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American
^btoni Ccaflels
COLONIAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL.
EDITED 3Y
ALBERT BUSHMBILL HART AND EDW4HR CHANHINC*
1 * ¦ v
Qv Harvard U'Hteksitv.

NO. 33

JAMES OTiS'S SPEECH ON THE
WRITS OF ASSISTANCE. .
1761.

PARKER P. SIMMONS

T0I2

SBQaBrngHGUBBBBtB

Entered ct the .Yew York Post Office as second glass matter.
Co?VKIOHT i«05 BV A. LOVELL & COMPANY

PUNCTUATION
PRAOTIOALLY ILLIJSTBiVTBiX
A Manual for Students and Correspondent*.
By KATB O'NEILC,
Of the Richmond, Virginia; High School
timo. Cloth. tga Pages,] : Price, so Cents,
This manual on Punctuation contains all the rules and exceptions oa
feis important but much neglected subject. The proper use of each point
fo practically illustrated by numerous examples in sentences so constructed
as to show clearly the correct application of these rules.
Proper study of this bopk will do much to counteract the tendency to
errors in the use of punctuation marks — errors that are so common, and
that spoil so much that would otherwise br good.
The treatment of the subject is condensed and thoroughly covered.
It will be found very helpful to all who write for the press, and especially
to the large number of correspondents and stenographers whose letters
should show a proper use of ' ' points.''

A FEW TESTIMONIALS.
" This is one of the best helps to punctuation that has been prepared
for the class and the individual. It is clear, concise, well illustratedj
and every way helpful.''— feurnal of Education.
" A useful little manual for all who write for the press, for corre
spondents, stenographers and typewriters. It is especially commendable
for its clearness and simplicity of language and treatment. A little careful
study of these few concise pages will do much to put the whole subject
in a clear light, and will repay any writer who feels, as so many do,
Vague and uncertain as to what is really correct," — The Christian Advocate.
" A compact and useful little book which does not deal so much with
the philosophy of punctuation as with its practical side." — The Daily
Times, Hartford.
" We wish that every one of our correspondents possessed this book.1
There is more good sense in it. on punctuation and the proper placing of
signs to bring out the meaning than we have found in nny other book,
and they are »o explain d that the commonest Persona can understand
them."— O^—rvator, Huntington, Ind.

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JAMES OTIS.
(See piige 98.)

JAMES OTIS

THE PRE-REVOLUTIONIST

A BRIEF INTERPRETATION OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF
A PATRIOT

JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D.
Author of a "CyclopitJia ot Universal History,'' "Great (.acts, of JVlankmJ," " Lite ana
Times of William H. Glajslone," etc., ek.

WITH ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS AND
CHRONOLOGY

CHICAGO
The University Association
Assnciatiun BuiUin#

CopyriRht, 1808,
By Tiik UNtvtiKsiTY Association.

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NEAR the northeast corner of the old Common of
Boston a section of ground was put apart long be
fore 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 un
til 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 prc-revolutionary
epoch were laid to their last repose. The word cemetery
is from Greek and means the little place zvhere I lie
doivn. 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

'< JAMES OTIS.
perhaps of them all; but whose last days were so strange
ly 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 he
roes, 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 for
ever 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 sepul
chre were several bodies. One was the body of Nathan
iel Cunningham, Sr. Another was Ruth Cunningham,

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Old Granary Burying Ground, Boston.

S JAMES OTIS.
his wife. The younger members of the family were
also there in death. 4
When the lid of one coffin in this invaded tomb was
lilted, 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 search
ing 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 be
ing 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 courage
ous herald who ran swinging a torch in the early dawn
of the American Revolution.
The pre-revolutionists are the Titans of human his
tory; the revolutionists proper are only heroes; and the
post-revolutionists are. too frequently dwarfs and weak
lings. This signifies that civilization advances by revo
lutionary stages, and that history sends out her tallest

JAMES OTIS. 0
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 il
lustrated 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 sec
ond man; for there are several who come after. In the
case of our forerunners the second may have been Thom
as 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 tradi
tion. Nor does the effort to discover the details of such

iO JAMES OTIS.
lives yield any considerable results. There are great
names which have come to ns 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 con
spicuous part in the drama of their times is so meagre
and uncertain that critical disputes have arisen respect
ing 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 consider-
erable 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 charac
ters 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 biog
rapher. James Otis belonged to the first of these classes.
There is a measure of elnsiveness 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 An
dover and Boston, with an occasional visit to Plymouth,
he fell into a fit of pessimism and despair during which

JAMES OTIS. "
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 ad
equate 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 pub
lications 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 Pat
rick Henry who appears only fitfully in history,but with
meteoric brilliancy; or with Abraham Lincoln the nar
rative 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
anc] weak. The Otis family was among the first to set
tle 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, re
moved to Barnstable, near the ceirur 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 lie was promoted
to the place of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and
while holding this important place he was also judge of

12 JAMES OTIS.
the Probate Court. The family flourished and rose 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 thir
teen children. The eldest was a son, and to him was
given his father's name. It was to this child that desti
ny had assigned the heroic work of confronting the ag
gressions 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 Barn
stable 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 pol
itics — an enthusiasm which could hardly be restrained.
She wrote and conversed in a fiery manner on the revo-

