Chapter 11

"It may be not unjustly said of Otis, as of Judge Marshall, that he was one of those rare beings that seem to be sent among men from time to time, to keep alive our faith in humanity.

"He had a wonderful power over the popular feelings, but he employed it only for great public benefits. He seems to have said to himself, in the language of the great master of the maxims of life and conduct:

"This above all,--to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

PORTRAIT OF OTIS.

The portrait of James Otis, Jr., published as a frontispiece to this sketch, is from the oil-painting loaned to the Bostonian Society, by Harrison Gray Otis, of Winthrop, Massachusetts. The painting from which it is taken, now hanging in the Old State House of Boston, is a reproduction of the original portrait by I. Blackburn, to whom Mr. Otis sat for his portrait in 1755. The original in possession of Mrs. Rogers, a descendant of James Otis, may be seen at her residence, No. 8 Otis Place, Boston. But the original is not so well adapted as is the copy to photographic reproduction. The two portraits are identical in feature and character, but the original having a light background offends the camera.

THE SOURCE AND OCCASION OF THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

"The question is, perhaps more curious than profitable, that relates to the source and occasion of the first of that series of events which produced the war of the Revolution. Men have often asked, what was its original cause, and who struck the first blow? This inquiry was well answered by President Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Waterhouse of Cambridge, written March 3rd, 1818.

"'I suppose it would be difficult to trace our Revolution to its first embryo. We do not know how long it was hatching in the British cabinet, before they ventured to make the first of the experiments which were to develop it in the end, and to produce complete parliamentary supremacy.

"'Those you mention in Massachusetts as preceding the Stamp Act might be the first visible symptoms of that design. The proposition of that Act, in 1764, was the first here. Your opposition, therefore, preceded ours, as occasion was sooner given there than here, and the truth, I suppose, is, that the opposition, in every colony, began whenever the encroachment was presented to it.

"'This question of priority is as the inquiry would be, who first of the three hundred Spartans offered his name to Leonidas. I shall be happy to see justice done to the merits of all.'"

"In the primitive opposition made by Otis to the arbitrary acts of Trade, aided by the Writs of Assistance, he announced two maxims which lay at the foundation of all the subsequent war; one was, that 'taxation without representation was tyranny,' the other, 'that expenditures of public money without appropriations by the representatives of the people, were arbitrary, and therefore unconstitutional. '"

"This early and acute sagacity of our statesman, led Burke finely to describe the political feeling in America as follows;

"'In other countries, the people, more simple, of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government, only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance, by the badness of the principle.

"'They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.'"--E. L. Magoon.

STAMPS AND THE STAMP ACT.

During Robert Walpole's administration [1732], a stamp duty was proposed. He said "I will leave the taxation of America to some of my successors, who have more courage than I have."

Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, proposed a tax in 1739. Franklin thought it just, when a delegate in the Colonial Congress at Albany, in 1754. But when it was proposed to Pitt in 1759 the great English statesman said: "I will never burn my fingers with the American stamp act."

THE STAMPS.

The stamps were upon blue paper, and were to be attached to every piece of paper or parchment, on which a legal instrument was written. For these stamps the Government charged specific prices, for example, for a common property deed, one shilling and sixpence.

THE MINUTE-MAN OF THE REVOLUTION.

The Minute-man of the Revolution! He was the old, the middle-aged, and the young. He was Capt. Miles, of Concord, who said that he went to battle as he went to church. He was Capt. Davis, of Acton, who reproved his men for jesting on the march. He was Deacon Josiah Haynes, of Sudbury, 80 years old, who marched with his company to the South Bridge at Concord, then joined in the hot pursuit to Lexington, and fell as gloriously as Warren at Bunker Hill. He was James Hayward, of Acton, 22 years old, foremost in that deadly race from Concord to Charlestown, who raised his piece at the same moment with a British soldier, each exclaiming, "You are a dead man!" The Briton dropped, shot through the heart.

James Hayward fell mortally wounded. "Father," he said, "I started with forty balls; I have three left. I never did such a day's work before. Tell mother not to mourn too much, and tell her whom I love more than my mother, that I am not sorry I turned out."--George W. Curtis.

THE BOSTON COMMON SCHOOLS.

The Boston Common Schools were the pride of the town. They were most jealously guarded, and were opened each day with public prayer.

They were the nurseries of a true democracy. In them the men who played the most important part in the Revolutionary period received their early education.

The Adamses, Chancey, Cooper, Cushing, Hancock, Mayhew, Warren, and the rest breathed their bracing atmosphere.

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

I have already dwelt on the significance of the way in which the Pilgrim Fathers, driven out of England, begin this compact, with which they begin their life in this new world, with warm professions of allegiance to England's King.

