams, who was present on this occasion, and from whom nearly all +the details of the course of this affair are derived, "it was a +moral spectacle more affecting to me than any I have ever seen +upon the stage, to observe a pupil treating his master with all +the deference, respect, esteem, and affection of a son to a +father, and that without the least affectation; while he baffled +and confounded all his authorities, confuted all his arguments, +and reduced him to silence." Nor was a suitable return wanting +on the part of Mr. Gridley, who "seemed to me to exult inwardly +at the glory and triumph of his pupil." + +Though he made no pretensions to scholarship, some of his +writings showed a cultivated taste and a love of literary +pursuits, which were gratified so far as his numerous engagements +in public service would permit. With a literary taste formed and +matured by the study of Latin and Greek prosidy as constituted in +the best models of antiquity, it is not surprising that his +opinions on matters of criticism and scholarship were those of +the Odd school, and that he decried all the forms of innovation +in letters which had begun to show themselves in his day, and +which he regarded as affectations. His constant advice to young +people was if you want to read poetry, read Shakespeare, Milton, +Dryden, and Pope; throw all the rest in the fire. And with the +addition of but one or two names which have appeared since his +time, such counsel is judicious advice even to-day. + +His abilities were, perhaps, somewhat overrated in the admiring +judgment of his contemporaries. His style as a writer was +copious and energetic; but it was sometimes careless, coarse and +even incorrect. His eloquence was better adapted to popular +assemblies than to the graver occasions of legislative debate; in +the halls of justice, it produced a greater effect on the jury +than on the judge. "The few fragments of his speeches that were +reported and are now extant give no idea of the enthusiasm that +was created by their delivery. The elevation of his mind, and +the known integrity of his purposes, enabled him to speak with +decision and dignity, and commanded the respect as well as the +admiration of his audience." While his arguments were sometimes +comprehensive and varied, they generally related only to a few +points which they placed in a very clear and convincing light. +His object was immediate effect. He had studied the art of clear +expression and forcible argument in order to act with facility +and force upon the minds of others to such an extent as to +convince them, and then to convert their conviction into action. +He employed the facility and the power thus gained not for any +personal agrandizement, but to advocate political reform for the +good of the whole people. + +In the latter part of his speech on the Writs of Assistance, he +discussed the incompatibility of the acts of trade as lately +adopted by the English Ministry with the charter of the colony. +In so doing "he reproached the nation, Parliament, and King," +says John Adams, "with injustice, illiberality, ingratitude, and +oppression, in their conduct towards the people of this country, +in a style of oratory that I never heard equalled in this or any +other country." As to the effect of this oration in increasing +the courage of the colonists, inciting them to scrutinize more +closely and resist more strenuously, the claims of the British +Ministry and Parliament, we have Adams's significant statement,-- +"I do say in the most solemn manner that Mr. Otis's oration +against Writs of Assistance breathed into this nation the breath +of life." + +The longest and most elaborate production from his pen is the +pamphlet on the "Rights of the Colonies." It affords a fair +specimen of his impetuous and inaccurate rhetoric, his rapid and +eager manner of accumulating facts, arguments, and daring +assertions, and the "glowing earnestness and depth of patriotic +feeling with which all his compositions are animated." It is not +surprising that a book written in this style caused the author to +be suspected of wildness and even of madness. But there was, as +Bowen remarks, a method and a good deal of logical power in his +madness. + +The pamphlet was reprinted, circulated, and read in Great Britain +and even attracted the attention of the House of Lords. In +February, 1766, during a debate in that body on the disturbances +in America, Lord Littleton made some allusion to the peculiar +opinions of Mr. Otis, and spoke slightingly of his book. Lord +Mansfield replied, "With respect to what has been said, or +written, upon this subject, I differ from the noble Lord, who +spoke of Mr. Otis and his book with contempt, though he +maintained the same doctrine in some points, although, in others, +he carried it further than Otis himself, who allows everywhere +the supremacy of the crown over the colonies. No man on such a +subject is contemptible. Otis is a man of consequence among the +people there. They have chosen him for one of their deputies at +the Congress, and general meeting from the respective +governments. It was said the man is mad. What then? One madman +often makes many. Massaniello was mad, no body doubts; yet for +all that, he overturned the government of Naples. Madness is +catching in all popular assemblies, and upon all popular matters. + +The book is full of wildness. I never read it till a few days +ago, for I seldom look into such things." + +In some of his arguments he lays down general principles with a +quaint extravagance which marks the peculiar humor of the man. +"No government has the right to make hobby-horses, asses, and +slaves of the subject; nature having made sufficient of the two +former, for all the lawful purposes of man, from the harmless +peasant in the field to the most refined politician in the +cabinet; but none of the last, which infallibly proves that they +are unnecessary." "The British constitution of government as now +established in his Majesty's person and family, is the wisest and +best in the world. The King of Great Britain is the best as well +as the most glorious monarch upon the globe, and his subjects the +happiest in the universe. The French King is a despotic, +arbitrary prince, and, consequently, his subjects are very +miserable." The last specimen which we shall quote comes from +his defence of the objectionable passage in the remonstrance +drawn up by Otis on behalf of the Assembly of 1762 against +Governor Bernard's conduct in increasing the expenses of the +colony without previously obtaining the consent of the +Legislature. This passage was as follows: "No necessity can be +sufficient to justify a House of Representatives in giving up +such a privilege; for it would be of little consequence to the +people, whether they were subject to George or Louis, the King of +Great Britain or the French King, if both were arbitrary, as both +would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." +Afterwards in commenting on this passage he made the following +defense of its apparent unpatriotic sentiment. "It may be +objected, that there are some differences between arbitrary +princes, in this respect, at least, that some are more rigorous +than others. It is granted; but, then, let it be remembered, +that the life of man is a vapor that soon vanisheth away, and we +know not who may come after him, a wise man or a fool; though the +chances, before and since Solomon, have ever been in favor of the +latter."--"That I should die very soon after my head should be +struck off, whether by a sabre or a broadsword, whether chopped +off to gratify a tyrant by the Christian name of Tom, Dick, or +Harry, is evident. That the name of the tyrant would be of no +more avail to save my life, than the name of the executioner, +needs no proof. It is, therefore, manifestly of no importance +what a prince's Christian name is, if he be arbitrary, any more, +indeed, than if he were not arbitrary. So the whole amount of +this dangerous proposition may, at least in one view, be reduced +to this, viz.: It is of little importance what a king's +Christian name is. It is, indeed, of importance, that a king, a +governor, and all good Christians, should have a Christian name; +but whether Edward, Francis, or William, is of none, that I can +discern." + +A passage ascribed to Otis during a session of the legislature at +Cambridge gives some idea of the character of his invective. It +had been said in defence of some measure that it had been taken +by the advice of Council, when Otis exclaimed, "Ay, by the advice +of Council, forsooth! And so it goes, and so we are to be +ruined! The Council are governed by his Excellency, his +Excellency by Lord Hillsborough, Lord Hillsborough by his +Majesty, his Majesty by Lord Bute, and Lord Bute by the Lord +knows who. This recalls to mind what used to be said when I was +a student in this place. It was observed at that time, that the +President directed the scholars how they should act, madame +directed the President, Titus, their black servant, governed +madame, and the devil prompted Titus." + +The most comprehensive and just appreciation of the character and +work of Otis is given us by Francis Bowen in Jared Spark's +Library of American Biography. In part he says: "The services +which Mr. Otis rendered to this country were so conspicuous and +important, that it is difficult to form an estimate of his +character with the impartiality that history requires. +Gratitude might justly efface the memory of his faults from the +minds of those who have profited so largely by his patriotism and +his virtues. But it is not necessary thus to seek excuses for +his failings, or reasons for covering up the errors that he +committed. The defects of his temperament and conduct may be +freely mentioned, for they are not such as materially lessen our +respect for him as a man. + * * * * * * * * * * * +"As the vindicator of American rights, during the period of +colonial subordination, as the acknowledged leader, in +Massachusetts, of the constitutional opposition to ministerial +influence and parliamentary usurpation, the services of Mr. Otis +cannot be too highly appreciated. + * * * * * * * * * * * +"He was not permitted to witness the grand result of his labors. +He did not live to enjoy the final triumph; he can hardly be said +to have survived till the opening of the struggle. But the +historian who searches into the causes of this great event, and +seeks to determine the comparative merits of the men who achieved +it, will dwell long upon the services, and pay a just tribute of +admiration and respect to the memory of James Otis." + + +THE USE AND ABUSE OF ARBITRARY POWER, Including Tracts from +Burke, 0tis and Wilkes. By Charles K. Edmunds, Ph.D. + +It is the honor of England that she had deposited in the virgin +soil of her colonies the germ of freedom. Nearly all at their +foundation, or shortly after, received charters which conferred +the franchises of the mother country on the colonists. These +charters were neither a vain show nor a dead letter, but really +did establish and allow powerful institutions which impelled the +colonists to defend their liberty, and to control the power by +participating in it as constituted in the grant of supplies, the +election of public councils, trial by jury, and the right of +assembling to discuss the general affairs. To us of to-day these +appear as common-sense or logically necessary rights; but we must +remember that in those early days of colonization they were +distinct privileges accorded in power to the colonists. And it +is in these very privileges that we behold the germinating +principle which was ultimately to bring to life the new republic +then as yet unborn. For as Thomas Jefferson afterward wrote, +"where every man is a sharer in the direction of his +town-republic, and feels that he is a participator in the +government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the +year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State +who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or +small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than +allow his power to be wrested from him by a Caesar or a +Bonaparte. How powerfully did we feel the energy of this +organization in the case of the embargo!" + +Notwithstanding the widely different origin of the various +colonists, the circumstances in which they were placed were so +similar, that the same general form of personal character must +inevitably have developed itself, and produced a growing +consciousness of power and impatience of foreign imposition. The +proximate independence of America need not have been a certainty, +however, had the eyes of English statesmen not been blinded to +the truth of the principles urged by such men as Otis in America +and Burke in England. The causes which were to produce a final +rupture were, to be sure, already at work (their full operation +being delayed by the lack of union among the different +provinces), but there was at the same time a warm hereditary +attachment to the parent country, under whose wings the provinces +had grown up, by whose arms they had been shielded, and by whose +commerce, in spite of jealous restrictions, they had been +enriched. + +Indeed life in the Colonies was so closely related to that in the +mother country that in a very marked degree, the history of the +Colonies is only the more practical and laborious development of +the spirit of liberty flourishing amid the conditions of life in +the new country under the standard of the laws and traditions of +the old country. As the eminent philosophical historian, M. +Guizat, has said, "It might be considered the history of England +herself." The resemblance is the more striking when we remember +that the majority of the American Colonies and the more important +of them were founded or increased the most rapidly at the very +epoch when England was preparing to sustain, and in part already +sustaining, those fierce conflicts against the pretensions of +absolute power which were to obtain for her the honor of giving +to the world the first example of a great nation free and well +governed. + +How similarly the state of affairs appeared, in the eyes of those +who were not blinded by self-interest, on both sides of the +Atlantic, is shown by the following extracts from Burke and Otis. + +In 1770 Burke thus described the social and political conditions +both at home and in the Colonies: "That the government is at +once dreaded and contemned; that the laws are despoiled of all +their respected and salutary terrors; that their inaction is a +subject of ridicule and their enforcement of abhorrence; that +rank, and office, and title, and all the solemn plausibilities of +the world, have lost their reverence and effect; that our foreign +politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy; that our +dependencies are slackened in their affection and loosened from +their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to +enforce; that hardly anything above or below, abroad or at home, +is sound and entire; but that disconnection and confusion, in +office, in parties, in families, in parliament, in the nation, +prevail beyond the disorders of any former time, these are facts +universally admitted and lamented." + +When in 1768 troops were sent to Boston to prevent a repetition +of the disturbances which had resulted from the arbitrary and +insulting manner in which the commissioners of customs exercised +their office, Otis was chosen moderator of the town meeting held +in protest, and is reported to have declared "That in case Great +Britain was not disposed to redress their grievances after proper +applications, the inhabitants had nothing more to do, but to gird +the sword to the thigh, and shoulder the musket." Another +account presents a somewhat more temperate tone, representing +Otis as "strongly recommending peace and good order, and the +grievances the people labored under might in time