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Col. James Otis, of Barnstable.
Father of James Otis, the Pre-Revolutionlst. From a photosianh nt th..
original painting in the hall of the OKI Slate House, Hoston
U JAMES OTIS.
lutionary 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 col
onial policy of Great Britain, calling her brochure "The
Group." Fifteen years afterwards she published a vol
ume 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, out
lived 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 as
signed to the care of Reverend Jonathan Russell, the
minister at Barnstable, who prepared the youth for col
lege. By the middle of his fifteenth year he was thought

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St. Clair.
Livingston. Knox. Sherman. Steuben.
Otis. Washington. Adams.
Inauguration of Washington.
(Samuel Allcyne Otis holding the Bible.)

if> JAMES OTIS.
to be ready for matriculation. He was accordingly en
tered 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 preco
cious 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
tliese characteristics are noticeable in his college career.
At Harvard he showed an abundance of youthful spirits,
a strong social disposition, and a well-marked discrimi
nation 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,
lie 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 con
troversial dispute, would become so tense with excite
ment as to provoke remark. Nor may we in the retro
spect fail to discover in this quality of mind and temper

JAMES OTIS. '7
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 accomplish
ments. He had a passion for music and learned to play
the violin. With this instrument he was wont to enter
tain himself in the intervals of stud}'. Sometimes he
would play for company. It was one of his habits lo
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 exer
cises 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 ap
pear, however, that his college studies were especially
directed to this end. At any rate, he did not devote him
self at once to the law, but assiduously for two years
(1743-45) to a general course of study chosen and direc
ted by himself, with a view to the further discipline of

i8 JAMES OTIS.
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

Samuel AUeyne Otis.
this course with himself he insisted that his younger
brother, Samuel Alleyne Otis,shonld take the same course.
In one of his letters to his father — a communication fort
unately rescued from the holocaust of his correspondence
— he discusses the question and urges the propriety of

JAMES OTIS. ie.
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 Sam
uel 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 labori
ous 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

=o JAMES OTIS.
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 be
yond the conventional student period. Mr. Otis then
declares his conviction that a young man may well pro
crastinate 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 bet
ter results than can be attained by a youth who be
gins 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 Jere
miah Gridley who at that time was already regarded as
one of the most able and accomplished lawyers in Massa
chusetts. Preceptor and student were at the first in ac
cord in their political and social principles. At the
time of the young man's law course, Gridley was a mem
ber 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 conten
tion with the mother country. Afterwards, however, by
accepting the appointment of Attorney General he be
came 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

JAMES OTIS. 21
remarkable case which preceded the Revolution.
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 pres
ent day. The student was obliged to begin de novo with
tlie 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 Parlia
ment, 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 ap
plied for admission to the bar, and was accepted by the
court. He began to practice in 174S — the year of the
treaty of Aix-la-Chajielle, when the political and histori
cal 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 af
fairs of the town or the larger affairs of the common
wealth. The tax records show his name with an entry

-2 JAMES OTIS.
to the effect that in 1748 he estimated his personal es
tate 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 impres
sion 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 ac
quired 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 at
tention of both court and people. Already at the con
clusion 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 law
yer 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

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Inscription on the Fly Leaf of a Copy of "A New Dictionary of
Arts and Sciences," (Vol. ill,). London, 176.1.
The upper two lines are In the handwriting of yamos Ol is. The author
is Indebted for the use of the volume 10 Harrison dray Otis, Km] . of Win
throp, Massachusetts, whose name appears at the bottom <>f the payo.

2 1 JAMES OTIS.
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 acci
dentally 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 de
nounced 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 dis
missed. The court, presided over by Judge Hutchin
son, afterward Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Justice of
Massachusetts, expressed its surprise at the turn of af
fairs, 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 sum
moned on legal business to distant parts. On one occas
ion 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.

JAMES OTIS. 3i
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 lepresenting 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 per
sons 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 aiso much of the history of the times.
The materials, however, are wanting. He kept a com
monplace 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

2b JAMES OTIS.
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 aug
ment 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 sjDring
of 1755, Ruth Cunningham, daughter of a Boston mer
chant. From one point of view his choice was oppor
tune, 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 spir
it showed itself in the father, and with this the daughter
sympathized.! The sharp line of division between patri
otism 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

JAMES OTIS. 27
chilled the ardor of the husband, and he, for his part,
by his vehemence and eccentricity, did not strongly con
ciliate her favor. There were times of active disagree
ment in the family, and in later years the marriage was
rather a fact than a principle.

Ml
? I 1 f * . «50

Mary Alleyne Otis, Mother of James Otis, Jr.
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

28 JAMES OTIS.
eighteenth year. The oldest daughter, Elizabeth, went
wholly against her father's grain and purpose. Just be
fore 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. Person
ally, 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 circum
stances and disinherited Elizabeth with a shilling.
The fact that Mrs. Otis favored the unfortunate mar
riage, and .perhaps brought it about — availing her
self as it is l said, of one of Mr. Otis's spells of mental
aberration to parry out her purposes — aggravated the diffi
culty and made her husband's exasperation everlasting.
The younger daughter of the family shared her fath
er'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 ip 1806,

JAMES OTIS. 29
The second period in James Otis's life may be regard
ed 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 con
fidence 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 de
voted 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 merit. The
work was clearly a result left on his mind from his stu
dent 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

30 JAMES OTIS.
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 al
phabets. 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 elemen
tary 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 pros
ody, Mr. Otis next produced a similar work on the pros
ody 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 SparksVAmerican 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 ad
dressing James Perkins, Esq., of Boston] that you don't

JAMES OTIS. 3'
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; tliese are all that are worth read
ing." In this brief comment the severity of Otis's liter
ary taste is indicated and also something of the rather
abrupt and dogmatic character of his mind. His criti
cism, 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 en
vironment. 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 re
acted upon his passionate and Patriotic nature so pow
erfully as to bring into full play all of his faculties and
to direct the whole force of his nature against the tyran
nical 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 country-
meu'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

32 JAMES OTIS.
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."
Iii 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 in
tolerable 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 re
mained 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 flour
ished that our little seashore republics attracted the at
tention of the mother laud and suggested to the minis
ters 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 de
veloped 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 govern*
ment were necessarily republican.