Old England, whose King and bishops drove them out, is proud of them to-day, and counts them as truly her children as Shakespeare and Milton and Vane.

As the American walks the corridors and halls of the Parliament House at Westminster, he pays no great heed to the painted kings upon the painted windows, and cares little for the gilded throne in the gilded House of Lords. The Speaker's chair in the Commons does not stir him most, nor the white form of Hampden that stands silent at the door; but his heart beats fastest where, among great scenes from English triumphs of the days of Puritanism and the revolution, he sees the departure of the Pilgim Fathers to found New England.

England will not let that scene go as a part of American history only, but claims it now as one of the proudest scenes in her own history, too.

It is a bud of promise, I said, when I first saw it there. Shall not its full unfolding be some great reunion of the English race, a prelude to the federation of the world?

Let that picture there in the Parliament House at Westminster stay always in your mind, to remind you of the England in you. Let the picture of the signing of the compact on the "Mayflower" stay with it, to remind you of progress and greater freedom. That, I take it, is what America--New England, now tempered by New Germany, New Ireland, New France--that, I take it, is what America stands for.--Edwin D. Mead.

THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE MEN OF THE REVOLUTION.

You may perhaps remember how Wendell Phillips, in his great Harvard address on "The Scholar and the Republic" reproached some men of learning for their conservatism and timidity, their backwardness in reform. And it is true that conservatism and timidity are never so hateful and harmful as in the scholar. "Be bold, be bold, and evermore be bold," those words which Emerson liked to quote, are words which should ever ring in the scholar's ear.

But you must remember that Roger Williams and Sir Harry Vane, the very men whom Wendell Phillips named as "two men deepest in thought and bravest in speech of all who spoke English in their day," came, the one from Cambridge, the other from Oxford; and that Sam Adams and Jefferson, the two men whom he named as preeminent, in the early days of the republic, for their trust in the people, were the sons of Harvard and William and Mary. John Adams and John Hancock and James Otis and Joseph Warren, the great Boston leaders in the Revolution, were all Harvard men, like Samuel Adams; and you will remember how many of the great Virginians were, like Jefferson, sons of William and Mary.

And never was a revolution so completely led by scholars as the great Puritan Revolution which planted New England and established the English commonwealth.

No. Scholars have often enough been cowards and trimmers.

But from the days when Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, brought his people up out of bondage, and Paul, who had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, preached Christ, and Wyclif and Luther preached Reformation, to the time when Eliot and Hampden and Pym and Cromwell and Milton and Vane, all scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, worked for English commonwealth, to the time of Jefferson and Samuel Adams and the time of Emerson and Sumner and Gladstone, scholars have been leaders and heroes too.--Edwin D. Mead.

EARL PERCY AND YANKEE DOODLE.

Earl Percy was the son of the Duke of Northumberland. When he was marching out of Boston, his band struck up the tune of Yankee Doodle, in derision.

He saw a boy in Roxbury making himself very merry as he passed.

Percy inquired why he was so merry.

"To think," said the lad, "how you will dance by and by to Chevy Chase."

Percy was much influenced by presentiments, and the words of the boy made him moody. Percy was a lineal descendant of the Earl Percy who was slain in the battle of Chevy Chase, and he felt all day as if some great calamity might befall him.

STORY OF JAMES OTIS. FOR A SCHOOL OR CLUB PROGRAMME.

Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or member to read, or to recite in a clear, distinct tone.

If the school or club is small, each person may take three or four paragraphs, but should not be required to recite them in succession.

1. James Otis was born in West Barnstable, near the center of Massachusetts, February 5, 1725.

2. His ancestors were of English descent. The founder of the family in America, John Otis, came from Hingham, in Norfolk, England, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in the year 1635.

3. His grandson, John Otis, was born in 1635. He removed from Hingham to Barnstable, where he became a prominent man and held several important positions. For eighteen years he was Colonel of Militia, for twenty years Representative, for twenty-one years member of the Council, for thirteen years Chief Justice of common pleas, and Judge of Probate.

4. His two sons, John and James, became distinguished in public life. James, the father of the subject of this sketch, was an eminent lawyer. He, like his father, became Colonel of Militia, Chief Justice of common pleas, and Judge of Probate.

5. James Otis, Jr. thus by inheritance, derived his legal bent and love for political life.

6. His mother's name was Mary Allyne, or Alleyne, of Wethersfield, Conn., daughter of Joseph Allyne, of Plymouth. She was connected with the founders of Plymouth colony, who arrived in the Mayflower in 1620.

7. James was the oldest of thirteen children, several of whom died in infancy. Others lived to attain distinction.

8. He was fitted for College by the Rev. Jonathan Russell of Barnstable, and was so industrious in his studies that he was ready in his fifteenth year to enter as a freshman at Harvard in June, 1739.