be removed; if +not, and we were called on to defend our liberties and +privileges, he hoped and believed we should, one and all, resist +even unto blood; but at the same time, he prayed Almighty God it +might never so happen." + +The change from favorable conditions both in England and in the +Colonies to the state of unrest depicted by these passages from +Burke and Otis, had been brought about by the attempt to use +strong measures, enforced with no just regard for the welfare of +the whole people. The English Ministry failed to realize that it +is of the utmost importance not to make mistakes in the use of +strong measures; that firmness is a virtue only when it +accompanies the most perfect wisdom. Their course of political +conduct, combined with the establishment of a system of +favoritism both at home and abroad like that adopted by Henry the +Third of France, produced results of the same kind as the latter. + +Members of parliament for the most part were practically +convinced that they did not depend on the affection or opinion of +the people for their political being, and gave themselves over, +with scarcely the appearance of reserve, to the influence of the +court. There was thus developed both a ministry and parliament +unconnected with the people, and we have the deplorable picture +of the executive and legislative parts of a government attempting +to exist apart from their true foundation--the opinion of the +people. How signally such attempts have always failed is a +matter of historical record. And the steadfast belief that they +always will so fail constitutes the great force of public opinion +to-day. + +Had the English Ministry and the Colonial Governors, in +particular Governor Bernard of Massachusetts, recognized certain +cardinal principles of individual and national liberty, which +were so strongly advocated by Burke and Otis, the course of +events in their dealing with the colonists would in all +probability have been greatly different from that actually +developed. Burke declared that as long as reputation, the most +precious possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, +the great support of the state, depend entirely upon the voice of +the people, the latter can never be considered as a thing of +little consequence either to individuals or to governments. He +pointed out that nations are governed by the same methods, and on +the same principles, by which an individual without authority is +often able to govern those who are his equals or even his +superiors, namely, by a knowledge of their temper, and by a +judicious management of it; that is, when public affairs are +steadily and quietly conducted, not when government descends to a +continued scuffle between the magistrate and the multitude, in +which sometimes the one and sometimes the other is uppermost; +each alternately yielding and prevailing in a series of +contemptible victories and scandalous submissions. "The temper +of the people amongst whom he presides ought, therefore, to be +the first study of a statesman. And the knowledge of this temper +it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not an +interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn." + +Of course it will not do to think that the people are never in +the wrong. They have frequently been so, both in other countries +and in England; but in all disputes between them and their +rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favor of the +people. History justifies us in going even further, for when +popular discontents have been very prevalent something has +generally been found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct +of the government. As Burke declares, "the people have no +interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and +not their crime. But with the governing part of the state it is +far otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as +by mistake. * * * If this presumption in favor of the subjects +against the trustees of power be not the more probable, I am sure +it is the more comfortable speculation; because it is more easy +to change an administration than to reform a people." + +Very much the same ideas are presented by Otis in his article on +the "Rights of the Colonists," and the passage bearing on this +present topic will be given for comparison with Burke's +treatment. The pamphlet is divided into four parts, treating +respectively of the origin of government, of colonies in general, +of the natural rights of colonists, and of the political and +civil rights of the British colonists. The writer maintains, +that government is founded not as some had supposed on compact, +but as Paley afterwards affirmed, on the will of God. By the +divine will, the supreme power is placed "originally and +ultimately in the people; and they never did, in fact, freely, +nor can they rightfully, make an absolute, unlimited renunciation +of this divine right. It is ever in the nature of a thing given +in trust; and on a condition the performance of which no mortal +can dispense with, namely, that the person or persons, on whom +the sovereignty is conferred by the people, shall incessantly +consult their good. Tyranny of all kinds is to be abhorred, +whether it be in the hands of one, or of the few, or of the many. + +The colonies were not at all unwilling to pay revenue to the home +government, if the manner of payment was just and right. They +were so far from refusing to grant money that the Assembly of +Pennsylvania resolved to the following effect: "That they always +had, so they always should think it their duty to grant aid to +the crown, according to their abilities, whenever required of +them in the usual constitutional manner." This resolution was +presented by Franklin, who was a member of the Pennsylvania +Assembly, to the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Grenville, before +the latter introduced the Stamp Act into Parliament. Other +colonies made similar resolutions, and had Grenville instead of +the Stamp Act, applied to the King for proper requisitional +letters to be circulated among the colonies by the Secretary of +State, it is highly probable that he would have obtained more +money from the colonies by their voluntary grants than he himself +expected from the stamps. Such at any rate is the claim of +Franklin, who was surely in a position to feel the pulse of the +colonies better than any other one man. "But he (Grenville) +chose compulsion rather than persuasion, and would not receive +from their good-will what he thought he could obtain without it. +Thus the golden bridge which the Americans were charged with +unwisely and unbecomingly refusing to hold out to the minister +and parliament, was actually held out to them, but they refused +to walk over it." + +The action of the English Ministry in the matter of the tea tax +in particular, and of the whole question of American taxation in +general, is thus spoken of by Burke in his famous address in the +House of Commons: + +"There is nothing simple, nothing manly, nothing ingenious, open, +decisive, or steady, in the proceeding, with regard either to the +continuance or the repeal of the taxes. The whole has an air of +littleness and fraud. * * * There is no fair dealing in any part +of the transaction." + * * * * * * * * * * * +"No man ever doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an +imposition of three-pence. But no commodity will bear +three-pence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of +men are irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to +pay. The feelings of the colonists were formerly the feelings of +Great Britain. Theirs were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden +when called upon for the payment of twenty shillings. Would +twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No, but the +payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was +demanded, would have made him a slave. * * * It is then upon the +principle of this measure, and nothing else, that we are at +issue." + * * * * * * * * * * * +"I select the obnoxious colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at +this time (but without hearing her) is so heavily a culprit +before parliament--I will select their proceedings even under +circumstances of no small irritation. For, a little imprudently, +I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the administration of the +lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising from matters of +a separate nature. Yet see, Sir, the effect of that lenitive, +though mixed with these bitter ingredients; and how this rugged +people can express themselves on a measure of concession. + +"'If it is not in our power,' (say they in their address to +Governor Bernard), "in so full a manner as will be expected, to +show our respectful gratitude to the mother country, or to make a +dutiful and affectionate return to the indulgence of the king and +parliament, it shall be no fault of ours; for this we intend, and +hope we shall be able fully to effect.' + +"Would to God that this tender had been cultivated, managed, and +set in action; other effects than those which we have since felt +would have resulted from it. On the requisition for compensation +to those who had suffered from the violence of the populace, in +the same address they say, 'The recommendation enjoined by Mr. +Secretary Conway's letter, and in consequence thereof made to us, +we will embrace the first convenient opportunity to consider and +act upon.' They did consider; they did act upon, it. They +obeyed the requisition. I know the mode has been chicaned upon, +but it was substantially obeyed, and much better obeyed than I +fear the parliamentary requisition of this session will be, +though enforced by all your rigour, and backed with all your +power. In a word, the damages of popular fury were compensated +by legislative gravity. Almost every other part of America in +various ways demonstrated their gratitude. I am bold to say, +that so sudden a calm recovered after so violent a storm is +without parallel in history. To say that no other disturbance +should happen from any other cause, is folly. But as far as +appearances went, by the judicious sacrifice of one law, you +procured an acquiescence in all that remained. After this +experience, nobody shall persuade me, when a whole people are +concerned, that acts of lenity are not means of conciliation." + + +"0PP0SITI0N T0 ARBITRARY POWER," By John Wilkes, 1763. + +While Otis and other patriots were opposing the arbitrary +measures of the English Ministry in their dealings with the +Colonies, certain men in England were equally as ardent in their +opposition to such a course whether pursued at home or abroad. +Most prominent among these were Edmund Burke and John Wilkes, +both members of Parliament. In this connection the following +extracts frown Wilkes' article on "Opposition to Arbitrary Power" +will be of interest. This article appeared in the famous No. 45 +of "The North Briton," edited by Wilkes, who was very clever but +somewhat profligate. + +* * * "In vain will such a minister (referring to Lord Bute), or +the foul dregs of his power, the tools of corruption and +despotism, preach up in the speech that spirit of concord, and +that obedience to the laws, which is essential to good order. +They have sent the spirit of discord through the land, and I will +prophesy, that it will never be extinguished, but by the +extinction of their power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand +in hand with the Peace and Excise, through this nation? Is it to +be expected between an insolent Excisemen, and a peer, gentleman, +freeholder, or farmer, whose private houses are now made liable +to be entered and searched at pleasure? The spirit of concord +hath not gone forth among men, but the spirit of liberty has, and +a noble opposition has been given to the wicked instruments of +oppression. A nation as sensible as the English, will see that a +spirit of concord when they are oppressed, means a tame +submission to injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to +arise, and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of +the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary +tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable +resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution. + +"A despotic minister will always endeavor to dazzle his prince +with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the +crown, which the minister will make a parade of firmly +maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the +honor of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming Royalty. + +* * * * The prerogative of the crown is to exert the +constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way not of blind favor +and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit +of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative, and +I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts: +'Freedom is the English Subject's Prerogative.'" + + +JOSEPH WARREN'S OPINION OF GOVERNOR BERNARD, OTIS'S PRINCIPAL +ENEMY. + +Governor Bernard's bad temper and bad taste in dealing with the +legislature may justly be ranked among the principal causes which +gradually, but effectually, alienated the affections of the +people of Massachusetts, first from the persons immediately +charged with the government of the province, and finally, from +the royal authority and whole English dominion. "With an +arrogant and self-sufficient manner, constantly identifying +himself with the authority of which he was merely the +representative, and constantly indulging in irritating personal +allusions, he entirely lost sight of the courtesy and respect due +to a co-ordinate branch of the government, and made himself +ridiculous, while he was ruining the interests of the sovereign +whom he was most anxious to serve. Even Hutchinson, as we learn +from the third volume of his History, though he was attached to +the same policy, and favored the same measures, censures the tone +of Bernard's messages as ungracious, impolitic, and offensive." + +Popular animosity against Governor Bernard waxed exceedingly +strong during the controversy concerning the circular letter sent +by the Massachusetts Assembly to each House of Representatives in +the thirteen Colonies, in which the Colonies were urged to +concert a uniform plan for remonstrance against the government +policy. Bernard sent advices to England declaring that stringent +measures were imperative. Among those who were particularly +vehement in their denunciation of Bernard's character and conduct +was Joseph Warren, a young physician of twenty-seven years, +Otis's brother-in-law, for some time a writer for the papers, +who was even more drastic than Otis in his arraignment of +Bernard's tactics as governor, and who caused somewhat of a +sensation by publishing the following in the "Boston Gazette" of +February 29, 1768. (Warren was killed while serving as a +volunteer aide at the battle of Bunker Hill.) + +"We have for a long time known your enmity to this Province. We +have had full proof of your cruelty to a loyal people. No age +has, perhaps, furnished a more glaring instance of obstinate +perseverance in the path of malice. * * * Could you have reaped +any advantage from injuring this people, there would have been +some excuse for the manifold abuses with which you have loaded +them. But when a diabolical thirst for mischief is the alone +motive of your conduct, you must not wonder if you are treated +with open dislike; for it is impossible, how much soever we +endeavor it, to feel any esteem for a man like you. * * * +Nothing has ever been more intolerable than your insolence upon a +late occasion when you had, by your jesuitical insinuations, +induced a worthy minister of state to form a most unfavorable +opinion of the Province in general, and some of the most +respectable inhabitants in particular. You had the effrontery to +produce a letter from his Lordship as a proof of your success in +calumniating us. * * * We never can treat good and patriotic +rulers with too great reverence. But it is certain that men +totally abandoned to wickedness can never merit our regard, be +their stations ever so high. + +'If such men are by God appointed, The Devil may be the Lord's +anointed.' A TRUE PATRIOT. + +Hutchinson tried to induce the grand jury to indict Warren for +libel on account of this intemperate attack. The jury, however, +returned "ignoramus," and the Governor had to bear the affront, +which was but one of a series directed against him during his +remaining days in America. + +On the other hand, direct attacks were also made against Otis, +and some were marked by scurrility and coarseness of language, +which could not fail to arouse a man of his temper and fine sense +of honor. How he did regard them appears from the following +extract from a letter to his sister, Mrs. Warren: + +"Tell my dear brother Warren to give himself no concern about the +scurrilous piece in Tom Fleet's paper. It has served me as much +as the song did last year. The tories are all ashamed of this, +as they were of that; the author is not yet certainly known, +though I think I am within a week of detecting him for certain. +If I should, I shall try to cure him once for all, by stringing +him up, not bodily, but in such a way as shall gibbet his memory +in terrorem. It lies between Bernard, Waterhouse, and Jonathan +Sewall. The first, they say, has not wit enough to write +anything; the second swears off; and the third must plead guilty +or not guilty as soon as I see him. Till matters are settled in +England, I dare not leave this town, as men's minds are in such a +situation, that every nerve is requisite to keep them from +running to some irregularity and imprudence; and some are yet +wishing for an opportunity to hurt the country." + + +OTIS'S AFFECTION FOR ENGLAND IN SPITE OF HIS OPPOSITION TO THE +ARBITRARY MEASURES OF HER MINISTRY. By Charles K. Edmunds, Ph. D. + +Otis defended the rights of his countrymen by vindicating their +enjoyment of English liberty, not by asserting the demand for +American independence. He, however, sowed the seed without +knowing what kind of harvest it was to produce, for his writings +and speeches did more than those of any other man toward +preparing the minds of others for the final separation from +England. That such was his purpose he steadfastly repudiated, +and the following quotations from his pen exhibit full well his +attachment to the mother country and to the principles of her +constitution. + +When in January, 1763, the joyful news was received at Boston +that the preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and France +had been signed, and that Canada was permanently annexed to the +former country, the colonists justly rejoiced, and a town meeting +was held of which Otis was chosen moderator. In the course of +his speech, Otis declared in his usual earnest way that "the true +interests of Great Britain and her plantations are mutual, and +what God in his providence united, let no man dare attempt to +pull asunder." Similar sentiments expressed by other leaders +among the various Colonies might be quoted. We give one more +from Otis's pamphlet on the "Rights of the Colonies," published +in 1765. In speaking of the colonists, he says: "Their loyalty +has been abundantly proved, especially in the late war. Their +affection and reverence for their mother country are +unquestionable. They yield the most cheerful and ready obedience +to her laws, particularly to the power of that august body, the +Parliament of Great Britain, the supreme legislative of the +kingdom and its dominions. These, I declare, are my own +sentiments of duty and loyalty." He angrily repels the charge +that the Colonies were seeking for independence, insisting that +the people had a "natural and almost mechanical affection for +Great Britain which they conceive under no other sense, and call +by no other name, than that of home. We all think ourselves +happy under Great Britain. We love, esteem, and reverence our +mother country, and adore our King. And could the choice of +independency be offered the colonies or subjection to Great +Britain on any terms above absolute slavery, I am convinced they +would accept the latter." + +In 1769 he wrote: "The cause of America is, in my humble +opinion, the cause of the whole British empire; an empire which, +from my youth, I have been taught to love and revere, as founded +in the principles of natural reason and justice, and upon the +whole, best calculated for general happiness of any yet risen in +the world. In this view of the British empire, my Lord, I +sincerely pray for its prosperity, and sincerely lament all +adverse circumstances. Situated as we are, my Lord, in the +wilderness of America, a thousand leagues distant from the +fountains of honor and justice, in all our distresses, we pride +ourselves in loyalty to the King, and affection to the mother +country." + + +OTIS AS A PROPHET. + +Otis was not much given to general speculations upon the future; +but there is something very striking in the following language, +taken from his pamphlet "The Rights of the Colonies," if we +consider how soon after there occurred the two great crises in +the world's affairs, the American and French revolutions. "I +pretend neither to the spirit of prophecy, nor to any uncommon +skill in predicting a crisis; much less to tell when it begins to +be nascent, or is fairly midwived into the world. But I should +say the world was at the eve of the highest scene of earthly +power and grandeur, that has ever yet been displayed to the view +of mankind. The cards are shuffling fast through all Europe. +Who will win the prize is with God. This, however, I know, detur +digniori. The next universal monarchy will be favorable to the +human race; for it must be founded on the principles of equity, +moderation, and justice." + + +JAMES OTIS. [1725 - 1783.] By G. Mercer Adam[3] + +The character and life-work of few men belonging to the +pre-Revolutionary era are better worth studying than are those of +James Otis, the patriot-orator of Massachusetts, who took so +prominent a part in opposing England's obnoxious Stamp Act and in +arousing the American Colonies to a sense of the outrage done +them by the issue of the arbitrary Writs of Assistance. Though +the records of his personal life are somewhat meagre, sufficient +is known of Otis's public career to interest students of his +country's history and entitle him to the admiration of all, as +one of the most earnest and eloquent advocates of Liberty in the +Nation's youth-time, and a sturdy and noble defender of its cause +at the critical era of England's injustice and oppression. No +man of the period, it may be hazarded, did more yeoman service +than Otis did in the cause of American Freedom, or was more +sensible of the rights of the Colonists and of the injustice done +them by the Motherland in her assaults on their civil and +political status in the years preceding the Revolution. Not only +was he one of the most fearless asserters of the great principles +for which our forefathers fought and bled, but few men better +than he saw more clearly the malign character of the arbitrary +acts imposed upon the Colonies that brought about separation and +laid the foundation of American independence. In resisting the +enforcement of these Acts, Otis was actuated not only by +disinterested and patriotic motives, but by a statesmanlike +discernment of their unconstitutional character and the wrong +they would inflict, in being inconsistent with the foundation +charter of the Massachusetts Colony. Like many of the +Revolutionary fathers, Otis was not at heart a rebel, or from the +outset disloyal to the Crown in its administration of the affairs +of the Colonies. His occupancy of the Crown post of +Advocate-General and his own well-known integrity and +conscientiousness forbid that idea, not to speak of his pride in +the fact that his ancestors were English and for generations had +held high judicial offices and militia appointments in the gift +of the King and the ministry of the period. But though by +tradition and training, at the outset of his career, a subject of +monarchy and a true man in his official relations with England, +Otis was at the same time ardent in his interests for the +wellbeing of the Colonies and zealous for their rights and +privileges. When these came into conflict, the stand he took was +staunchly patriotic, even to the sacrifice of his office and its +emoluments; while in espousing the popular cause against the King +and the ministry he stood forth, as John Adams expressed it, as +"a flame of fire," full of consuming zeal for his country and an +ardent upholder of its rights and prerogatives. In assuming this +attitude, that Otis's zeal and energy were at times unrestrained +and his language occasionally unguarded and overvehement, is +doubtless true; but this was certainly excusable in a man of his +ardent temperament and strength of character; while the situation +of affairs was such as to call not only for patriotic enthusiasm, +but for righteous indignation and heated denunciation, in a cause +that stirred to the depths the heart and brain of an impetuous +and commanding orator. Nor do we well to forget what this +consuming, patriotic passion and heated vindication of his +country's rights cost Otis, in the responsibility he felt and the +solicitation he manifested, especially in the middle and later +stages of his strenuous career, for the cause he had so keenly at +heart. Pathetic is the story of the ailment that clouded his +closing years; and only exculpatory can be the judgment now +passed upon the man and his work when we consider what the strain +was that he had long and anxiously borne and that revealed its +effects in periods of sad mental alienation and incipient +madness. To speak and write strongly on taxation and its +injustice, in the case of the Colonies, might well, however, +disturb the mental equilibrium of even a strong man, and the more +so when actively protesting, as Otis long continued to protest, +against unlawful encroachments upon the liberties of the Colonies +and the other arbitrary acts that then characterized the +administration of the Crown. Whatever it cost Otis personally to +engage in this defence, the result, as we all now know and admit, +was only and wholly beneficent--in the defeat of an unrighteous +autocracy, and the emancipation of a Continent from a fettering +and baleful administration. + +This herald of and actor in the great drama of his time was born +at West Barnstable, formerly known as the Great Marshes, in +Massachusetts, on the 5th of February, 1723. He was one of +thirteen children, his father being Colonel James Otis (born in +1702), the son of Judge John Otis, whose immediate ancestor had +emigrated from England in the preceding century and settled in +New England at the town of Hingham, calling the region after the +old home of the family in the Motherland. This John Otis, who +was born in A.D. 1657, became a prominent man in the Settlement, +was a member of the Council of the Colony, and ultimately became +Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas and Probate Court. Otis's own +father (Colonel James Otis) likewise became a lawyer and +publicist, a colonel in the local militia, and rose to a high +post in the judiciary and was a member of the Council of +Massachusetts. He married Mary Alleyne and transmitted to the +future patriot, the subject of this sketch, the talents and many +of the characteristics of his progenitors. A brother of our +hero, Samuel Alleyne Otis, rose to prominence in the politics of +the State and as Secretary of the Senate administered to +Washington the oath of office as President, holding the Bible on +which he was sworn as honored chief of the future nation. A +sister, Mercy, an ardent and loyal patriot, married the notable +republican, James Warren of Plymouth, and lived herself to write +a compend of the "History of the American Revolution," together +with a collection of patriotic verse. + +James Otis, whom we know as one of the most eloquent orators of +the Revolutionary era and an ardent promoter of American +independence, was educated for his career at Harvard, which +institution he entered as a freshman in 1739, having previously +been prepared for college by the Rev. Jonathan Russell. His +university course, so far as can be gathered from any account of +it that has come down to us, was not a notable one, though he had +a fair scholastic career and graduated at the age of nineteen in +1743. While popular after a fashion at college, he was a bit of +a recluse and a diligent student of literature, with a +predilection, it is said, for music, playing well on the violin. +After graduating, he wisely spent two years in general reading +before entering upon the study of the law, which he did in 1745 +under James Gridley, a prominent jurist of Massachusetts and +sometime Crown Attorney-General. Three years later, he was +admitted to the bar, and in 1748 began to practice his profession +at Plymouth, Mass. In 1750, he removed to Boston, and there +became known as an advocate of note and high promise, actuated by +nice professional instincts, with a fine sense of honor, and +keenly appreciating, it is recorded, his responsibilities in his +relations with his clients, which led him to accept only such +cases as he could conscientiously defend and take retainers from. + +This characteristic scruple in the lawyer gave him a high +standing in his profession, and naturally led to success at the +bar, besides winning for him the respect and admiration of troops +of warm and attached friends. + +About this time he appears to have developed uncommon gifts as an +orator, and his rather irascible nature gave scope to his keen +wit and powers of sarcasm. His extensive reading and ultimate +study of good literary models naturally bore fruit in the +practice of the forensic art and gave him prestige at the bar, as +well as, later on, in taking to public life and to the advocacy +of the rights of the Colonists in the controversy with the Crown. + +In 1755, when he had attained his thirtieth year, Otis married +Ruth Cunningham, the daughter of an influential Boston merchant. +The lady, from all accounts, was undemonstrative and devoid of +her husband's patriotic ardor, traits that did not tend to +domestic felicity or lead, on the wife's part, to a commanding +influence over her vehement and somewhat eccentric husband. The +fruit of the union was one son and two daughters. The son +entered the navy, but unhappily died in his eighteenth year. One +of the daughters, the elder of the two, probably under the +mother's influence, angered her father by espousing the English +cause and marrying a Captain Brown, a British officer on duty at +Boston. The marriage was a source of irritation and unhappiness +to Otis, who, after his son-in-law had fought and been wounded at +Bunker Hill, withdrew with his wife to England, and was there +disowned and cut off by the irate patriot, whose affection was +also dried up for the erring daughter. The younger daughter, on +the other hand, was a devoted and patriotic woman, who shared her +father's enthusiasm for the popular cause. She married Benjamin +Lincoln of Boston, but early became a widow. + +By this time, Otis had become not only a man eminent in his +profession in Boston, but a powerful factor in the public life of +the city. The New England commonwealth was then beginning to be +greatly exercised over the aggressions of the Motherland, and +this was keenly watched by Otis, who took a lively and patriotic +interest in Colonial affairs. Beyond his profession, which had +closely engrossed him, he had heretofore taken little part in +public life; his leisure, indeed, he had employed more as a +student of books rather than of national affairs, as