versation, that the standard of Otis' character was a little above that of the ordinary working-day political conscience or habits of the town; and that, in those good old times of our grandfathers, electioneering human nature, making a little allowance for difference of manners, was pretty much the same thing that it is found to be in our own day. Or, as respects Otis, it may have been a round-about way of expressing a little distrust of that fiery and somewhat Quixotic temperament which was something aside of the ordinary malleable material of success in society.

Paine, of Worcester, cried out Treason! Treason! in curious parallel, as has been often noticed, with a scene a few years afterwards in the Virginia legisla ture, at the delivery of a famous speech by Patrick Henry. Language such as this was not to be stomached by the representatives of Royalty. The Gover nor sent the remonstrance back with a request that the obnoxious sentence, which we have cited, should be expunged, which was accordingly done.

On the adjournment of the legis lature, Otis published "A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives," with the significant motto:

"Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country and be poor:
Or good though rich, humane and wise tho' great,
Jove give but these, we've naught to fear from
fate."

His career in the General Court soon brought him in conflict with the authorities. In 1762, a question arose on an appropriation by the Governor and Council, without the previous consent of the House. It was a small affair of an increased expenditure in manning the single armed sloop of the In keen, pungent expressions, the vivid Colony, and it was, moreover, for the lightnings of argument, in words inpublic defence, but to the quick percep- stinct with genius, he strikes at the tion of Otis, a great principle was root of all government in those rights involved. It was in effect, he said, of man which are to be recognized as in his remonstrance, drawn up at the the regulators of all legitimate authority order of the legislative body, "taking and by which kings rule for the good from the House their most darling of their subjects. "Though most gov privilege, the right of originating all ernments are de facto arbitrary," he taxes. No necessity," he added, "can says, "none are de jure arbitrary." be sufficient to justify a house of repre- "No government," he says, in a vein sentatives, in giving up such a privi- of broader sarcasm, "has a right to lege; for it would be of little consequence to the people, whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king of Great Britain, or the French king, if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." When this passage was read, a member, Timothy

make hobby horses, asses and slaves of the subject; nature having made suf ficient of the two former, for all the lawful purposes of man, from the harmless peasant in the field, to the most refined politician in the cabinet, but none of the last, which infallibly proves they are unnecessary." Otis was an

admirable master of good Anglo-Saxon ment, and to cap the climax, look into rhetoric; he heaps upon the abettors Mr. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, of the expunging resolution a load of Crisis, and Rights of Man; what can humorous indignation. His picture of you find that is not to be found in the race of colonial time-servers, the solid substance in this Vindication of small provincial votaries of passive the House of Representatives?" obedience, guarding the supremacy of plantation governors by the most rigid tenets of absolutism, must have put that generation to the blush, if indeed the "monopolizers of offices, peculators, informers, and generally the seekers of Representatives of Massachusetts in all kinds," whom he describes, ever blushed at all. With these, he exclaims with his aptitude for poetical quotation:

"The love of country is an empty name,

For gold they hunger: but ne'er thirst for fame."

Nor are more serious arguments, drawn from Locke and the principles of the Revolution of 1688, neglected. John Adams, ever the eulogist of Otis, and who warms at the recollection of his winged words with an eloquence kindred to his own, says of this tract: "How many volumes 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, suggest ing their plans and schemes, claiming his advice and directions. Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs, issued by Congress in 1774. Look into the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. Look into all the French constitutions of govern

In 1764 Otis published the second of those tracts which remain to guard his brilliant reputation: "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved." It was read in the House of

manuscript. Though it contained a
noble series of declarations of the
popular rights and of the constitu
tional limitations of the British Govern-
ment, expressed in his usual nervous
phraseology, some of these positions
were thought to be defeated by his
contradictory declarations of the supre-
macy of Parliament.
The apparent
contradiction, however, though nar
rowly scrutinized at the time, does not
seem to have affected the resolve of the
author. The pamphlet was repub-
lished in England, and was alluded to
by Mansfield in the House of Lords.
In reference to some depreciatory re-
marks of the work by Lord Littleton,
he said: "No man on such a subject is
contemptible. Otis is a man of conse
quence among the people. They have
chosen him for one of their deputies at
the Congress, and general meeting from
the respective governments.
said the man is mad. What then!
One madman often makes many."