9. There is grave reason for believing that his excessive devotion to study at this early period, had much to do with his nervous and excitable condition in succeeding years.

10. "Make haste slowly" is the translation of a Latin motto, which parents and teachers ought to observe in the education of children.

11. Far better is it for the student to take time in making a thorough preparation for the great work of life, than to rush through his preparatory course at the great risk of health and strength. Let him aim ever be to present "a sound mind in a sound body."

12. James Otis was graduated from college in 1743, after completing a four years successful course.

13. After graduation he wisely gave nearly two years to the pursuits of general literature and science before entering upon the law.

14. In this, he set a good example to the young men of the present day, who are so strongly tempted to enter at once upon professional life, without laying a broad and deep foundation for future usefulness.

15. James Otis was very fond of the best poets, and "in the zealous emulation of their beauties," says Dr. Magoon, "he energized his spirit and power of expression.

16. "He did not merely read over the finest passages--he pondered them--he fused them into his own soul, and reproduced their charms with an energy all his own."

17. In 1745 he entered the law office of Jeremiah Gridley, in Boston, who was then one of the most distinguished lawyers in the country.

18. He began the practice of law in Plymouth, in 1748, but soon found that he was "cabined, cribbed and confined" in the opportunity to rise in such a small place.

19. In 1750 he removed to Boston, and there finding full scope for his powers, soon rose to the foremost rank in his profession.

20. He justly won the high place so generally accorded him, by his learning, his integrity, and his marvelous eloquence.

21. In acting successfully as counsel for the three men who were accused of piracy in Halifax, he received a well earned fee, which was the largest that had ever been paid to a Massachusetts lawyer.

22. Like James A. Garfield, he kept up a lively interest in classical studies during his entire professional career.

23. James Otis married Miss Ruth Cunningham, daughter of a Boston merchant, early in 1755.

24. The marriage was not in all respects a happy one, partly on account of political differences. While he became an ardent patriot, she remained a staunch loyalist until her death on Nov. 15, 1789.

25. Another reason for the want of complete domestic felicity was the peculiar character of his genius, which, so often glowing, excitable and irregular, must have frequently demanded a home forbearance almost miraculous.

26. The elder daughter, Elizabeth, married a Captain Brown of the British army, and ended her days in England. 27. The younger daughter, Mary, married Benjamin, the eldest son of the distinguished General Lincoln.

28. In 1761, when he was thirty-six years of age his great political career began, by his determined opposition to the "Writs of Assistance."

29. He said with an eloquence that thrilled every heart, "A man's house is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This Writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege."

30. "I am determined to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause and even life, to the sacred calls of my country in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king his head and another his throne."

31. In 1762 he published a pamphlet entitled, "The Rights of the Colonies Vindicated," which attracted great attention in England for its finished diction and masterly arguments.

32. In this production he firmly took the unassailable position, that in all questions relating to the expenditure of public money, the rights of a Colonial Legislature were as sacred as the rights of the House of Commons.

33. Some of the Parliamentary leaders in England spoke of the work with contempt. Lord Mansfield, the great English legal luminary, who had carefully read it, rebuked them for their attitude towards it.

34. But they rejoined, as quoted by Bancroft, "The man is mad!" "What then?" answered Mansfield. "One mad man often makes many. Massaniello was mad--nobody doubted it--yet for all that he overturned the government of Naples."

35. In June, 1765, Mr. Otis proposed the calling of a congress of delegates from all the colonies to consider the Stamp Act.

36. In that famous Congress which met in October, 1765, in New York, he was one of the delegates, and was appointed on the committee to prepare an address to the Commons of England.

37. In 1767 he was elected Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. Governor Bernard took a decidedly negative position against the fiery orator, whom he feared as much as he did the intrepid Sam Adams.

38. But Bernard could not put a padlock upon the lips of Otis. When the king, who was greatly offended at the Circular Letter to the colonies, which requested them to unite in measures for redress demanded of Bernard to dismiss the Assembly unless it should rescind its action, Otis made a flaming speech.

39. His adversaries said, "It was the most violent, abusive and treasonable declaration that perhaps was ever uttered."

40. In the debate which ensued upon this royal order, Otis said: "We are asked to rescind, are we? Let Great Britain rescind her measures, or the colonies are lost to her forever."

41. Otis carried the House triumphantly with him, and it refused to rescind by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen.

42. In the summer of 1769 he attacked some of the revenue officers in an article in "The Boston Gazette." A few evenings afterwards, while sitting in the British coffee-house in Boston, he was savagely assaulted by a man named Robinson, who struck him on the head with a heavy cane or sword.

43. The severe wound which was produced so greatly aggravated the mental disease which had before been somewhat apparent, that his reason rapidly forsook him.

