James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist [19]
burning effigies of officers and other adherents of the king's party. In one of these ebullitions, the house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson was attacked and pillaged. The better people had nothing to do with it. Many were arrested and imprisoned.
Governor Bernard was so much alarmed that he declared himself to be a governor only in name. The partisans of the crown started a story that James Otis was the instigator of the riots. There is a hint to this effect in Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts Bay." But it is evident that the charge was unfounded--except in this, that in times of public excitement the utterances of orators are frequently wrested from their purpose by the ignorant and made to do service in the cause of anarchy.
Meanwhile on the first of November, Mr. Otis returned from the Congress in New York, laid a copy of the proceedings before the Assembly, and was formally thanked for his services.
During the Stamp Act year, Mr. Otis found time to compose two pamphlets setting forth his views on the great questions of the day. There had recently appeared a letter written by a Halifax gentleman and addressed to a Rhode Island friend. The latter personage was unknown; the former was ascertained to be a certain Mr. Howard. The so-called "Letter" was written with much ability and in a bitter spirit.
To this Otis replied with great asperity, and with his power of invective untrammeled. He called his pamphlet "A Vindication of the British Colonies against the Aspersions of the Halifax Gentleman, in his Letter to a Rhode Island Friend." A single passage from the work may serve to show the cogency of the writer's style and especially his anticipation of the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence.
"Is the gentleman," said he, "a British-born subject and a lawyer, and ignorant that charters from the crown have usually been given for enlarging the liberties and privileges of the grantees, not for limiting them, much less for curtailing those essential rights, which all his Majesty's subjects are entitled to, by the laws of God and nature, as well as by the common law and by the constitution of their country?
"The gentleman's positions and principles, if true, would afford a curious train of consequences. Life, liberty, and property are, by the law of nature, as well as by the common law, secured to the happy inhabitants of South Britain, and constitute their primary, civil, or political, rights."
The other pamphlet bearing date of September 4, 1765, was entitled "Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists, in a Letter to a Noble Lord." In this the writer discusses the question of Taxation and in particular the specious claim of the British Ministry that the home government might justly tax the colonists to defray the expenses of the French and Indian War.
In answer to this Otis says, in a manner worthy of an American patriot in the year 1898, "The national debt is confessed on all hands to be a terrible evil, and may in time ruin the state. But it should be remembered, that the colonies never occasioned its increase, nor ever reaped any of the sweet fruits of involving the finest kingdom in the world in the sad calamity of an enormous, overgrown mortgage to state and stock-jobbers."
The period here under consideration was that in which the Stamp Act was nominally in force. The law required all legal business to be done on stamped paper. Therefore no legal business was done.
Hutchinson in his History says: "No wills were proved, no administrations granted, no deeds nor bonds executed." Of course matters could not go on in this manner forever. Governor Bernard was induced to call the legislature together. When that body convened an answer to the Governor's previous message was adopted by the House, and the answer was the work of James Otis. An extract will show the temper of the people at that juncture:
"The courts of justice must be open, open immediately, and the law, the great rule of right, in every county in the province, executed. The stopping the courts
Governor Bernard was so much alarmed that he declared himself to be a governor only in name. The partisans of the crown started a story that James Otis was the instigator of the riots. There is a hint to this effect in Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts Bay." But it is evident that the charge was unfounded--except in this, that in times of public excitement the utterances of orators are frequently wrested from their purpose by the ignorant and made to do service in the cause of anarchy.
Meanwhile on the first of November, Mr. Otis returned from the Congress in New York, laid a copy of the proceedings before the Assembly, and was formally thanked for his services.
During the Stamp Act year, Mr. Otis found time to compose two pamphlets setting forth his views on the great questions of the day. There had recently appeared a letter written by a Halifax gentleman and addressed to a Rhode Island friend. The latter personage was unknown; the former was ascertained to be a certain Mr. Howard. The so-called "Letter" was written with much ability and in a bitter spirit.
To this Otis replied with great asperity, and with his power of invective untrammeled. He called his pamphlet "A Vindication of the British Colonies against the Aspersions of the Halifax Gentleman, in his Letter to a Rhode Island Friend." A single passage from the work may serve to show the cogency of the writer's style and especially his anticipation of the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence.
"Is the gentleman," said he, "a British-born subject and a lawyer, and ignorant that charters from the crown have usually been given for enlarging the liberties and privileges of the grantees, not for limiting them, much less for curtailing those essential rights, which all his Majesty's subjects are entitled to, by the laws of God and nature, as well as by the common law and by the constitution of their country?
"The gentleman's positions and principles, if true, would afford a curious train of consequences. Life, liberty, and property are, by the law of nature, as well as by the common law, secured to the happy inhabitants of South Britain, and constitute their primary, civil, or political, rights."
The other pamphlet bearing date of September 4, 1765, was entitled "Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists, in a Letter to a Noble Lord." In this the writer discusses the question of Taxation and in particular the specious claim of the British Ministry that the home government might justly tax the colonists to defray the expenses of the French and Indian War.
In answer to this Otis says, in a manner worthy of an American patriot in the year 1898, "The national debt is confessed on all hands to be a terrible evil, and may in time ruin the state. But it should be remembered, that the colonies never occasioned its increase, nor ever reaped any of the sweet fruits of involving the finest kingdom in the world in the sad calamity of an enormous, overgrown mortgage to state and stock-jobbers."
The period here under consideration was that in which the Stamp Act was nominally in force. The law required all legal business to be done on stamped paper. Therefore no legal business was done.
Hutchinson in his History says: "No wills were proved, no administrations granted, no deeds nor bonds executed." Of course matters could not go on in this manner forever. Governor Bernard was induced to call the legislature together. When that body convened an answer to the Governor's previous message was adopted by the House, and the answer was the work of James Otis. An extract will show the temper of the people at that juncture:
"The courts of justice must be open, open immediately, and the law, the great rule of right, in every county in the province, executed. The stopping the courts