JAMES OTIS. 33
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 dicta
tion. 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 an
other 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 en
trusted his government as the general conditions ante
cedent to the revolutionary movement of our fathers.
But there were more immediate and forceful causes
which operated to the same end. Among tliese should
be mentioned as a prevailing influence the right of arbi
trary government claimed by Great Britain and at length

34 JAMES OTIS.
resisted by the colonists. The right of arbitrarily coli-
trolline the American states was shown in a number of
specific acts which we must here discuss.
The first of tliese was the old Navigation Act of 1651.
The measure adopted by the government of Cromwell
had never been stren
uously enforced. It
was the peculiarity
of all the early legis
lation of Great Brit
ain relative to the
colonies that it was
either misdirected or
permitted to lapse by
disuse. The colonies thus
literally grew, with
little home direc
tion. After the navi
gation act had been
nominally in force
for eighty-two years
it was revived and
supplemented by an
other measure known as the Importation Act,
This statute, dating from the year 1733, was intended.
to be an actual device for controlling the commercial re
lations 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

Oliver Cromwell,

JAMES OTIS. 35
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 jus
tice on the one side and good faith on the other, as be
tween the home government and the American depen
dencies of Great Britain.
The reader will note that the question at issue was
from the first commercial. If 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 revolu
tion. 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-rev-
olutionary era, the faultfinding and dispute related al
ways to political questions proper — to questions of rights
as between the king and his subjects; to questions of in
stitutional 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 in
dependence. The commercial question, however, in
volving 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 en
gender resistance, and if the claim were not relinquished
could but lead to war and disruption.

36 JAMES OTIS.
The neglected growth of the Colonies had in the mean
time established in the seaboard towns of America,
usages and customs which were repugnant to British no
tions of regular and orderly government. The commer
cial 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 cus
tomers should be doubled without some equivalent ad
vantage. 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 peri
od of about seventeen years, extending from 1733 to
1750. In the latter year an act was passed by Parlia
ment forbidding the erection of iron works in America.
The manufacture of steel was especially interdicted.
The measure which was in reality directed against ship-

JAMES OTIS. 37
building 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 mo
lasses 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 war
rants 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 his
tory 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

38 JAMES OTIS.
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 evi
dence, 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 smug
gling. It could hardly be supposed that our fathers would
tamely submit to such an odious and despotic proced
ure. To have clone 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 tyranni
cal interference with their rights. This was demon
strated not only in America, but in England also.
The issuance in England of just such illegal and arbi
trary warrants was one of the causes that led to the tre
mendous agitation headed by John Wilkes. The ex-

JAMES OTIS. 30
citement 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 de
fined, and were set in sharjj antagonism.
On the one side were the king's officers in the prov
ince, 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 be
longed by nature and affiliation to the established or
der. These were the loyalists, destined to be designa
ted 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 intel
lectual and philosophical patriots who were as pronounced
as an)- 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,

40

IAMES OTIS.

holding that 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 per
sonal forces in the year
1760. There were two
notable deaths — the
one notable in Massa
chusetts and the other
in the world. The first
was that of Chief Jus
tice 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
ueoi-fte 11. Hutchinson, Lieuten
ant-Governor of the province under Sir Francis Ber
nard, who was appointed governor in this notable year
1760 as the successor of Thomas Pownall, who had suc
ceeded 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 sym-

JAMES OTIS. 41
pathized 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 loyalism 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 bene-

42 JAMES OTIS.
ficiary, must be taken with the usual allowance of salt.
It may be that the patriotic trend of the Otises was in
tensified a little by a personal pique in the matter re
ferred to. But that either father or son was transferred
from the king's party to the people's party by the fail
ure 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 en
force 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 ret
inue 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 exemlive 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 Su-

 ^fr-^*® t^--^ 'V-1
3u'-j-v ' •¦' ¦¦-¦' ¦"•''•^£ '¦:¦:¦ Nz&
 S.Jfoi

The Old Town House (now Old State House), Boston.
(From a photograph by Pollock, 1898.)
In the hall, where the lights appear, in the second siory of this building,
James Otis thundered for live hours against the Writs of Assistance. About a
hundred yards in front of this buiidins; the tlrst blood of the Kcvolution was
shed.

44 JAMES OTIS.
perior Court of the province. Chief Justice Hutchinson,
still holding the office of Lieutenant-Governor, his mem
bership in the Council, and his position of Judge of Pro
bate, 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, arid 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 ap
pointment to the crown office of Advocate General, to
which an ample salary was attached. In this relation it
would be his especial duty to sttpport the petition of the
custom-house officers in upholding the Writs of Assist
ance and in constraining the executive officers of the
province to support thein 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. Oxen-
bridge 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

JAMES OTIS. 45
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

Council Room, Old State House, Boston, where Otis delivered his Address
against the Writs of Assistance.