his work on +the "Rudiments of Latin Prosody," published in 1760, bears +witness. As the era of a conflict with England neared, he +however altered in this respect, and became a zealous advocate of +non-interference on the part of the Crown in the affairs of the +Colonies and an ardent protester against English oppression and +injustice. Soon grievances arose in the relations between the +Colonies and England which gave Otis the right to denounce the +Motherland and excite dissaffection among the people of the New +World. These grievances arose out of the strained commercial +relations between the two countries and the attempt of England to +devise and enforce irritating schemes of Colonial control. Of +these causes of outcry in the New World the two chief were the +revival and rigid execution of the English Navigation Acts, +designed to limit the freedom of the American Colonies in trading +with West Indian ports in American built vessels, and the +insistence, on the part of the Crown and the British government, +that the Colonies should be taxed for the partial support of +English garrisons in the country. In the development of trade in +the New World, the Colonies reasonably felt that they should not +be harassed by the mother country, and so they permitted commerce +to expand as it would; and when this was enjoined by England they +naturally resented interference by her and began to evade the +laws which she imposed upon the young country and bid defiance to +the Crown customs officers in the measures resorted to in the way +of restriction and imposed penalty. This attitude of the +Colonists in ignoring or defying English laws was soon now +specially emphasized when the Crown resorted to more stringent +measures to curb Colonial trade and impose heavy customs duties +on articles entering New World ports. Flagrant acts of evasion +followed, and defiant smuggling at length brought its legal +consequences--in the issue by the English Court of Exchequer of +search warrants, or Writs of Assistance, as they were called, by +which it was sought to put a stop to smuggling, by resorting to +humiliating arbitrary measures sure to be resented by the +Colonies. These Writs of Assistance empowered the King's +officers, or others delegated by them, to board vessels in port +and enter and search warehouses, and even the private homes of +the Colonists, for contraband goods and all importations that had +not paid toll to His Majesty's customs. This attempted rigid +execution of the Acts of Trade, together with other arbitrary +measures on the part of the Crown which followed, such as the +imposition of the Stamp Act, and the coercive levy of taxes to +pay part of the cost of maintaining English troops in the +Colonies, was soon to cost England dear and end in the loss of +her possessions in America and the rise of the New World +Republic. + +One of the most active men in the Colonies to oppose this +Colonial policy of England was, as we know, the patriot James +Otis, at the time Advocate-General of the Crown, who took +strong ground against the Writs of Assistance, arguing that they +were not only arbitrary and despotic in their operation, but +unconstitutional in their imposition on the Colony, since they +were irreconcilable with the Colonial charters and a violation of +the rights and prerogatives of the people. Rather than uphold +them as a Crown officer, Otis resigned his post of +Advocate-General, and became a fervent pleader of the popular +cause and denouncer of the legal processes by which the Crown +sought to impose, with its authority, its obnoxious trammellings +and restrictions without the consent of and in defiance of the +inalienable rights of the American people. Otis not only +resisted the enforcement by the King's officers of the odious +warrants and denounced their arbitrary character, but inveighed +hotly against English oppression and all attempts of the Crown +and its deputy in the province, the Lieutenant-Governor of +Massachusetts, to restrict the liberties of the people and impose +unconstitutional laws upon the Colony. The Writs of Assistance +were, of course, defended by the representatives of the Crown in +the Colony, and on the plea that without some such legal process +the laws could not be executed, and that similar writs were in +existence in England and made use of there on the authority of +English statutes. The pleas against them advanced by Otis took +cognizance of the fact that the Writs were irreconcilable with +the charter of the Massachusetts Colony, that English precedent +for their enforcement had no application in America, and that +taxation by the Motherland and compulsory acts of the nature of +the Writs did open violence to the rights and liberties of the +people and were inherently arbitrary and despotic, being imposed +without the consent of the Colonies and to their grave hurt and +detriment. In pleading the Colonial cause against the Writs, +Otis struck a chord in the heart of the people which tingled and +vibrated, while stirring up such opposition to them that the +authorities were fain to hold their hand and await instructions +from the English ministry as to their withdrawal or enforcement. +The response of the home government was that they should be +enforced, but little advantage was taken of this mandate in the +Colonies, since opposition to the Writs had, thanks to the +patriot Otis's denunciation of them, became almost universal; +while the people had been roused to a sharp sense of their +situation, in view of the tyrannous attitude of England towards +the Colonies, and the next step taken by the Crown, under Prime +Minister Grenville, in threatening them with the no less hated +Stamp Tax. This new fiscal infatuation on the part-of the +English ministry strained the relations of the Colonies toward +the Crown to almost the point of rupture. It was, moreover, an +unwise exhibition of English stubbornness and impolicy, since it +revealed the mistake which England fell into at the time of +considering the Settlements of the New World as Colonial +possessions to be held solely for the financial benefit of the +mother country, rather than for their own advancement and +material well-being. It is true, that the Seven Years' War, +which had been waged chiefly for the protection of the American +dependencies of the Crown, had left a heavy burden of debt upon +England which she naturally looked to the Colonies in some +measure to repay. But the Colonies had ready their argument-- +they objected to being taxed without their consent, and without +representation in the British Parliament, besides being, as they +thought, sufficiently oppressed by the burden of customs' duties +already imposed upon them. The spirit of resistance therefore +grew, and was ere long to take a more determined and, to England, +fatal form, for the Stamp Act, though later on repealed, was +passed, in spite of the protests of the Colonial Assemblies and +the increasing soreness of feeling in America against the mother +country. + +The like service James Otis did for the community of the New +World in opposing the Writs of Assistance he also did in opposing +the enforcement of the Stamp Act--remonstrances suggested by the +patriot's love of independence, and which, besides numberless +letters, speeches and addresses, drew from the +pre-Revolutionist's trenchant pen several able pamphlets, one +vindicating the action of the Massachusetts House of +Representatives, of which Otis was now a member, in protesting +against England's intolerance in laying grievous taxation on the +Colonies, and the others upholding the rights of the Colonies in +resisting the Crown's misgovernment, as well as its purpose to +tax the Colonies to defray some of the cost England had incurred +in prosecuting the French and Indian war. In these patriotic +services and labors, Otis, as a public man, took an active and +zealous part, besides conducting a large correspondence as +chairman of the House Committee of the Legislature on subjects +relating to the weal of the whole country. Nor were his duties +confined to these matters alone, for we find him at this period +engaged in controversies first with Governor Hutchinson, and then +with his successor, Governor Bernard, both of whom deemed Otis an +arch-rebel and incendiary--a man not only without the pale of +considerate treatment by lawfully constituted authority in the +Colonies, but the object of contumely and loathing by the +obsequious loyalists of the Motherland and all who desired her +continued dominance and supremacy in the country. History has +happily long since done justice to James Otis and seen him in a +fairer and far more worthy light--the light not only of a +patriot lover of liberty, but an ardent and invincible defender +of his country against autocratic encroachment, and a fearless +asserter of the principles which have become the foundation stone +of the American nation. In his masterful way, Otis was at times +heedlessly bitter and inveterate in his prejudices against the +mother country and the King's officers in the Colony; but we must +remember the strength as well as the ardor of his affection for +his native land and the righteousness of the cause he lovingly +espoused and so nobly advocated. We must remember also the +antagonisms he naturally aroused, and the hatreds of which he was +the object, on the part of loyal authority in the Colony which +feared while it traduced him. This is shown in the mishap that +befell him in a British coffeehouse in Boston, where he was +roughly assaulted by a man named Robinson, an ally of the revenue +officers whom he had denounced in an article in the Boston +Gazette, an attack that left its traces in the mental ailment +which afterwards distressingly incapacitated him and shortened +his bright public career. He nevertheless lived to see the +fruition of his hopes, in the throwing off by the Colonies of all +allegiance to Britain and take part himself in the battle of +Bunker Hill. The harvest reaped by his country from the seeds of +liberty he had planted in his day was such as might well cheer +him in the period of mental darkness which fell upon him and +regretfully clouded his closing years. Nor was he, in his own +era, without regard and honor among those who delighted in his +splendid patriotism, in the days of his manly strength, mental as +well as physical, and who held him in high esteem as a patriot +orator and the staunchly loyal tribune of the New World peoples. +In these days of flaccid patriotism and moral declension in +public life, his example may well stimulate and inspire. In his +wholehearted devotion to the hopes as well as to the interests of +the Colonies most notable was the polemical fervor with which he +espoused their cause and noble the stand he took for liberty and +independence. + +Like many men who have attained eminence in public life, James +Otis was the victim in his day of detraction and envy. A +specially malignant slander was current with reference to him and +his father at the period of the patriot's resigning his Crown +post of Advocate-General. The motive for throwing up his +appointment and pleading the people's cause against the Writs of +Assistance, it was at the time said, was the disappointment of +the Otis family at the Chief-Justiceship, then vacant, going to +Governor Hutchinson instead of to Colonel James Otis of +Barnstable, father of our hero. This aspersion of the fair name +of the Otises as patriots and high-minded gentlemen, and the +lying assertion that it was this disappointment that led the +Otises, father and son, to abandon the Crown's side for that of +the people, was cruelly false, and especially so as Hutchinson, +who got the post, repeats the falsehood in his "History of +Massachusetts" in explanation of the Otises turning their coats +and becoming partisans of the popular cause. Nothing could well +be more unjust and untrue, for both men were of far too honorable +a character and too ardently patriotic to justify the slander and +give even the slightest color to the misrepresentation. Were it +necessary more emphatically to characterize the slander as false, +one might confidently point to the happy relations of the Otises +with the other patriots of the time--to men of the stamp of the +two Adams statesmen, to Hancock, Randolph, Warren, and other +leaders of the Revolutionary era, as well as to the contemporary +repute and influence of both men in the heroic annals of the +Colonial period. The times were indeed trying and critical, and +at the outset of the movement for independence and relief from +the irritating aggressions of the Crown, the attitude, we may be +sure, was closely watched and not over truthfully reported, of +men of influence who took the patriot side and helped on the +great cause which was afterwards to be gloriously and +triumphantly crowned. + +But we pass on to relate, in a few brief words, what remains yet +to be told of James Otis's career, and of the pathetic declining +days of the hero and his tragic end. While mind and body were +intact and working perfectly in unison, Otis continued to give +himself heart and soul to the cause he had so patriotically and +zealously espoused. Even when his malady showed itself, there +were brief returns of useful activity and old-time mental +alertness, only, however, to be followed by sad relapses into the +eclipse-period of his powers. At periods of respite from his +ailment, Otis took part fitfully in his duties as member of the +Massachusetts Legislature, of which body he had been Speaker, and +did what he could to further the work of legislation. He also at +this time appeared once or twice as an advocate in Court, and +also continued his correspondence in Committee of the General +Assembly with prominent men in the other Colonies, seeking +successfully cooperation with them in the great drama of the +time. But for the most part we now find him a considerately +cared-for guest of his old-time friend, Colonel Samuel Osgood, at +the latter's farmhouse at Andover. Here the distinguished +pre-Revolutionist had phenomenal premonitions of the coming +manner of his death, related to his sister, Mrs. Warren, to whom +the patriot on more than one occasion said, that when God in his +Providence should take him hence into the eternal world, he hoped +it would be by a stroke of lightning! This tragic fate was ere +long to be his, for on the afternoon of May 23rd, 1783, when Otis +was standing amid a family group at the door of the Osgood +homestead at Andover, a bolt from the blue flashed down from +aloft and felled the hero to the ground. Death was +instantaneous, and happily it left no mark or contortion on his +body, while his features had the repose and placidity of seeming +sleep. Thus passed the hero from the scenes of earth, and in a +sense fitly, for the period was that which saw the close of the +drama of the Revolution he had been instrumental in bringing +about, and the departure from the soil of the new-born Republic +of the last of the English soldiery. + +[3]Historian, Biographer, Essayist, Author of a "Precis of +English History," a "Continuation of Grecian History," etc., and +for many years Editor of Self-Culture Magazine.