James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist [8]
Milton, Dryden and Pope and throw all the rest into the fire; these are all that are worth reading." In this brief comment the severity of Otis's literary taste is indicated and also something of the rather abrupt and dogmatic character of his mind. His criticism, though true, can hardly be said to be judicious.
In order to understand the part which James Otis played in the great work of revolution and independence it is now necessary to note with care the conditions into which he was cast and with which he was environed at that period of his life when the man-fire flames highest and the audacity of the soul bounds furthest into the arena of danger.
Every man is the joint product of himself and his environment. His life is the resultant of the two forces by which he is held and balanced. At the time when James Otis reached his thirty-fifth year a condition had supervened in the American colonies which reacted upon his passionate and Patriotic nature so powerfully as to bring into full play all of his faculties and to direct the whole force of his nature against the tyrannical method of the mother country.
Let us look for a moment at the course of events which had preceded and which succeeded the crisis in James Otis's life, and made him the born leader of his countrymen in their first conflict for independence.
Great Britain had aforetime permitted the American colonists to plant themselves where, when, and as they would. Almost every colonial settlement had been an adventure. The emigrants from the other side of the Atlantic had been squeezed out by the hard discipline of church and state. In America they settled as they might.
"And England didn't look to know or care."
In the language of one of the bards of this age,
"That is England's awful way of doing business."
She permitted her persecuted children to brave the intolerable ocean in leaking ships, to reach the new world if they could, and survive if they might.
Notwithstanding this hard strain on the sentiment of the Pilgrims, the Cavaliers, and the Hugenots, they remained loyal to the mother country. They built their little states in the wilderness and were proud to christen their towns and villages with the cherished names of the home places in England. They defended themselves as well as they could against the inhospitality of nature, the neglect of the mother country, and the cruelty of savage races.
It was only when they grew and multiplied and flourished that our little seashore republics attracted the attention of the mother land and suggested to the ministers of the crown the possibility of plucking something from the new states which had now demonstrated their ability to exist and to yield an increase.
Meanwhile, for six generations, the colonists had developed their own social affairs and managed their own civil affairs according to the exegencies of the case and the principles of democracy. Their methods of government were necessarily republican.
The military necessities which were ever at the door had taught our fathers the availability of arms as the final argument in the debate with wrong. The conflicts with the Indians and the experiences of the French and Indian war had shown that the Americans were able to hold their own in battle.
Under these conditions there was a natural growth of public opinion in the colonies tending to independence of action, and to indignant protest against foreign dictation. In the sixth decade of the eighteenth century many of the leading young men of America talked and wrote of independence as a thing desirable and possible.
In 1755, when James Otis was thirty years of age, his young friend, John Adams, sitting one day in his school house in Connecticut, wrote this in his diary: "In another century all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us."
We thus note natural conditions as tending to produce a rebellion of the American colonies; also the inherited disposition of the colonists under the discipline
In order to understand the part which James Otis played in the great work of revolution and independence it is now necessary to note with care the conditions into which he was cast and with which he was environed at that period of his life when the man-fire flames highest and the audacity of the soul bounds furthest into the arena of danger.
Every man is the joint product of himself and his environment. His life is the resultant of the two forces by which he is held and balanced. At the time when James Otis reached his thirty-fifth year a condition had supervened in the American colonies which reacted upon his passionate and Patriotic nature so powerfully as to bring into full play all of his faculties and to direct the whole force of his nature against the tyrannical method of the mother country.
Let us look for a moment at the course of events which had preceded and which succeeded the crisis in James Otis's life, and made him the born leader of his countrymen in their first conflict for independence.
Great Britain had aforetime permitted the American colonists to plant themselves where, when, and as they would. Almost every colonial settlement had been an adventure. The emigrants from the other side of the Atlantic had been squeezed out by the hard discipline of church and state. In America they settled as they might.
"And England didn't look to know or care."
In the language of one of the bards of this age,
"That is England's awful way of doing business."
She permitted her persecuted children to brave the intolerable ocean in leaking ships, to reach the new world if they could, and survive if they might.
Notwithstanding this hard strain on the sentiment of the Pilgrims, the Cavaliers, and the Hugenots, they remained loyal to the mother country. They built their little states in the wilderness and were proud to christen their towns and villages with the cherished names of the home places in England. They defended themselves as well as they could against the inhospitality of nature, the neglect of the mother country, and the cruelty of savage races.
It was only when they grew and multiplied and flourished that our little seashore republics attracted the attention of the mother land and suggested to the ministers of the crown the possibility of plucking something from the new states which had now demonstrated their ability to exist and to yield an increase.
Meanwhile, for six generations, the colonists had developed their own social affairs and managed their own civil affairs according to the exegencies of the case and the principles of democracy. Their methods of government were necessarily republican.
The military necessities which were ever at the door had taught our fathers the availability of arms as the final argument in the debate with wrong. The conflicts with the Indians and the experiences of the French and Indian war had shown that the Americans were able to hold their own in battle.
Under these conditions there was a natural growth of public opinion in the colonies tending to independence of action, and to indignant protest against foreign dictation. In the sixth decade of the eighteenth century many of the leading young men of America talked and wrote of independence as a thing desirable and possible.
In 1755, when James Otis was thirty years of age, his young friend, John Adams, sitting one day in his school house in Connecticut, wrote this in his diary: "In another century all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us."
We thus note natural conditions as tending to produce a rebellion of the American colonies; also the inherited disposition of the colonists under the discipline