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

46 JAMES OTIS.
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, empower
ing 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 offi
cers 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, * himself a
lawyer of no mean abilities, spoke for the counter peti
tioners. 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 sj)cech which followed we have no complete
record or wholly satisfactory summary. It is to John

* John Adams attempts to classify the pre-rcvolutionary orators
of New England according to their ardor and influence. "The char
acters," says he, "the most conspicuous, the most ardent and influen
tial, 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.

JAMES OTIS. 47
Adams, and to the notes which he made on the occa
sion, 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 Revolu
tion. 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 His
tory 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 author
ities, 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 vigor
ous 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 As
sistance. 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

4iS

AMES OTIS.

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 Mas-

Relic Room, Old State House, Boston.
sachusetts," 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 de
liver an oration of 30,000 words. Minot's report ap
pears to have been derived from Adams' notes done
into full form by an unknown' , writer, who proba-

JAMES OTIS. 44
bly 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 con
cerning Writs of Assistance. I have accordingly con
sidered 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 dy
ing 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 Assist
ance is.
"It appears to me the worst instalment 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 argu
ment, that may, perhaps, appear uncommon in many
things, as well, as to points of learning that are more re
mote and unusual, that the whole tendency of my design
may the more easily be perceived, the conclusions better

50 JAMES OTIS.
descend, and the force of them be better felt.
"I shall not think much of my pains in this case, as I en
gaged 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 pre
rogatives 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 anoth
er 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 deter
mined 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 sa
cred calls of his country.
"These manly sentiments, in private life, make the
good citizen; in public life, the patriot and the hero. I

JAMES OTIS.

5'

do not say that, when brought to the test, I shall be in
vincible. 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. Ad
ams. According to
his report, Otis in
the next place
went into funda
mentals and dis
cussed the rights
of man in a state
of nature. In this
part, the argument
ran in an anala-'
gous 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 includ
ing negroes in the common humanity to whom inaliena
ble rights belong.

John Adams.

52 JAMES OTIS.
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 Importa
tion Act. It was to enforce these that the Writs of Assist
ance 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
seaich 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.
"T say, I admit that special Writs of Assistance, to
search special places, may be granted to certain per
sons on oath ; but I deny that the writ now prayed for
cau be granted; for I beg leave to make some observa
tions 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

JAMES OTIS. S3
other officers and subjects;' so that, in short, it is direct
ed 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 re
turn. A man is accountable to no person for his do
ings. 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 Eng
lish 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.

54 JAMES OTIS.
"This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimeri
cal 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 delega
ted. 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,
T 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 gar
ret 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 law
ful f6r any person, or persons, authorized,' etc. What
a scene does this open. Every man prompted by re
venge, 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 exer
tion will provoke another, until society be involved in
tumult and in blood. "
This extract may serve to show the Demosthenic

JAMES OTIS. H5
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.
In the next division of his argument he confuted the
position taken by Grid-
ley with respect to the
alleged legal precedents
for the Writs of Assist
ance. He showed lhat
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 man
ner of King Charles had
passed away. Neither
could the Writs be jus
tified by inferences and
constructions deduced
from any previous stat
utes of Parliament.
Besides, such odious Writs could never be
They could never be enforced in the City of the Pil
grims. If the King of England should himself encamp
with twenty thousand soldiers on the Common of Bos
ton, 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.

Charles II.

,'riforced.

/, JAMES OTIS.
Here the orator broke forth in his most impassioned
strain declaring that the British King, the British Parlia
ment, and the British nation, were all guilty of ingrati
tude and oppression in attempting to impose tyrannical
enactment on the people of America. Thus he con
cluded his argument and appeal.
Those who heard the oration were convulsed with ex
citement. The King's party was enraged. The patri
ots 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 Hutchin
son 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 ad
vantage. There can be no doubt that his was the liv
ing voice which called to resistance, first Boston, then

The Old Custom House of Boston.
This building was the headquarters of the King's oftlcers in the time when
the controversy was on between them and the Merchants of Boston— a controver
sy which, fanned to a flame, became a revclnlionary conflagration in the Ameri
can Colonies.

5S JAMES OTIS.
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 conflagra
tion 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 tyr
anny 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 Com
monwealth. 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 ris
ing, he would command himself
It is also narrated that his friends did attempt to
pluck him by the coat, but he turned upon them demand
ing 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

JAMES OTIS. 50
increased the tension. A question arose about a finan
cial measure whereby gold was to be exj>.,itcd and sil vet-
money retained as the currency of the colony — the for
mer at less than its nominal value — in a manner to jug
gle 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 Lieu
tenant-Governor condescended to give me a persona!
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 con
sulted my reputation more than his own when he lie-
stowed 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 ani-

60 JAMES OTIS.
mosity 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 Parlia
ment." It is said that when this resolution was offered a loy
alist member cried out in the Virginian manner, ' 'Treas
on, 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 Repre
sentatives of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay."
In this work he traverses and justifies the course pursued
by !';•- patriot legislature during the sessions of his at
tendance.