--The Publishers. + + +JAMES 0TIS ON THE WRITS 0F ASSISTANCE February, 1761. + +May it please your Honours: I was desired by one of the court to +look into the (law) books, and consider the question now before +them concerning Writs of Assistance. I have accordingly +considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your +order, but likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, +who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the +liberties of the subject. And I take this opportunity to declare +that whether under a fee or not (for in such a cause as this I +despise a fee) I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers +and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery +on the one hand and villainly on the other, as this Writ of +Assistance is. + +It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the +most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental +principles of law that ever was found in an English lawbook. I +must therefore beg your Honours' patience and attention to the +whole range of an argument that may perhaps appear uncommon in +many things, as well as to points of learning that are more +remote and unusual, that the whole tendency of my design may the +more easily be perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the +force of them be better felt. I shall not think much of my pains +in this cause, as I engaged in it from principle. I was +solicited to argue this case as Advocate-General; and, because I +would not, I have been charged with desertion from my office. To +this charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I renounced +that office and I argue this cause from the same principle; and I +argue it with the greatest pleasure, as it is in favour of +British liberty, at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon +earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of +Briton and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him +than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown; and as it is in +opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which in former +periods of history cost one king of England his head and another +his crown, I have taken more pains in this cause than I ever will +take again, although my engaging in this and another popular +cause has raised much resentment. But I think I can sincerely +declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for +conscience' sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose +guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let the +consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The +only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman +or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and +even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These manly +sentiments, in private life, make good citizens; in public life, +the patriot and the hero. I do not say that, when brought to the +test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought +to the melancholy trial; but if ever I should, it will then be +known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to +be founded in truth. In the meantime, I will proceed to the +subject of this writ. + +In the first place, may it please your honours, I will admit that +writs of one kind may be legal; that is, special writs, directed +to special officers, and to search certain houses, etc., +specially set forth in the writ, may be granted by the Court of +Exchequer at home, upon oath made before the Lord Treasurer by +the person who asks it, that he suspects such goods to be +concealed in those very places he desires to search. The Act of +14 Charles II., which Mr. Gridley[4] mentions, proves this. And +in this light the writ appears like a warrant from a Justice of +the Peace to search for stolen goods. Your honours will find in +the old books concerning the office of a Justice of the Peace, +precedents of general warrants to search suspected houses. But +in more modern books you will find only special warrants to +search such and such houses, specially named, in which the +complainant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are +concealed; and will find it adjudged that special warrants only +are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the writ prayed +for in this petition is illegal. It is a power that places the +liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. I say, +I admit that special Writs of Assistance, to search special +places, may be granted to certain persons on oath; but I deny +that the writ now prayed for can be granted, for I beg leave to +make some observations on the writ itself, before I proceed to +other Acts of Parliament. In the first place, the writ is +universal, being directed "to all and singular justices, +sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and subjects"; so +that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the King's +domains. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant; if this +commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may +control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. In the +next place, it is perpetual; there is no return. A man is +accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign +secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation +around him [until the trump of the Archangel shall excite +different emotions in his soul]. In the third place, a person +with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, +etc., at will, and command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this +writ not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are +allowed to lord it over us. [What is this but to have the curse +of Canaan with a witness on us: t o be the servants of servants, +the most despicable of God's creation?] Now one of the most +essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's +house. A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he +is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it +should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this +privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they +please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial +servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in +their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no +man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is +sufficient. This wanton exercise of this power is not a +chimerical suggestion of a heated brain. I will mention some +facts. Mr. Pew had one of these writs, and when Mr. Ware +succeeded him, he endorsed this writ over to Mr. Ware, so that +these writs are negotiable from one officer to another; and so +your Honours have no opportunity of judging the persons to whom +this vast power is delegated. Another instance is this: Mr. +Justice Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, by a +constable, for a breach of the Sabbath-day Acts, or that of +profane swearing. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Ware asked him +if he had done. He replied, "Yes." "Well, then," said Mr. Ware, +"I will show you a little of my power. I command you to permit +me to search your house for uncustomed goods," and went on to +search the house from garret to cellar; and then served the +constable in the same manner! But to show another absurdity in +this writ, if it should be established, I insist upon it every +person, by the 14 Charles II., has this power as well as the +Custom-house officers. The words are, "it shall be lawful for +any person or persons authorized, etc." What a scene does this +open! Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor or wantonness to +inspect the inside of his neighbour's house, may get a Writ of +Assistance. Others will ask it from self defence; one arbitrary +exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in +tumult and in blood! + +Again, these writs are not returned. Writs, in their nature, are +temporary things. When the purposes for which they are issued +are answered, they exist no more; but these live forever; no one +can be called to account. Thus reason and the constitution are +both against this writ. Let us see what authority there is for +it. Not more than one instance can be found of it in all our +law-books; and that was in the zenith of arbitrary power, namely, +in the reign of Charles II., when star-chamber powers were pushed +to extremity by some ignorant clerk of the exchequer. But had +this writ been in any book whatever, it would have been illegal. +All precedents are under the control of the principles of law. +Lord Talbot (the Earl of Shrewsbury, an English peer of the era +of William and Mary) says it is better to observe these than any +precedents, though in the House of Lords the last resort of the +subject. No Acts of Parliament can establish such a writ; though +it should be made in the very words of the petition, it would be +void. An act against the constitution is void. But this proves +no more than what I before observed, that special writs may be +granted on oath and probable suspicion. The act of 7 and 8 +William III. that the officers of the plantations shall have the +same powers, etc., is confined to this sense; that an officer +should show probable ground; should take his oath of it; should +do this before a magistrate; and that such magistrate, if he +think proper, should issue a special warrant to a constable to +search the places. That of 6 Anne can prove no more. + +[4] Otis's opponent--his legal preceptor--who argued in favor of +the Writs. + + +JAMES OTIS ON THE STAMP ACT. An Oration Delivered Before the +Governor and Council In Boston, December 20, 1765. + +It is with great grief that I appear before your Excellency +(Governor Hutchinson) and Honours (of the City Council) on this +occasion. A wicked and unfeeling minister (Earl Grenville) has +caused a people, the most loyal and affectionate that ever king +was blest with, to groan under the most insupportable oppression. + +But I think, Sir, that he now stands upon the brink of inevitable +destruction; and trust that soon, very soon, he will feel the +full weight of his injured sovereign's righteous indignation. I +have no doubt, Sir, but that the loyal and dutiful +representations of nine provinces, the cries and supplications of +a distressed people, the united voice of all his Majesty's most +loyal and affectionate British-American subjects, will obtain all +that ample redress which they have a right to expect; and that +erelong they will see their cruel and insidious enemies, both at +home and abroad, put to shame and confusion. + +My brother Adams has entered so largely into the validity of the +act, that I shall not enlarge on that head. Indeed, what has +been observed is sufficient to convince the most illiterate +savage that the Parliament of England had no regard to the very +first principles of their own liberties. + +Only the preamble of that oppressive act is enough to rouse the +blood of every generous Briton.--"We your Majesty's subjects, +the commons of Great Britain, etc., do give and grant"--What? +Their own property? No! The treasure, the heart's blood of all +your Majesty's dutiful and affectionate British-American +subjects. + +But the time is far spent. I will not tire your patience. It +was once a fundamental maxim that every subject had the same +right to his life, liberty, property, and the law that the King +had to his crown; and 'tis yet, I venture to say, as much as a +crown is worth, to deny the subject his law, which is his +birthright. 'Tis a first principle "that Majesty should not only +shine in arms, but be armed with the laws." The administration +of justice is necessary to the very existence of governments. +Nothing can warrant the stopping the course of justice but the +impossibility of holding courts, by reason of war, invasion, +rebellion, or insurrection. This was law at a time when the +whole island of Great Britain was divided into an infinite number +of petty baronies and principalities; as Germany is, at this day. + +Insurrections then, and even invasions, put the whole nation into +such confusion that justice could not have her equal course; +especially as the kings in ancient times frequently sat as +judges. But war has now become so much of a science, and gives +so little disturbance to a nation engaged, that no war, foreign +or domestic, is a sufficient reason for shutting up the courts. +But if it were, we are not in such a state, but far otherwise, +the whole people being willing and demanding the full +administration of justice. The shutting up of the courts is an +abdication, a total dissolution of government. Whoever takes +from the king his executive power, takes from the king his +kingship. "The laws which forbid a man to pursue his right one +way, ought to be understood with this equitable restriction, that +one finds judges to whom he may apply." + +I can't but observe that cruel and unheard-of neglect of that +enemy to his king and country, the author of this Act, that, when +all business, the very life and being of a commercial state, was +to be carried on by the use of stamps, that wicked and execrable +minister never paid the least regard to the miseries of this +extensive continent, but suffered the time for the taking place +of the Act to elapse months before a single stamp was received. +Though this was a high piece of infidelity to the interest of his +royal master, yet it makes it evident that it could never be +intended, that if stamps were not to be had, it should put a stop +to all justice, which is, ipse facto, a dissolution of society. + +It is a strange kind of law which we hear advanced nowadays, that +because one unpopular Act can't be carried into execution, that +therefore there shall be an end of all law. We are not the first +people who have risen to prevent the execution of a law; the very +people of England themselves rose in opposition to the famous +Jew-bill, and got that immediately repealed. And lawyers know +that there are limits, beyond which, if parliaments go, their +acts bind not. + +The king is always presumed to be present in his courts, holding +out the law to his subjects; and when he shuts his courts, he +unkings himself in the most essential point. Magna Charter and +the other statutes are full, "that they will not defer, delay, +nor deny any man justice"; "that it shall not be commanded by the +Great Seal, or in any other way, to disturb or delay common +right." The judges of England are "not to counsel, or assent to +anything which may turn to the damage or disherison of the +crown." They are sworn not to deny to any man common right, by +the king's letters, nor none other man's, nor for none other +cause. Is not the dissolution of society a disherison of the +crown? The "justices are commanded that they shall do even law +and execution of right to all our subjects, rich and poor, +without having regard to any person, without letting to do right +for any letters or commandment which may come to them, or by any +other cause." + + +ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF OTIS, ETC. OTIS AND HIS FELLOW +PATRIOTS. + +Professor Hosmer draws the following pictures of Otis and his +contemporaries: + +"The splendid Otis, whose leadership was at first unquestioned, +was like the huge cannon on the man-of-war, in Victor Hugo's +story, that had broken from its moorings in the storm, and become +a terror to those whom it formerly defended. He was indeed a +great gun, from whom in the time of the Stamp Act had been sent +the most powerful bolts against unconstitutional oppression. +With lashings parted, however, as the storm grew violent he +plunged dangerously from side to side, almost sinking the ship, +all the more an object to dread from the calibre that had once +made him so serviceable. It was a melancholy sight, and yet a +great relief, when his friends saw him at last bound hand and +foot, and carried into retirement. + +"Bowdoin, also, was not firm in health, and though most active +and useful in the Council, had thus far done little elsewhere. +Hawley, far in the interior, was often absent from the centre in +critical times, and somewhat unreliable through a strange +moodiness. Cushing was weak. Hancock was hampered by foibles +that some times quite canceled his merits. Quincy was a +brilliant youth, and, like a youth, sometimes fickle. We have +seen him ready to temporize, when to falter was destruction, as +at the time of the casting over of the tea; again in unwise +fervor, he would counsel assassination as a proper expedient. +Warren, too, could rush into extremes of rashness and ferocity, +wishing that he might wade to the knees in blood, and had just +reached sober, self-reliant manhood when he