It was

The Congress alluded to in these remarks was that which met at New York in October, 1765, under the pressure of the impending operation of the Stamp Act, which had passed Parlia

ment in February, in the language of the Massachusetts Circular, "to consult together on the present circumstances of the Colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of the acts of Parliament, for levying duties and taxes on the Colonies; and to consider of a general and united, dutiful, loyal, and humble representation of their condition to his Majesty and to the Parliament, and to implore relief." Delegates from nine States assembled at this Stamp Act Congress, as it was called. Otis was at the head of the members from Massachusetts. A Declaration of Rights, the production of John Cruger, of New York, was adopt ed, and also addresses to the King, and the Houses of Lords and Commons. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, and Cæsar Rodney of Delaware, who were fellow-members with Otis, afterwards bore witness to his customary ardor and intelligence. The Congress adjourned after a short session of about a fortnight.

Adams; the former furnishing the first vigorous draft, the latter smoothing asperities with what John Adams somewhere styles "his oily brush." In Otis' own expression: "I have written them all, and handed them to Sam to quieuvicue them." One of these papers, the circular addressed to the colonies proposing coöperation in their counsels, became the subject of much animosity. After it had been duly forwarded through the country, the demand came from Lord Hillsborough, that the resolution of the House, adopting it, should be rescinded, which the House, by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen, declined to do. The debate was signalized by one of Otis' exceed ingly mannered speeches, violent in its wholesale ridicule of the nobility of England. "Who are these ministers?" he asked. "The very frippery and foppery of France, the mere outsides of monkeys."

The next act in the now rapidly developing plot of British aggression, was sending a body of armed men to In 1766, the Legislature chose Otis Boston. Previous to their arrival, for their speaker, but the choice was when their coming was understood, negatived by the Governor, Bernard, Otis was looked to as the popular counwho found in the rejected candidate sellor of the crisis. He was chosen an unsparing opponent of his harsh, moderator of the town meeting, held at aggressive dictation. The parliament- Fanueil Hall, which, being found too ary imposition of taxes on paints, glass, small for the assembly, the people adtea, etc., in 1767, brought out all the journed to the Old South Church, resources of opposition in the Massa- where Otis harangued from the pulpit. chusetts Legislature. A petition to He advised moderation, but should the king, various letters to English resistance be necessary, he counselled it noblemen in authority, and a circular to the death. This and other assemblies to the colonial houses of assembly, of the people served only for protesta were reported, the composition of tion against the threatened measure which is accredited to Otis and Samuel which was soon carried into effect. The

this

way, his error."

after an acknowledgment of He rallied, and was reëlected, appeared for a while calmer than ever; but it

He appears after this to have been was only the prelude to lasting mental hardly himself. The noble mind which alienation, with fitful gleams of his old had wavered in some of its irregular genius. His mind worked irregularly, flights, was now quite overthrown, or throwing out wild coruscations of restored only in lucid intervals. There mingled sense and insanity, but he was is something exceedingly touching in seldom violent. In one of his moody the occasional entries of John Adams' hours, he collected and burnt all his Diary of this period, as he meets Otis letters and papers. His later days in society, all the more so for the ap- were passed with Mr. Osgood, a farmer parent uncertainty of the censure of his of Andover. We read-it is pleasant aberrations. In January, 1770, there to read-in Mr. Tudor's narrative, that is this entry of a meeting with him at he spent his time, for the most part, a club of the lawyers of the town, very in cheerfulness, in kindness, and goodpiteous: "Otis is in confusion yet; he nature, with the family, "delighting loses himself; he rambles and wanders them with his wit, his stories and like a ship without a helm; attempted knowledge on every subject." His last to tell a story, which took up almost appearance in Boston was at the table all the evening; the story may at any of John Hancock; when the excite time be told in three minutes, with all ment of conviviality, the sight of old the graces it is capable of, but he faces and the associations of the spot took an hour. I fear he is not in his were too powerful for his enfeebled perfect mind. The nervous, concise, brain. He returned to Andover, and and pithy were his character till lately; one day pointed out the tree beneath now the verbose, roundabout, and which he wished to be buried. He rambling, and long-winded." had even, in some accidental way, mentioned the manner of his death, when in an interval of his delirium, he said to his 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." It was even so. As he stood within the house of the Osgood farm one day, the twenty-third of May, 1783, in the act of telling a story to the assembled household, waiting in one of the rooms the passing over of a heavy cloud, the bolt came, a flash in a first heavy burst of thunder. He fell instantly, without mark, or change, or convulsion.

It is sad to pursue the story. He appeared indeed in the Legislature, but no longer as the beacon orator; his usefulness was over; the House thanked him by vote for his "great and important services, which, as a representative in the General Assembly, through a course of years, he has rendered to this town and province; particularly for his undaunted exertions in the common cause of the Colonies, from the beginning of the present glorious struggle for the rights of the British Constitution." This was in 1770, on his retirement in ill health.