JAMES OTIS. r.i
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 institu
tions 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 enthusi
asm to the "expulsion of the heathen" — meaning the
French, and then expressed sentiments of strong affec
tion for Great Britain and appreciation of the filial rela
tions of the American Colonies to her.
In these utterances Otis reflected the sentiment of the
Bostonians and of the whole people. The General As
sembly 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 ques
tion of the right of taxation* suddenly obtruded itself.
The Americans claimed the right as Englishmen to tax
themselves. The English ministers replied that Parlia
ment, 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 rep
resented 'in Parliament. Parliament replied that many
of the towns, shires, and boroughs in England were not

62 JAMES OTIS.
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 Min
isters had determined to make a rigorous enforcement of
the Sugar Act. Than this, nothing could be more odi
ous 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 as
serted 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 im
paired. However, he took strong grounds against the
Sugar Act, and soon afterward still more strenuously op
posed 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

T.-rf. N'V, *

JAMES OTIS. 63
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 govern
ment among themselves, for this they have already done,
but to support an army to protect them, can it be possi
ble, that the duties to be imposed and the taxes to be
levied shall be assessed without
the voice or consent of one Amer
ican in Parliament ? If we arc 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.
course of his remarks said:
"Otis is a man of consequence among the people there.
They have chosen him for one of Iheir deputies at the
Congress, and general meeting from the respective gov
ernments. 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 gov
ernment of Naples. Madness is catching in all popular
assemblies, and upon all popular matters. The book is

The latter in the

64 JAMES OTIS.
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?"*
In this was the germ of the stern resistance offered by
the Americans to the Stamp Act. No man in the col
onies 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 "conser
vators 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 hold
ing of a Colonial Congress in New York.
Nine colonies accepted the invitation of Massachu
setts, and James Otis headed the delegation of three
members chosen to represent the mother colony in that
prophetic body.

*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 eqtiity of their taxing
the colonists will be as clear as their power is, at present, of doing it
if they please."

JAMES OTIS. 65
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 whatso
ever. ' '
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 bon
fires and burning effigies of officers and other adherents
of the king's party. In one of tliese 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 de
clared 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 pro
ceedings before the Assembly, and was formally thanked
for his services.

:¦!, JAMES OTIS.
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 un
known; 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 untiammeled. He called his pam
phlet "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 con
stitution of their country?
"The gentleman's positions and principles, if true,
would afford a curious train of consequences. Life, lib
erty, 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."

JAMES OTIS. 67
The other pamphlet bearing date of September 4,
1765, was entitled "Considerations 011 Behalf of the Col
onists, 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 bauds to be a terrible evil, and
may in time ruin the state. But it should be remem
bered, 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 re
quired 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 immediate-

68 JAMES OTIS.
ly, 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-compli
ance with the Stamp Act will be prevented."
Meanwhile the public agitation continued; the news
papers teemed with controversy. The administration
was firm, but patriotism was rampant. The party of the
"people adopted the policy of embarrassing the govern
ment 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 Tliomas dishing
for its presiding officer. The ofher elections indicated
the patriotic purpose of the House.
There was almost a deadlock between the legislative
and executive departments. Governor Bernard ad
dressed the representatives in a supercilious and dogmat
ic 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 parli-

JAMES OTIS. <>,)
amentary 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.( His; but it
was generally necessary to tone down the first drafts of
his work. For this duty the speaker (Tliomas dishing)
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 tem
per 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
jnight assail the patriot party.
I 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 in
cendiary, 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

7o JAMES OTIS.
revenues. The commissioners so appointed were to re
side 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 agree
ments 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 ap
pointed with Samuel Adams to_pxepaxe- au-important
paper_on,the-Stat£.nf ..pulilic_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 Colon
ial Congress in New York had produced a sensation in
England, and the petition of the Massachusetts legisla
ture 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 re-

JAMES OTIS. 71
ply which, while it was not less severe, was more respect
ful 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 division
on the question, there were ninety-two nays and seven
teen 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, 176S, 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 pres
ence of British soldiers, evidently sent to Boston to en
force the decrees of an arbitrary government, was suffi
cient 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 (pre-

72 JAMES OTIS.
sumptively 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 applica
tion, the people have nothing more to do, but to gird

Interior of Faneuil Hall, Boston.

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 dishing, Sam
uel Adams, and John Hancock were selected as repre-

JAMES OTIS. 7.1
sentatives to meet Committees of other towns in a con
vention. At this meeting it was voted that the people
should ar?n themselves. The convention met with dele
gates present from nearly ninety towns. The move
ment against the ministerial scheme had already become
revolutionary. Meanwhile in 1768, the general assembly was uncere
moniously 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 Brit
ish troops.
Otis made an address, declaring that free legisla
tion would be impossible in the presence of an armed
soldiery. He moved the appointment of a commit
tee 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 Col
lege. Assembled at that place the legislature was ad
dressed by Otis with impassioned eloquence. The peo
ple 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

7, JAMES OTIS.
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 Gov
ernor 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 pe
tition, praying for the removal of Bernard from the gov
ernment. This they might well do for the king had al
ready 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 Amer
icans by the publication of sundry letters in which they
were traduced and vilified. To this James Otis and
Sahiuel 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 tliese 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 ren
dering his conduct irrational.
It was at this time that he published in the Boston
"Gazette" what he called an advertisement, in which

JAMES OTIS. 75
he placarded the four commissioners of customs, on
the ground that they had assailed his character, de
claring that they had formed a confederacy of vil
lainy, 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

Facsimile of an Extract from a letter written by James Otis lo Arthur Jones,
Nov. 2G, 17CS.
commissioners whom he had lampooned, was sitting.
On entering the room, Mr. Otis was attacked by Robin
son 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 meltfe.
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 prin
cipal wound appeared to have been inflicted with a

76 JAMES OTIS.
sword; it was in the nature of a cut, and an empty scab
bard 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. Pie 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 eccen
trically) 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 distin
guished 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 continu
ance of those public services, that must long be remem
bered with gratitude, and distinguish his name among
the patriots of America."