was taken off. + +"John Adams showed only an intermittent zeal in the public cause +until the preliminary work was done, and Benjamin Church, +half-hearted and venal, early began the double-dealing which was +to bring him to a traitor's end. There was need in this group of +a man of sufficient ascendency, thorough intellect and character, +to win deference from all--wise enough to see always the supreme +end, to know what each instrument was fit for, and to bring all +forces to bear in the right way--a man of consummate adroitness, +to sail in torpedo-sown waters without exciting an explosion, +though conducting wires of local prejudice, class sensitiveness, +and personal foible on every hand led straight down to magazines +of wrath which might shatter the cause in a moment--a man having +resources of his own to such an extent that he could supplement +from himself what was wanting in others--always awake, though +others might want to sleep, always at work though others might be +tired--a man devoted, without thought of personal gain or fame, +simply and solely to the public cause. Such a man there was, and +his name was Samuel Adams." + + +OTIS AND ADAMS. + +Professor Hosmer thus compares Otis and Adams: + +"Otis' power was so magnetic that a Boston town meeting, upon his +mere entering, would break out into shouts and clapping, and if +he spoke he produced effects which may be compared with the sway +exercised by Chatham, whom as an orator he much resembled. Long +after disease had made him utterly untrustworthy, his spell +remained. He brought the American cause to the brink of ruin, +because the people would follow him, though he was shattered. + +"Of this gift Samuel Adams possessed little. He was always in +speech, straightforward and sensible, and upon occasion could be +impressive, but his endowment was not that of the mouth of gold. + +"While Otis was fitful, vacillating and morbid, Samuel Adams was +persistent, undeviating, and sanity itself. While Samuel Adams +never abated by a hair his opposition to the British policy, +James Otis, who at the outset had given the watch-word to the +patriots, later, after Parliament had passed the Stamp Act, said: + +"'It is the duty of all humbly and silently to acquiesce in all +the decisions of the supreme legislature. Nine hundred and +ninety-nine in a thousand will never entertain the thought but of +submission to our sovereign, and to the authority of Parliament +in all possible contingencies.'" + + +OTIS AS AN AUTHOR. + +In 1762, a pamphlet appeared, bearing the following title: "A +Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives, of +the Province of the Massachusetts Bay: more particularly in the +last session of the General Assembly. By James Otis, Esq., a +Member of said House. + +"Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, +Who dare to love their country and be poor. +Or good though rich, humane and wise though great, +Jove give but these, we've naught to fear from fate. + +Boston, printed by Edes and Gill." + +Instead of copious quotations from this patriotic work, we +present the following judgment upon its merits by one best +qualified to estimate its worth. "How many volumes," says John +Adams, "are concentrated in this little fugitive pamphlet, the +production of a few hurried hours, amidst the continual +solicitation of a crowd of clients; for his business at the bar +at that time was very extensive, and of the first importance, and +amidst the host of politicians, suggesting their plans and +schemes! + +"Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs issued by +Congress in 1774. + +"Look into the Declaration of Independence in 1776. + +"Look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. + +"Look into all the French constitutions of government; and to cap +the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense, Crisis, +and Rights of Man;' what can you find that is not to be found in +solid substance in this Vindication of the House of +Representatives?" + + +THE TOWN MEETING. + +Another important feature in the unfolding of our free +institutions, was the system of town meetings which began to be +held as early as 1767. + +"The chief arena of James Otis' and Sam Adams' influence," as +Governor Hutchinson wrote to Lord Dartmouth, "was the town +meeting, that Olympian race-course of the Yankee athlete." + +Writing to Samuel Adams in 1790 John Adams, looking back to the +effect of these events, says: + +"Your Boston town meetings and our Harvard College have set the +universe in motion." + +One held in October of 1767 was presided over by James Otis, and +was called to resist new acts of British aggression on colonial +rights. On September 12, 1768, a town meeting was held, which +was opened with a prayer by Dr. Cooper. Otis was chosen +moderator. + +The petition for calling the meeting requested, that inquiry +should be made of his Excellency, for "the grounds and reasons of +sundry declarations made by him, that three regiments might be +daily expected," etc. + +A committee was appointed to wait upon the governor, urging him +in the present critical state of affairs to issue precepts for a +general assembly of the province, to take suitable measures for +the preservation of their rights and privileges; and that he +should be requested to favor the town with an immediate answer. + +In October several ship-loads of troops arrive. + +The storm thickens. + +Another town meeting is called, and it is voted that the several +ministers of the Gospel be requested to appoint the next Tuesday +as a day of fasting and prayer. + +The day arrives, and the place of meeting is crowded by +committees from sixty-two towns. + +They petition the governor to call a General Court. Otis +appeared in behalf of the people, under circumstances that +strongly, attest his heroism. + +Cannon were planted at the entrance of the building, and a body +of troops were quartered in the representatives' chamber. + +After the court was opened, Otis rose, and moved that they should +adjourn to Faneuil Hall. + +With a significant expression of loathing and scorn, he observed, +"that the stench occasioned by the troops in the hall of +legislation might prove infectious, and that it was utterly +derogatory to the court to administer justice at the points of +bayonets and mouths of cannon." + + +JAMES OTIS AT THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. + +In the sketch of the life of James Otis, as presented in +Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biography," an interesting +account is given of the part James Otis played in the noted +battle of Bunker Hill, in June, 1775. + +The minute men who, hastening to the front, passed by the house +of the sister of James Otis, with whom he was living, at +Watertown, Mass. + +At this time he was harmlessly insane, and did not need special +watching. + +But, as he saw the patriotic farmers hurrying by and heard of the +rumor of the impending conflict, he was suddenly seized with a +martial spirit. Without saying a word to a single soul, he +slipped away unobserved and hurried on towards Boston. On the +roadside he stopped at a farmhouse and borrowed a musket, there +being nothing seemingly in his manner to suggest mental +derangement. Throwing the musket upon his shoulder he hastened +on, and was soon joined by the minute men coming from various +directions. "Falling in" with them, he took an active part in +that eventful contest until darkness closed in upon the +combatants. Then, wearied beyond description, though he was, he +set out for home after midnight. He afterwards pursued his sad +and aimless life, as though nothing unusual had occurred. + + +INFLUENCE OF THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL + +Two days before the battle of Bunker Hill Washington had been +appointed by the Continental Congress Commander in Chief. + +The news of the battle was brought. Foreseeing the significance +of the result he said, "The liberties of the country are safe." + +Four days afterward Thomas Jefferson entered Congress and the +next day news was brought of the Charlestown conflict. "This put +fire into his ideal statesmanship." Patrick Henry hearing of it +said, "I am glad of it; a breach of our affections was needed to +rouse the country to action." + +Franklin wrote to his English friends: "England has lost her +colonies forever." + + +THE ANCESTORS OF JAMES OTIS. + +Carlyle says: "I never knew a clever man who came out of entirely +stupid people." James Otis's great qualities "were an +inheritance, not an accident, and inheritance from the best blood +of old England." Many years ago, when George Ticknor of Boston +was a guest of Lady Holland, at the famous Holland House, in +London, her ladyship remarked to him, in her not very engaging +way: + +"I understand, Mr. Ticknor, that Massachusetts was settled by +convicts." + +"Indeed," said Mr. Ticknor, "I thought I was somewhat familiar +with the history of my State, but I was not aware that what you +say was the case." + +"But," he continued, "I do now remember that some of your +ladyship's ancestors settled in Boston, for there is a monument +to one of them in King's Chapel." + +James Otis inherited that sturdy New England pride which puts +manhood above dukedoms and coronets. + +"A king may make a belted knight, +A marquis, duke and a' that, +But an honest man's aboon his might." + +From a race of the true kings of men he was descended, who +conquered out of the jaws of the wilderness the priceless +inheritance of American privilege and freedom. And while kings +at home were trying to crush out the liberties of their subjects, +or were dallying with wantons in the palaces built out of the +unrequited toil of the long-suffering and downtrodden people, +these men of iron were the pioneers of American civilization, at +a time, which Holmes so graphically describes: + +"When the crows came cawing through the air +To pluck the Pilgrim's corn, +And bears came snuffing round the door +Wherever a babe was born; +And rattlesnakes were bigger round +Than the butt of the old ram's horn +The deacon blew at meeting time, +On every Sabbath morn." + + +COL. BARRE ON JAMES OTIS. + +In the debate on the Boston Port Bill in Parliament, April 15th, +1774, Colonel Barre referred to the ruffianly attack made on Mr. +Otis, and his treatment of the injury, in a manner that reflects +honor on both of the orators. + +"Is this the return you make them?" inquired the British +statesman. + +"When a commissioner of the customs, aided by a number of +ruffians, assaulted the celebrated Mr. Otis, in the midst of the +town of Boston, and with the most barbarous violence almost +murdered him, did the mob, which is said to rule that town, take +vengeance on the perpetrators of this inhuman outrage against a +person who is supposed to be their demagogue? + +"No, sir, the law tried them, the law gave heavy damages against +them, which the irreparably injured Mr. Otis most generously +forgave, upon an acknowledgment of the offense. + +"Can you expect any more such instances of magnanimity under the +principle of the Bill now proposed?" + + +THE GENEROSITY OF OTIS. + +He was distinguished for generosity to both friends and foes. +Governor Hutchinson said of him: "that he never knew fairer or +more noble conduct in a speaker, than in Otis; that he always +disdained to take advantage of any clerical error, or similar +inadvertence, but passed over minor points, and defended his +causes solely on their broad and substantial foundations." + + +JOHN ADAMS ON OTIS. + +But in that contest over the "Writs of Assistance," there was +something nobler exhibited than superiority to mercenary +consideration. + +"It was," says the Venerable President, John Adams, "a moral +spectacle more affecting to me than any I have since seen upon +the stage, to observe a pupil treating his master with all the +deference, respect, esteem, and affection of a son to a father, +and that without the least affectation; while he baffled and +confounded all his authorities, confuted all his arguments, and +reduced him to silence! + +"The crown, by its agents, accumulated construction upon +construction, and inference upon inference, as the giants heaped +Pelion upon Ossa; but Otis, like Jupiter, dashed this whole +building to pieces, and scattered the pulverized atoms to the +four winds; and no judge, lawyer, or crown officer dared to say, +why do ye so? + +"He raised such a storm of indignation, that even Hutchinson, who +had been appointed on purpose to sanction this writ, dared not +utter a word in its favor, and Mr. Gridley himself seemed to me +to exult inwardly at the glory and triumph of his pupil." + + +OTIS COMPARED WITH RANDOLPH. + +"The wit exemplified by Mr. Otis in debate," says Dr. Magoon, +"was often keen but never malignant, as in John Randolph. The +attacks of the latter were often fierce and virulent, not +unfrequently in an inverse proportion to the necessity of the +case. + +"He would yield himself up to a blind and passionate obstinacy, +and lacerate his victims for no apparent reason but the mere +pleasure of inflicting pangs. + +"In this respect, the orator of Roanoke resembled the Sicilian +tyrant whose taste for cruelty led him to seek recreation in +putting insects to the torture. If such men cannot strike strong +blows, they know how to fight with poisonous weapons; thus by +their malignity, rather than by their honorable skill, they can +bring the noblest antagonist to the ground. + +"But Mr. Otis pursued more dignified game and with a loftier +purpose. + +"He indeed possessed a Swiftian gift of sarcasm, but, unlike the +Dean of St. Patrick's, and the forensic gladiator alluded to +above, he never employed it in a spirit of hatred and contempt +towards the mass of mankind. + +"Such persons should remember the words of Colton, that, 'Strong +and sharp as our wit may be, it is not so strong as the memory of +fools, nor so keen as their resentment; he that has strength of +mind to forgive, is by no means weak enough to forget; and it is +much more easy to do a cruel thing than to say a severe one.'" + + +ORATORICAL POWERS + +Many of the most effective orators, of all ages, have not been +most successful in long and formal efforts. Nor have they always +been close and ready debaters. "Sudden bursts which seemed to be +the effect of inspiration--short sentences which came like +lightning, dazzling, burning, striking down everything before +them--sentences which, spoken at critical moments, decided the +fate of great questions--sentences which at once became proverbs +--sentences which everybody still knows by heart"--in these +chiefly lay the oratorical power of Mirabeau and Chatham, Patrick +Henry and James Otis.--E. L. Magoon. + + +THE ELOQUENCE OF OTIS. + +Otis was naturally elevated in thought, and dwelt with greatest +delight in the calm contemplation of the lofty principles which +should govern political and moral conduct. + +And yet he was keenly suspectible to excitement. His intellect +explored the wilderness of the universe only to increase the +discontent of those noble aspirations of his soul which were +never at rest. + +In early manhood he was a close student, but as he advanced in +age he became more and more absorbed in public action. + +As ominous storms threatened the common weal, he found less +delight in his library than in the stern strife of the forum. + +As he prognosticated the coming tempest and comprehended its +fearful issue, he became transformed in aspect like one inspired. + +His appearance in public always commanded prompt and profound +attention; he both awed and delighted the multitudes whom his +bold wisdom so opportunely fortified. + +"Old South," the "Old Court House," and the "Cradle of liberty," +in Boston, were familiar with his eloquence, that resounded like +a cheerful clarion in "days that tried men's souls." It was then +that his great heart and fervid intellect wrought with +disinterested and noble zeal; his action became vehement, and his +eyes flashed with unutterable fire; his voice, distinct, +melodious, swelling, and increasing in height and depth with each +new and bolder sentiment, filled, as with the palpable presence +of a deity, the shaking walls. The listeners became rapt and +impassioned like the speaker, till their very breath forsook +them. + +He poured forth a "flood of argument and passion" which achieved +the sublimes" earthly good, and happily exemplified the +description which Percival has given of indignant patriotism +expressed in eloquence: + +"Its words +Are few, but deep and solemn, and they break +Fresh from the fount of feeling, and are full +Of all that passion, which, on Carmel, fired +The holy prophet, when his lips were coals, +The language winged with terror, as when bolts +Leap from the brooding tempest, armed with wrath +Commissioned to affright us, and destroy."