44. Otis obtained a judgment of L2,000 against Robinson for the attack, but when the penitent officer made a written apology for his irreparable offense, the sufferer refused to take a penny.

45. In 1771 he was elected to the legislature, and sometimes afterward appeared in court and in the town meeting, but found himself unable to take part in public business.

46. In June, 1775, while living in a state of harmless insanity with his sister, Mercy Warren, at Watertown, Mass., he heard, according to Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biography," the rumor of battle. On the 17th he slipped away unobserved, "borrowed a musket from some farmhouse by the roadside, and joined the minute men who were marching to the aid of the troops on Bunker Hill."

47. "He took an active part in that battle, and after it was over made his way home again after midnight."

48. The last years of his life were spent at the residence of Mr. Osgood in Andover. For a brief season it seemed as though his reason was restored. He even undertook a case in the Court of Common Pleas in Boston, but found himself unequal to the exertion demanded of him.

49. He had been persuaded to dine with Governor Hancock and some other friends. "But the presence of his former friends and the revived memories of previous events, gave a great shock to his broken mind." He was persuaded to go back at once to the residence of Mr. Osgood.

50. After his mind had become unsettled he said to Mrs. Warren, "My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning," and this wish he often repeated.

51. Six weeks exactly after his return, on May 23, 1783, while standing in the side doorway during a thunder-shower, with his cane in his hand, and telling the assembled family a story, he was struck by lightning and instantly killed. Not one of the seven or eight persons in the room was injured. "No mark of any kind could be found on Otis, nor was there the slightest change or convulsion on his features."

52. His remains were brought to Boston and interred in the Granary Burying Ground with every mark of respect, a great number of the citizens attending his funeral.

53. James Otis sowed the seeds of liberty in this new world without living to see the harvest, and probably without ever dreaming what magnificent crops would be produced.

54. When the usurpations of un-English parliamentarians and their allies at home, became as burdensome, as they were unjust he defended his countrymen, in whose veins flowed the best of English blood, with an eloquence whose ultimate influence transcended his own sublime aspirations.

55. He taught, in the ominous words, which King James's first House of Commons addressed to the House of Lords, immediately after the monarch had been lecturing them on his own prerogative, that "There may be a People without a king;, but there can be no king without a people."

56. "Fortunately for civil liberty in England and America, in all countries and in all times," as Edward Everett Hale says, "none of the Stuarts ever learned in time what this ominous sentence means--ot James I, the most foolish of them, nor Charles I, the most false; nor Charles II, the most worthless; nor James II, the most obstinate."

57. It could be said of Otis as Coleridge said of O'Connell, "See how triumphant in debate and action he is. And why? Because he asserts a broad principle, acts up to it, rests his body upon it, and has faith in it."

PROGRAMME FOR A JAMES OTIS EVENING.

1. Music 2. Vocal Music--"Remember the Maine." 3. Essay-- "The True Relation of England as a Nation to the Colonies." 4. Vocal or Instrumental Music. 5. Essay--"Writs of Assistance, and Otis' Relation to Them." 6. Music. 7. A Stereopticon Lecture, illustrating the Famous Buildings and noted features of Boston--The Old North Church, The Old South, Copp's Hill, Bunker Hill, North Square, House of Paul Revere, Site of the Old Dragon Inn, The Old State House, Faneuil Hall, etc. 8. Singing-- "America."

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW.

Where is the Granary Burying Ground? Why so named? What distinguishes it? Can you give the names of some eminent persons buried there? In what tomb was James Otis interred? What interesting particular was noted when his body was disinterred?

What names are given to the pre-revolutionists, the revolutionists, and the post-revolutionists?

Who is assigned the first place among the protagonists of freedom? Who the second? What is the remarkable thing about the lives of many great men? Will you expand the thought?

When and where was James Otis born? What offices did he fill? When was James Otis, Jr. born? What did he inherit from his father and grandfather? What were transmitted to other members of the family? Give the name of one of these members and her peculiar gifts. What was the name of one of the brothers, and what is said of him?

By whom was James Otis prepared for College? When did he enter College? What is the tradition concerning him? What is said of his College course? What of his excitable temperament? What anecdote is recorded of him? When, and under what distinguished lawyer did he begin his legal studies? What is said of his preceptor?

When and where did he begin to practice law? What are some of the incidents of his early legal career? What is said of the defense by Otis of citizens in connection with the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot? What is the history of the Gunpowder Plot? When was the first period of his Boston practice? What is said of the non-preservation of the legal pleas and addresses of James Otis? What does tradition say of him as an orator?

When and whom did Otis marry? What is said of the Cunnningham family? What is said of Mrs. Otis? Who comprised the family of Mr. and Mrs. Otis? What is said of the marriage of the elder daughter? What of the younger daughter?