JAMES OTIS. 77
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 Inde
pendence — he was destined to take no part. The piv-
revolutionist in eclipse must give place to the Revolution
ist 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 alul Lexington? With what
convulsion nuist his mind, in semi-darkness and ruin,
have received the news of the still greater deed at Bunk
er 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 ra
tional, but with the least excitement his malady would re
turn. 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 Indepen
dence 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

78 JAMES OTIS.
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 wit
nessed in 1780 his service as a member of the Constitu
tional Convention of Massacnusetts. Afterward, in 1787,
he was a commissioner to negotiate a settlement with
the participants in Shay's Rebellion. With the organi
zation of the new national government he became Sec
retary of the Senate of the United States, and served in
that capacity until his death, April 22, 1814.
In 1 781, Mr. Otis was taken by his friend, Colonel
Samuel Osgood, to the home oi the latter in Andover.
There the enfeebled patriot passed the remainder of his
life. He became very obese, and his nervous excitabil
ity 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
Bo.ston, and in one instance he accepted and conducted
a case in the court of Common Pleas; but his manner
was that of a rjaretic 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 occulta-
tion. He was taken by his brother, Hon. Samuel Al-

t@Mr£&, .

^;»

House on the Osgood Farm, Andover, where Otis was killed by lightning.
At the time of his death, he was standing in the doorway to the right. His own room was on
the left of the door in front.
(From Tudor's "Life of James Otis," published 1823.)

Mo JAMES OTIS.
leyne Otis, to Andover. The event convinced the suf
ferer that the cud 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. War
ren, "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 cour
tesy 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 watch
ing 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 Cun-

Si

JAMES OTIS.
ningham 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 nar-

Grave of Jiimes Otis in the old Granary Buryinfr Ground, Boston.
(From a photograph hy Charles Pollock, Boston.)
rative of a great life, let each reader for himself deduce
as he may, the inspiration and purpose, without which
American' citizenship is no better than some other.
Since the first pages of this monograph were written (in March,
1898,) the Sons of the American Kcvolution have marked the grate
of James Otis with a bronze reproduction of their armorial badge, and
:-> small tablet, as seen in the illustration on this page.

8: JAMES OTIS.
ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF OTIS, ETC.
OTIS AND HIS KEI.LOW PATRIOTS.
Professor Hosmer draws the following pictures of Otis
and his contemporaries:
"The splendid Otis, whose leadership was at first un
questioned, was like the huge cannon on the man-of-war,
in Victor Hugo's story, that had broken from its moor
ings 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 vio
lent 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 car
ried 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, dishing was
weak. Hancock was hampered by foibles that some
times qu'ite 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 destruc
tion, as at the time of the casting over of the tea; again
in unwise fervor, he would counsel assassination as a

JAMES OTIS. 83
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 man
hood when he was
taken off.
"John Adams
showed only an
intermittent zeal
in the public
cause until the
preliminary work
was done, and
BenjaminChurch,
half-hearted and
venal, early be
gan 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

Joseph Warren.

84 JAMES OTIS.
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, Sam
uel Adams was persistent, undeviating, and sanity itself.
While Samuel Adams never abated by a hair his opposi
tion 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:

JAMES OTIS. X5
" '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 enter
tain the thought but of submission to our sovereign, and
to the authority of Parliament in all possible contin
gencies.' " 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.

86 JAMES OTIS.
"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 govern
ment; 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 Plouse 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' in
fluence," as Governor Hutchinson wrote to Lord Dart
mouth, "was the town meeting, that Olympian race
course of the Yankee athlete."
Writing to Samuel Adams in 1790 John Adams, look
ing back to the effect of these events, says:
"Your Boston town meetings and our Harvard Col
lege 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 govern-

JAMES OTIS. 87
or, 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

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Liberty Square, Boston, as it appears at the present time.
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 ap
point the next Tuesday as a day of fasting and prayer.
88 JAMES OTIS.
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 circum
stances that strongly attest his heroism.
Cannon were planted at the entrance of the building,
and a body of troops were quartered in the representa
tives' 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 jus
tice 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
AppletonVCyclopedia of American Biography,"an inter
esting 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

JAMES OTIS. 8.,
hurried on towards Boston. On the roadside he stopped at
a farmhouse and borrowed a musket, there being nothing
seemingly in his
mental derangement.
ket upon his shoul-
and was soon joined
coming from various
in" with them, he
in that eventful con-
closed in upon the
wearied beyond des-
was, he set out for
He afterwards pur-
aimless life, as
usual had occurred.

manner to suggest
Throwing the mus-
der he hastened on,
by the minute men
directions. "Falling
took an active part
test until darkness
combatants. Then,
cription, though he
home after midnight.
sued his sad and
though nothing un-

Bunker HiU Monument, Charleston, Mass-

oo JAMES OTIS.
INFLUENCE OK THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL.
Two days before the battle of Bunker Hill Washing
ton 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 Con
gress and the next day news was brought of the Char-
lestown conflict. "This put fire into his ideal states
manship." 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 qual
ities "were an inheritance, not an accident, and inheri
tance 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 some
what familiar with the history of my State, but I was
not aware that what you say was the case,"