--E. L. Magoon. + + +OTIS COMPARED WITH AMERICAN ORATORS. + +"His eloquence, like that of his distinguished successors, was +marked by a striking individuality. + +"It did not partake largely of the placid firmness of Samuel +Adams; or of the intense brilliancy and exquisite taste of the +younger Quincy; or the subdued and elaborate beauty of Lee; or +the philosophical depth of John Adams; or the rugged and +overwhelming energy of Patrick Henry; though he, most of all +Americans, resembled the latter."--E. L. Magoon. + + +OTIS COMPARED WITH ENGLISH ORATORS. + +"Compared with English orators," Dr. Magoon says, "our great +countryman was not unlike Sheridan in natural endowment. + +"Like him, he was unequaled in impassioned appeals to the general +heart of mankind. + +"He swayed all by his electric fire; charmed the timid, and +inspired the weak; subdued the haughty, and enthralled the +prejudiced. + +"He traversed the field of argument and invective as a Scythian +warrior scours the plain, shooting most deadly arrows when at the +greatest speed. + +"He rushed into forensic battle, fearless of all consequences; +and as the ancient war-chariot would sometimes set its axle on +fire by the rapidity of its own movement, so would the ardent +soul of Otis become ignited and fulminate with thought, as he +swept irresistibly to the goal. + +"When aroused by some great crisis, his eloquent words were like +bolts of granite heated in a volcano, and shot forth with +unerring aim, crashing where they fell." + + +PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. + +In respect to physical ability, Otis was happily endowed. One +who knew him well has recorded, that "he was finely formed, and +had an intelligent countenance: his eye, voice, and manner were +very impressive. + +"The elevation of his mind, and the known integrity of his +purposes, enabled him to speak with decision and dignity, and +commanded the respect as well as the admiration of his audience. + +"His eloquence showed but little imagination, yet it was instinct +with the fire of passion." + +"It may be not unjustly said of Otis, as of Judge Marshall, that +he was one of those rare beings that seem to be sent among men +from time to time, to keep alive our faith in humanity. + +"He had a wonderful power over the popular feelings, but he +employed it only for great public benefits. He seems to have +said to himself, in the language of the great master of the +maxims of life and conduct: + +"This above all,--to thine own self be true, +And it must follow, as the night the day, +Thou canst not then be false to any man." + + +PORTRAIT OF OTIS. + +The portrait of James Otis, Jr., published as a frontispiece to +this sketch, is from the oil-painting loaned to the Bostonian +Society, by Harrison Gray Otis, of Winthrop, Massachusetts. The +painting from which it is taken, now hanging in the Old State +House of Boston, is a reproduction of the original portrait by I. +Blackburn, to whom Mr. Otis sat for his portrait in 1755. The +original in possession of Mrs. Rogers, a descendant of James +Otis, may be seen at her residence, No. 8 Otis Place, Boston. +But the original is not so well adapted as is the copy to +photographic reproduction. The two portraits are identical in +feature and character, but the original having a light background +offends the camera. + + +THE SOURCE AND OCCASION OF THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. + +"The question is, perhaps more curious than profitable, that +relates to the source and occasion of the first of that series of +events which produced the war of the Revolution. Men have often +asked, what was its original cause, and who struck the first +blow? This inquiry was well answered by President Jefferson, in +a letter to Dr. Waterhouse of Cambridge, written March 3rd, 1818. + +"'I suppose it would be difficult to trace our Revolution to its +first embryo. We do not know how long it was hatching in the +British cabinet, before they ventured to make the first of the +experiments which were to develop it in the end, and to produce +complete parliamentary supremacy. + +"'Those you mention in Massachusetts as preceding the Stamp Act +might be the first visible symptoms of that design. The +proposition of that Act, in 1764, was the first here. Your +opposition, therefore, preceded ours, as occasion was sooner +given there than here, and the truth, I suppose, is, that the +opposition, in every colony, began whenever the encroachment was +presented to it. + +"'This question of priority is as the inquiry would be, who first +of the three hundred Spartans offered his name to Leonidas. I +shall be happy to see justice done to the merits of all.'" + +"In the primitive opposition made by Otis to the arbitrary acts +of Trade, aided by the Writs of Assistance, he announced two +maxims which lay at the foundation of all the subsequent war; one +was, that 'taxation without representation was tyranny,' the +other, 'that expenditures of public money without appropriations +by the representatives of the people, were arbitrary, and +therefore unconstitutional. '" + +"This early and acute sagacity of our statesman, led Burke finely +to describe the political feeling in America as follows; + +"'In other countries, the people, more simple, of a less +mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government, only by +an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of +the pressure of the grievance, by the badness of the principle. + +"'They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach +of tyranny in every tainted breeze.'"--E. L. Magoon. + + +STAMPS AND THE STAMP ACT. + +During Robert Walpole's administration [1732], a stamp duty was +proposed. He said "I will leave the taxation of America to some +of my successors, who have more courage than I have." + +Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, proposed a tax in +1739. Franklin thought it just, when a delegate in the Colonial +Congress at Albany, in 1754. But when it was proposed to Pitt in +1759 the great English statesman said: "I will never burn my +fingers with the American stamp act." + + +THE STAMPS. + +The stamps were upon blue paper, and were to be attached to every +piece of paper or parchment, on which a legal instrument was +written. For these stamps the Government charged specific +prices, for example, for a common property deed, one shilling and +sixpence. + + +THE MINUTE-MAN OF THE REVOLUTION. + +The Minute-man of the Revolution! He was the old, the +middle-aged, and the young. He was Capt. Miles, of Concord, who +said that he went to battle as he went to church. He was Capt. +Davis, of Acton, who reproved his men for jesting on the march. +He was Deacon Josiah Haynes, of Sudbury, 80 years old, who +marched with his company to the South Bridge at Concord, then +joined in the hot pursuit to Lexington, and fell as gloriously as +Warren at Bunker Hill. He was James Hayward, of Acton, 22 years +old, foremost in that deadly race from Concord to Charlestown, +who raised his piece at the same moment with a British soldier, +each exclaiming, "You are a dead man!" The Briton dropped, shot +through the heart. + +James Hayward fell mortally wounded. "Father," he said, "I +started with forty balls; I have three left. I never did such a +day's work before. Tell mother not to mourn too much, and tell +her whom I love more than my mother, that I am not sorry I turned +out."--George W. Curtis. + + +THE BOSTON COMMON SCHOOLS. + +The Boston Common Schools were the pride of the town. They were +most jealously guarded, and were opened each day with public +prayer. + +They were the nurseries of a true democracy. In them the men who +played the most important part in the Revolutionary period +received their early education. + +The Adamses, Chancey, Cooper, Cushing, Hancock, Mayhew, Warren, +and the rest breathed their bracing atmosphere. + + +ENGLAND AND AMERICA. + +I have already dwelt on the significance of the way in which the +Pilgrim Fathers, driven out of England, begin this compact, with +which they begin their life in this new world, with warm +professions of allegiance to England's King. + +Old England, whose King and bishops drove them out, is proud of +them to-day, and counts them as truly her children as Shakespeare +and Milton and Vane. + +As the American walks the corridors and halls of the Parliament +House at Westminster, he pays no great heed to the painted kings +upon the painted windows, and cares little for the gilded throne +in the gilded House of Lords. The Speaker's chair in the Commons +does not stir him most, nor the white form of Hampden that stands +silent at the door; but his heart beats fastest where, among +great scenes from English triumphs of the days of Puritanism and +the revolution, he sees the departure of the Pilgim Fathers to +found New England. + +England will not let that scene go as a part of American history +only, but claims it now as one of the proudest scenes in her own +history, too. + +It is a bud of promise, I said, when I first saw it there. Shall +not its full unfolding be some great reunion of the English race, +a prelude to the federation of the world? + +Let that picture there in the Parliament House at Westminster +stay always in your mind, to remind you of the England in you. +Let the picture of the signing of the compact on the "Mayflower" +stay with it, to remind you of progress and greater freedom. +That, I take it, is what America--New England, now tempered by +New Germany, New Ireland, New France--that, I take it, is what +America stands for.--Edwin D. Mead. + + +THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION. + +You may perhaps remember how Wendell Phillips, in his great +Harvard address on "The Scholar and the Republic" reproached some +men of learning for their conservatism and timidity, their +backwardness in reform. And it is true that conservatism and +timidity are never so hateful and harmful as in the scholar. "Be +bold, be bold, and evermore be bold," those words which Emerson +liked to quote, are words which should ever ring in the scholar's +ear. + +But you must remember that Roger Williams and Sir Harry Vane, the +very men whom Wendell Phillips named as "two men deepest in +thought and bravest in speech of all who spoke English in their +day," came, the one from Cambridge, the other from Oxford; and +that Sam Adams and Jefferson, the two men whom he named as +preeminent, in the early days of the republic, for their trust in +the people, were the sons of Harvard and William and Mary. John +Adams and John Hancock and James Otis and Joseph Warren, the +great Boston leaders in the Revolution, were all Harvard men, +like Samuel Adams; and you will remember how many of the great +Virginians were, like Jefferson, sons of William and Mary. + +And never was a revolution so completely led by scholars as the +great Puritan Revolution which planted New England and +established the English commonwealth. + +No. Scholars have often enough been cowards and trimmers. + +But from the days when Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the +Egyptians, brought his people up out of bondage, and Paul, who +had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, preached Christ, and Wyclif and +Luther preached Reformation, to the time when Eliot and Hampden +and Pym and Cromwell and Milton and Vane, all scholars of Oxford +and Cambridge, worked for English commonwealth, to the time of +Jefferson and Samuel Adams and the time of Emerson and Sumner and +Gladstone, scholars have been leaders and heroes too.--Edwin D. +Mead. + + +EARL PERCY AND YANKEE DOODLE. + +Earl Percy was the son of the Duke of Northumberland. When he +was marching out of Boston, his band struck up the tune of Yankee +Doodle, in derision. + +He saw a boy in Roxbury making himself very merry as he passed. + +Percy inquired why he was so merry. + +"To think," said the lad, "how you will dance by and by to Chevy +Chase." + +Percy was much influenced by presentiments, and the words of the +boy made him moody. Percy was a lineal descendant of the Earl +Percy who was slain in the battle of Chevy Chase, and he felt all +day as if some great calamity might befall him. + + +STORY OF JAMES OTIS. FOR A SCHOOL OR CLUB PROGRAMME. + +Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or member to +read, or to recite in a clear, distinct tone. + +If the school or club is small, each person may take three or +four paragraphs, but should not be required to recite them in +succession. + +1. James Otis was born in West Barnstable, near the center of +Massachusetts, February 5, 1725. + +2. His ancestors were of English descent. The founder of the +family in America, John Otis, came from Hingham, in Norfolk, +England, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in the year 1635. + + +3. His grandson, John Otis, was born in 1635. He removed from +Hingham to Barnstable, where he became a prominent man and held +several important positions. For eighteen years he was Colonel +of Militia, for twenty years Representative, for twenty-one years +member of the Council, for thirteen years Chief Justice of common +pleas, and Judge of Probate. + +4. His two sons, John and James, became distinguished in public +life. James, the father of the subject of this sketch, was an +eminent lawyer. He, like his father, became Colonel of Militia, +Chief Justice of common pleas, and Judge of Probate. + +5. James Otis, Jr. thus by inheritance, derived his legal bent +and love for political life. + +6. His mother's name was Mary Allyne, or Alleyne, of +Wethersfield, Conn., daughter of Joseph Allyne, of Plymouth. She +was connected with the founders of Plymouth colony, who arrived +in the Mayflower in 1620. + +7. James was the oldest of thirteen children, several of whom +died in infancy. Others lived to attain distinction. + +8. He was fitted for College by the Rev. Jonathan Russell of +Barnstable, and was so industrious in his studies that he was +ready in his fifteenth year to enter as a freshman at Harvard in +June, 1739. + +9. There is grave reason for believing that his excessive +devotion to study at this early period, had much to do with his +nervous and excitable condition in succeeding years. + +10. "Make haste slowly" is the translation of a Latin motto, +which parents and teachers ought to observe in the education of +children. + +11. Far better is it for the student to take time in making a +thorough preparation for the great work of life, than to rush +through his preparatory course at the great risk of health and +strength. Let him aim ever be to present "a sound mind in a +sound body." + +12. James Otis was graduated from college in 1743, after +completing a four years successful course. + +13. After graduation he wisely gave nearly two years to the +pursuits of general literature and science before entering upon +the law. + +14. In this, he set a good example to the young men of the +present day, who are so strongly tempted to enter at once upon +professional life, without laying a broad and deep foundation for +future usefulness. + +15. James Otis was very fond of the best poets, and "in the +zealous emulation of their beauties," says Dr. Magoon, "he +energized his spirit and power of expression. + +16. "He did not merely read over the finest passages--he pondered +them--he fused them into his own soul, and reproduced their +charms with an energy all his own." + +17. In 1745 he entered the law office of Jeremiah Gridley, in +Boston, who was then one of the most distinguished lawyers in the +country. + +18. He began the practice of law in Plymouth, in 1748, but soon +found that he was "cabined, cribbed and confined" in the +opportunity to rise in such a small place. + +19. In 1750 he removed to Boston, and there finding full scope +for his powers, soon rose to the foremost rank in his profession. + +20. He justly won the high place so generally accorded him, by +his learning, his integrity, and his marvelous eloquence. + +21. In acting successfully as counsel for the three men who were +accused of piracy in Halifax, he received a well earned fee, +which was the largest that had ever been paid to a Massachusetts +lawyer. + +22. Like James A. Garfield, he kept up a lively interest in +classical studies during his entire professional career. + +23. James Otis married Miss Ruth Cunningham, daughter of a Boston +merchant, early in 1755. + +24. The marriage was not in all respects a happy one, partly on +account of political differences. While he became an ardent +patriot, she remained a staunch loyalist until her death on Nov. +15, 1789. + +25. Another reason for the want of complete domestic felicity was +the peculiar character of his genius, which, so often glowing, +excitable and irregular, must have frequently demanded a home +forbearance almost miraculous. + +26. The elder daughter, Elizabeth, married a Captain Brown of the +British army, and ended her days in England. 