JAMES OTIS. oi
"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 descend
ed, 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
Whene'er a babe was born;
And rattlesnakes were bigger round
Than the butt o£ the old rani'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 Mi'. Otis, and his treatment of the in
jury, in a maimer that reflects honor on both of the ora
tors,

02 JAMES OTIS.
"Is this the return you make them?" inquired the Brit
ish 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 bar
barous 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?
"Xo, sir, the law tried them, the law gave heavy dam
ages, against them, which the irreparably injured Mr.
Otis most generously forgave, upon an acknowledgment
of the offence.
"Can you expect any more such instances of magnan
imity 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 advan
tage 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,

JAMES OTIS. 93
"a moral spectacle more affecting tome 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, law
yer, 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 vvord 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.
Magoou, "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 pro
portion to the necessity of the case.
"He would yield himself up to a blind and passionate
obstinacy, and lacerate his victims for no apparent reas
on 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

04 JAMES OTIS.
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 an
tagonist 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 gladia
tor 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 re
sentment; 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 POWER.
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. "Sud
den bursts which seemed to be the effect of inspiration —
short sentences which came like lightning, dazzling,
burning, striking down everything before them — sen
tences 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.

JAMES OTIS. 05
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 on
ly 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 com
prehended its fearful issue, he became transformed in
aspect like one inspired. His appearance in public al
ways 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 disinterest
ed 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

o6 JAMES OTIS.
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 sublimest 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 exquis
ite 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, re
sembled 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 nat
ural endowment.
"Like him, he was unequaled in impassioned appeals
to the general heart of mankind.

JAMES OTIS. 07
"He swayed all by his electric fire; charmed the timid,
and inspired the weak; subdued the haughty, and en
thralled 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 conse
quences; and as the ancient war-chariot would some
times set its axle on fire by the rapidity of its own move
ment, 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 en
dowed. 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 ad
miration 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 Mar
shall, 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.

<¦>« JAMES OTIS.
"He had a wonderful power over the popular feelings,
but he employed it only for great public benefits. Pie
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 frontis
piece to this sketch, is from the oil-painting loaned to
the Bostonian Society, by Harrison Gray Otis, of Win
throp, 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 origi
nal cause, and who struck the first blow ? This inquiry
was well answered by President Jefferson, in a letter to

JAMES OTIS. 1JQ
Dr. Waterhouse of Cambridge, written March 3d, 18 18.
"'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 whicji were to devel
op 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 arbi
trary 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 expendi
tures of public money without appropriations by the rep
resentatives 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;

loo JAMES Ol'IS.
'"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 states
man said: "I will never burn
my fingers with an American stamp act."
THE STAMPS.
The stamps were upon blue paper, and were to be at
tached to every piece of paper or parchment, on which a
legal instrument was written. For these stamps the Gov
ernment charged specific prices, for example, for a com
mon property deed, one shilling and sixpence.

Stamp used under the
Stamp Act.

JAMES OTIS. 101
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 re
proved 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 Con
cord, 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 ex
claiming, "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 lo
mourn too much, and tell her whom I love more than my
mother, that I am not sorry I turned out. " — George IV.
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, dishing, Hancock,

102 JAMES OTIS.
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, be
gin 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 de
parture of the Pilgini Fathers to found New England.
England will not let that scene go as a part of Amer
ican history only, but claims it now as one of the proud
est 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

JAMES OTIS. 103
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 Re
public" reproached some men of learning for their con
servatism 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 Emer
son 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 clays 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, sous of Wil
liam and Mary,

104 JAMES OTIS.
And never was a revolution so completely led by
scholars as the great Puritan Revolution which planted
New England and established the English common
wealth. 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 Gama
liel, 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 common
wealth, to the time of Jefferson and Samuel Adams and
the time of Emerson and Sumner and Gladstone, schol
ars have been leaders and heroes too. — Edwin D. Mead.
EARL PERCY AND YANKEE DOODLE.
Earl Percy was the son of the Duke of Norfhumber.-
land. When he was marching out of Boston, his baud
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 cal-
an ' uy might befall him.

JAMES OTIS. 105
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 Barnt1 able, 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, Eng
land, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in the year 1635.

Alleyne House, Plymouth, where Otis's Mother was born. Tho boat marks
the spot where the "Mayflower" was anchored.
(Prom "Tudor's Life ot James Otis.")
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 com
mon 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

io6 JAMES OTIS.
lawyer. He, like his father, became Colonel of Militia, Chief Justice
of common pleas, and Judge ot Probate.
j. 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 Wethers-
field, Conn., daughter of Joseph Allync, of Plymouth. She was con
nected with the founders of Plymouth colony, who iirrived 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. lie 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.
c. There is grave reason for believing that his excessive devo
tion 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 i^; it for the student to lake 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 com
pleting a four years successful course.
13. After graduation he wisely gave nearly two years to the pur
suits of general literature and science before entering upon the law.
14. In this, he set a good example to the young men of the pres
ent day, who are so strongly tempted to enter at once upon profes
sional life, without laying a broad and deep foundation for future
usefulness. 15. James Otis was very fond of the best poets, and "in the zeal
ous 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 pon
dered 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 (hen 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.
if). In 1750 he removed to Boston, and there finding full scope
for his powers^ soon rose to the foremost rank in his profession,

JAMES OTIS. 107
20. He justly won the high place so generally accorded him, b\
his learning, his integrity, and his marvelous eloquence.
21. In acting successfully as counsel foi ihe three men who were
accused of piracy in Halifax, he received ,1 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 clas
sical 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, 1780.
25. Another reason for the want of complete domestic felicity
was the peculiar character of his genius, which, so often glowing, ex
citable and irregular, must have frequently demanded a home for
bearance 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
j>on of the distinguished General Lincoln.
28. In 1761, when he was thirty-six years of age. his great politi
cal career began, by his determined opposition to the "Writs of As
sistance." 20. 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, case, health, applause
and even life, lo the sacred calls of my countrv in opposition to a
kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king his head and an
other 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 .nonev, the
rights ol 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, die great English legal lumin
ary, who had carefully read it, rebuked them for their attitude to
wards it.
34. But they rejoined, as quoted by Bancroft. "The man is mad I"
"What then?" answered Mansfield. "One mad man often makes
many. Massanicllo was mad — nobody doubted it — yet for all lliat he
overturned the government of Naples,"

!o8 JAMES OTIS.
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 commit
tee to prepare an address to the Commons of England.
37. In 1767 he was elected Speaker of the Massachusetts As
sembly. Governor Bernard took a decidedly negative position
against the fiery orator, whom he feared as much as he did the in
trepid 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.
30. 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 co'onies are lost lo 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 offi
cers in an article in "The Boston Gazette." A few evenings after
wards, while sitting in the British coffee-house in Boston, he was sav
agely 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 aggrava
ted the mental disease which had before been somewhat apparent,
that his reason rapidly forsook him.
44. Otis obtained ^ judgment of ^2,000 against Robinson for the
attack, but when the penitent officer made a written apology for his
irreparable offence, the sufferer refused to take a penny.
45. In 1771 he was elected to the legislature, and sometimes af
terward appeared in court and in the town meeting, but found him
self unable to take part in public business. • ,
46. In June, 1775, while living in a sta&e of harmless insanity
with his sister, Mercy Warren, at Watcrtown, Mass., he heard, ac
cording 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

JAMES OTIS. ioq
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 lo 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 brok
en 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. War
ren, "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 fea
tures." 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 dream
ing 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
— not James I, the most foolish of them; nor Charles I, the most
false; nor Charles II, the most worthless; nor James 11, the most ob
stinate." 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."

no JAMES OTIS.
PROGRAMME FOR A JAMES OTIS EVENING.
i. Instrumental 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
:1011th, Copp's Hill, Hunker Hill, North Square, House of Paul Re
vere, Site of the Old Dragon Inn, The Old State House, Faneuil
Hall, etc.
8. Singing — "America."

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW.
J I 'here 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 inter
esting particular was noted when his body was disinterred ?
What names are given to the pre-revo/utionists, the revolution
ists, and the post-revolutionists ?
II 'ho is assigned the first place among the protagonists of free
dom ? II 'ho the second? II 'hat is the remarkable thing about the lives
of many great men .' II 'ill 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 ' 1 1 'hat -were transmitted to other members of
the family / Give the name of one of these members and her peculiar
gifts, ii 'hat 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 / II 'hat is the tradition concerning him? What is said
of his College course? II 'hat of his fxcitablc temperament? What an
ecdote it recorded 'of 'him / II 'hen, and under what distinguished lawyer
did he begin his legal studies? II 'hat 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 Gunpow
der Plot? What is the History of the Gunpowder Plot? When was
She first period of his Boston practice? What is said of the non-pres
ervation of the legal pleas and addresses of fames Otis? What does
tradition say of him as an orator?
It hen and whom did Otis marry? What is said of the Cunning
ham family? What is said of Mrs. Otis? Who comprised the fami-

JAMES OTIS. m
ly 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 Juan v 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 fames Otis
say about the bad literary tastes of the boys of hit time?
Of what is every man the joint product ? What were the condi
tions under which the colonial settlements were formed? What were
the feelings of the colonists towards England ?
What specific conditions in the develo/'i/ient 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 ? I i'hat is saiil of Hutchinson aiid
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? II 'ho was one of the eminent spectators?
What was the relation of Otis to it?
What did Chief fustiee Hutchinson advise in the case of the Writs
of Assistance? What is the story narrated of 'Otis regarding his want
of self-control? IVhat it said of the controversy between Hutchinson and Otis.'
What resolution did Otis offer in iyt>3 ? What it 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
. Imericans towards the mother country ? I I'hat of the utterances of Otis ?
What did the /Imericans claim ? 1 1 'hat was the reply of Parlia
ment? What is said of the Sugar /let? What of Otis' re/a 'ions to
I.ieut.-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 confereme? What is the sub
stance of Mr. Otis' letter to the provincial agent? Of Lord Mans
field's view of it?
SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY.
/. The French and Indian War.
l. James Otis as an Orator.
j. The English Colonies in America.
y. The Influence of College Men in Public Life.
j. How the American Colonies Grew Together.
6. The Commercial Causes of the Revolution-.
7. The Political Causes of the Revolution.
S. Otis Compared with Samuel / 1 dams.
q. The Repeal of the Stamp Act.

ii2 JAMES OTIS.
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 ad
dress 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. Bv 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 Bi
ography. 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 1- tske Kiel-
path's History of the United States. Ellis' History of the Lnited
States.

CX!