27. The younger +daughter, Mary, married Benjamin, the eldest son of the +distinguished General Lincoln. + +28. In 1761, when he was thirty-six years of age his great +political career began, by his determined opposition to the +"Writs of Assistance." + +29. He said with an eloquence that thrilled every heart, "A man's +house is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded +as a prince in his castle. This Writ, if it should be declared +legal, would totally annihilate this privilege." + +30. "I am determined to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause +and even life, to the sacred calls of my country in opposition to +a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king his head and +another his throne." + +31. In 1762 he published a pamphlet entitled, "The Rights of the +Colonies Vindicated," which attracted great attention in England +for its finished diction and masterly arguments. + +32. In this production he firmly took the unassailable position, +that in all questions relating to the expenditure of public +money, the rights of a Colonial Legislature were as sacred as the +rights of the House of Commons. + +33. Some of the Parliamentary leaders in England spoke of the +work with contempt. Lord Mansfield, the great English legal +luminary, who had carefully read it, rebuked them for their +attitude towards it. + +34. But they rejoined, as quoted by Bancroft, "The man is mad!" +"What then?" answered Mansfield. "One mad man often makes many. +Massaniello was mad--nobody doubted it--yet for all that he +overturned the government of Naples." + +35. In June, 1765, Mr. Otis proposed the calling of a congress of +delegates from all the colonies to consider the Stamp Act. + +36. In that famous Congress which met in October, 1765, in +New York, he was one of the delegates, and was appointed on the +committee to prepare an address to the Commons of England. + +37. In 1767 he was elected Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. +Governor Bernard took a decidedly negative position against the +fiery orator, whom he feared as much as he did the intrepid Sam +Adams. + +38. But Bernard could not put a padlock upon the lips of Otis. +When the king, who was greatly offended at the Circular Letter to +the colonies, which requested them to unite in measures for +redress demanded of Bernard to dismiss the Assembly unless it +should rescind its action, Otis made a flaming speech. + +39. His adversaries said, "It was the most violent, abusive and +treasonable declaration that perhaps was ever uttered." + +40. In the debate which ensued upon this royal order, Otis said: +"We are asked to rescind, are we? Let Great Britain rescind her +measures, or the colonies are lost to her forever." + +41. Otis carried the House triumphantly with him, and it refused +to rescind by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen. + +42. In the summer of 1769 he attacked some of the revenue +officers in an article in "The Boston Gazette." A few evenings +afterwards, while sitting in the British coffee-house in Boston, +he was savagely assaulted by a man named Robinson, who struck him +on the head with a heavy cane or sword. + +43. The severe wound which was produced so greatly aggravated the +mental disease which had before been somewhat apparent, that his +reason rapidly forsook him. + +44. Otis obtained a judgment of L2,000 against Robinson for the +attack, but when the penitent officer made a written apology for +his irreparable offense, the sufferer refused to take a penny. + +45. In 1771 he was elected to the legislature, and sometimes +afterward appeared in court and in the town meeting, but found +himself unable to take part in public business. + +46. In June, 1775, while living in a state of harmless insanity +with his sister, Mercy Warren, at Watertown, Mass., he heard, +according to Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biography," the +rumor of battle. On the 17th he slipped away unobserved, +"borrowed a musket from some farmhouse by the roadside, and +joined the minute men who were marching to the aid of the troops +on Bunker Hill." + +47. "He took an active part in that battle, and after it was +over made his way home again after midnight." + +48. The last years of his life were spent at the residence of +Mr. Osgood in Andover. For a brief season it seemed as though +his reason was restored. He even undertook a case in the Court +of Common Pleas in Boston, but found himself unequal to the +exertion demanded of him. + +49. He had been persuaded to dine with Governor Hancock and some +other friends. "But the presence of his former friends and the +revived memories of previous events, gave a great shock to his +broken mind." He was persuaded to go back at once to the +residence of Mr. Osgood. + +50. After his mind had become unsettled he said to Mrs. Warren, +"My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous +providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will +be by a flash of lightning," and this wish he often repeated. + +51. Six weeks exactly after his return, on May 23, 1783, while +standing in the side doorway during a thunder-shower, with his +cane in his hand, and telling the assembled family a story, he +was struck by lightning and instantly killed. Not one of the +seven or eight persons in the room was injured. "No mark of any +kind could be found on Otis, nor was there the slightest change +or convulsion on his features." + +52. His remains were brought to Boston and interred in the +Granary Burying Ground with every mark of respect, a great +number of the citizens attending his funeral. + +53. James Otis sowed the seeds of liberty in this new world +without living to see the harvest, and probably without ever +dreaming what magnificent crops would be produced. + +54. When the usurpations of un-English parliamentarians and their +allies at home, became as burdensome, as they were unjust he +defended his countrymen, in whose veins flowed the best of +English blood, with an eloquence whose ultimate influence +transcended his own sublime aspirations. + +55. He taught, in the ominous words, which King James's first +House of Commons addressed to the House of Lords, immediately +after the monarch had been lecturing them on his own prerogative, +that "There may be a People without a king;, but there can be no +king without a people." + +56. "Fortunately for civil liberty in England and America, in all +countries and in all times," as Edward Everett Hale says, "none +of the Stuarts ever learned in time what this ominous sentence +means--ot James I, the most foolish of them, nor Charles I, the +most false; nor Charles II, the most worthless; nor James II, the +most obstinate." + +57. It could be said of Otis as Coleridge said of O'Connell, "See +how triumphant in debate and action he is. And why? Because he +asserts a broad principle, acts up to it, rests his body upon it, +and has faith in it." + + +PROGRAMME FOR A JAMES OTIS EVENING. + +1. Music 2. Vocal Music--"Remember the Maine." 3. Essay-- +"The True Relation of England as a Nation to the Colonies." 4. +Vocal or Instrumental Music. 5. Essay--"Writs of Assistance, +and Otis' Relation to Them." 6. Music. 7. A Stereopticon +Lecture, illustrating the Famous Buildings and noted features of +Boston--The Old North Church, The Old South, Copp's Hill, Bunker +Hill, North Square, House of Paul Revere, Site of the Old Dragon +Inn, The Old State House, Faneuil Hall, etc. 8. Singing-- +"America." + + +QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. + +Where is the Granary Burying Ground? Why so named? What +distinguishes it? Can you give the names of some eminent persons +buried there? In what tomb was James Otis interred? What +interesting particular was noted when his body was disinterred? + +What names are given to the pre-revolutionists, the +revolutionists, and the post-revolutionists? + +Who is assigned the first place among the protagonists of +freedom? Who the second? What is the remarkable thing about the +lives of many great men? Will you expand the thought? + +When and where was James Otis born? What offices did he fill? +When was James Otis, Jr. born? What did he inherit from his +father and grandfather? What were transmitted to other members +of the family? Give the name of one of these members and her +peculiar gifts. What was the name of one of the brothers, and +what is said of him? + +By whom was James Otis prepared for College? When did he enter +College? What is the tradition concerning him? What is said of +his College course? What of his excitable temperament? What +anecdote is recorded of him? When, and under what distinguished +lawyer did he begin his legal studies? What is said of his +preceptor? + +When and where did he begin to practice law? What are some of +the incidents of his early legal career? What is said of the +defense by Otis of citizens in connection with the anniversary of +the Gunpowder Plot? What is the history of the Gunpowder Plot? +When was the first period of his Boston practice? What is said +of the non-preservation of the legal pleas and addresses of James +Otis? What does tradition say of him as an orator? + +When and whom did Otis marry? What is said of the Cunnningham +family? What is said of Mrs. Otis? Who comprised the family of +Mr. and Mrs. Otis? What is said of the marriage of the elder +daughter? What of the younger daughter? + +When was the second period in James Otis's life? What is said of +him as a rising man? What is said of his scholastic and literary +pursuits, etc.? What works did he compose? What did James Otis +say about the bad literary tastes of the boys of his time? + +Of what is every man the joint product? What were the conditions +under which the colonial settlements were formed? What were the +feelings of the colonists towards England? + +What specific conditions in the development of the colonies may +be noted? What were the immediate and forceful causes towards +revolution? What is said of the Navigation Act? of the +Importation Act? What kind of a question was that at issue? +Why? + +What is said of the seaboard towns? of the traffic with the West +Indies? What period did the epoch of evasion cover? What is said +of the iron and steel industry? of ship building? + +What did Hutchinson say of his own Appointment? What were some +of the personal forces at work? What is said of Hutchinson and +others? What slander of James Otis was current? In what +language was the case regarding the Writs of Assistance made up? +What is said of the trial of the case? Who was one of the +eminent spectators? What was the relation of Otis to it? + +What did Chief Justice Hutchinson advise in the case of the Writs +of Assistance? What is the story narrated of Otis regarding his +want of self-control? + +What is said of the controversy between Hutchinson and Otis? +What resolution did Otis offer in 1762? What is said of his +pamphlet on "The Vindication of the Conduct of the House of +Representatives," etc.? What is said of the Treaty of Paris? +What of the feelings of Americans towards the mother country? +What of the utterances of Otis? + +What did the Americans claim? What was the reply of Parliament? +What is said of the Sugar Act? What of Otis' relations to +Lieut.-Governor Hutchinson? Of his relations to the Sugar Act +and Stamp Act? Of his relation to an Intercolonial conference? +What was Franklin's opinion of this conference? What is the +substance of Mr. Otis' letter to the provincial agent? Of Lord +Mansfield's view of it? + + +SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY. 1. The French and Indian War. 2. +James Otis as an Orator. 3. The English Colonies in America. +4. The Influence of College Men in Public Life. 5. How the +American Colonies Grew Together. 6. The Commercial Causes of +the Revolution. 7. The Political Causes of the Revolution. 8. +Otis Compared with Samuel Adams. 9. The Repeal of the Stamp Act. + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE IN THE LIFE OF JAMES OTIS. + +1725 Born in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, Feb. 5. +1739 Entered Harvard College, June. +1743 Was graduated from Harvard. +1745 Begins the study of law. +1748 Begins the practice of law at Plymouth, Massachusetts. +1750 Removes to Boston. +1755 Marries Miss Ruth Cunningham. +1760 Publishes "Rudiments of Latin Prosody." +1761 Opposes the "Writs of Assistance." +1762 Publishes "The Rights of the Colonies Vindicated." +1765 Moves resolution for Congress of Delegates to consider "The +Stamp Act," June. +Attends the Congress called to consider "The Stamp Act" in New +York, and appointed on the committee to prepare address to +Parliament, October. +1767 Elected Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. +1769 Attacked and severely injured by Robinson. +1771 Elected to the legislature of Massachusetts. +1775 Participates in the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17. +1778 Pleads case before court in Boston +1783 Killed by stroke of lightning at Andover, Mass., May 23. + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + +For those who wish to read extensively, the following works are +especially commended: + +Library of American Biography. Jared Sparks. Vol. 2. Boston +Charles C. Little and James Brown. 1846. + +Life of James Otis. By William Tudor. + +Orators of the American Revolution. E. L. Magoon. + +"Otis Papers." In Collection of Massachusetts Historical Society, +Boston, 1897. + +"Life of James Otis." By Francis Bowen, in Sparks' American +Biography. Vol. XII Boston. 1846. + +Cyclopedia of American Biography. D. Appleton & Co. New York. + +American Law Register. Vol. 3, page 641. + +North American Review. Vol. 16, page 337. J. C. Gray. + +"The Old South Leaflets," prepared by Edwin D. Mead. D. C. Heath +& Co., Boston, Publishers. + +DeToqueville's Democracy in America. + +Works of John Fiske. + +Ridpath's History of the United States. + +Ellis' History of the United States. + + + + + +End Project Gutenberg Etext of James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist + Binary files differdiff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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