YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Address on
JAMES OTIS

By
Henry F. Durant

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Address on James Otis

DELIVERED BY

HENRY F.^ DURANT

IN THE

Mercantile Library Lecture-Course
Tremont Temple, February i, i860

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JUR good neighbours the "Knickerbock
ers," amuse themselves very much
with what they call our provincial fash
ion of paying honors to the great names
of New England, and find it very laugh
able and absurd, that a wealthy and powerful city,
which can build railroads and clipper ships, should
be troubling itself about its illustrious men, either
living or dead. Let us plead guilty to the charge,
and let us hope that it will remain true forever.
Someone has said that great men are like the light
ning, and that the men of their age are the dry
wood, waiting to be kindled; but what must the
people be when the lightening fails to kindle or
illume ? This pride in the illustrious names of
America is not a merely worthless vanity, it is the
just, national pride, which creates and fosters
national greatness. It is the feeling of the true
patriot, Catholic enough to admire eminence
always, but loving, with a more personal fervor,
those who are bound to him by the ties of home,
and a common country.
One noble and beautiful proof of this, we have
known, even in these days. Has not our own
greatest orator, now for many years of unrequited,
unselfish labor, gone through our land upon a
new crusade, to free that sacred sepulchre, in
which he to whom alone is given the title of

"Father of his Country" sleeps by the hushed
Potomac ? Clothed in the mighty panoply of his
imperial eloquence, this latest crusader has wan
dered over the Union, teaching the lofty lessons of
patriotism, and impressing upon the hearts of his
countrymen, with more than painter's, more than
sculptor's skill, the living image of that sublime
character, so wondrous in its completeness, so pure
and so lofty in its ideal grandeur, that marble alone
would seem pure enough to illustrate its sublimity
and its purity, if the words of Everett, in their sim
ple and majestic beauty, were not more enduring
and more pure.
My task to night is far more humble. I wish to
clear away the long, dank weeds, and withered
mosses, from a lonely, half forgotten grave, and to
retouch tne fading inscriptions on the crumbling
headstone of one who lived for his country only ;
one who was the first great victim, the first great
offering, on the altar of freedom.
I wish to recall the memories of one of the illus
trious dead, a lawyer who was the ackowledged
leader of the bar, although he was rarely heard in
any but a Boston Court House. A patriot, who
from Faneuil Hall, called his countrymen to defend
their liberties. A statesman, whose struggles, and
whose success were almost wholly confined
to a provincial legislature in Massachusetts,

but who, with this narrow circle only, for nis
immediate audience, uttered those inspired thoughts
and words of flame, wliich made a continent free,
and have opened a new volume in the great
history of the world. I seek to call back from the
past, those ancient days of doubt, and fear, and
strife, days of awakening light, days of the
dawning of liberty, which preceded our American
Revolution, and to give a portrait of James Otis,
the chief actor in those scenes. I desire to
do this mainly for the reason, that although his
name is honored and revered by those who have
made the early history of our Revolution their
study, and although some of the later historians
give him his merited rank and station, yet owing
to many circumstances, he has not that home in
the hearts of his countrymen to which his great
services and sacrifices entitle him, his name is not
the familiar household word which it would be, if
his unrewarded services were remembered, and
his life were better known.
It is as a patriot and a statesman that James
Otis has these great claims upon the gratitude of
his countrymen; and it will be impossible to gain
even the most superficial knowledge of his char
acter and life, unless we understand something of
the times in which he lived, and look upon the
struggles of his sorrowful life, by the light of the
history of the country he loved.
5

The first scene of that great drama which ter
minated so fatally for him, so brilliantly for his
countrymen, is near the close of the second
French War.
Never had the power of England seemed so
great, never could a contest between her and her
Colonies have seemed so hopeless, or so improbable.
Her greatest War Minister, Chatham, had inspired
the army and navy with his own imperial and
never conquered will.
In the East, a new Empire had been added to
Britain, and the ancient civilization of the Hindu's,
dating far back beyond the earliest knowledge of
the British Isles, had yielded to the supremacy
and the power of England's King.
In the Western hemisphere, the glorious capture
of Louisburg and Quebec had wrested the
Canadas from the French dominion, and trans
ferred them to her ancient enemy. The Havanas
had been torn from the grasp of Spain, and Eng
land's stately fleets sailed the open seas, seeking
in vain for a rival, or an opponent. Then for the
first time -n^as verified England's proudest boast,
that on her meteor flag the sun sets never.
Never were the Colonies more attached to Great
Britain than then. The Colonial troops had fought
side by side with the Veterans of England.
Shouting for the same King, and charging under
6

the same victorious banners, they had swept like a
storm along the bloody plains of Abraham, and
proud of their common success, proud of their
unstained loyalty, they boasted themselves to
be Britons. The condition of the Colonies was
well expressed by Franklin, when at a later day,
he appeared before the bar of the House of Com
mons, and was interrogated concerning the state
of America. He spoke warmly of the tried loyalty
of the Colonies, and when asked what would be the
consequences of sending an army there, he replied:
"They would not find a rebellion, they might
indeed make one. " A rebellion was made indeed,
made by the obstinate folly and tyranny of a
monarch who changed thousands of loyal subjects
to hostile patriots, and by his oppression, drove
them to resistance, revolution, and independence.
George the Third had ascended the throne,
with the promises of the dawn, and the sunrise,
shining around him. For two reigns, England, in
her dread of Catholic tyranny, had given her
ancient sceptre to the keeping of princes born in
foreign lands, and the two Georges had been
obeyed, but never loved. George the Third, how
ever, was a native born prince. In his first speech
to Parliament, he had used these words: "Born
and educated in this Country, I glory in the name
of Briton, ' ' and these words endeared him to his
subjects at home and in the Colonies.

But George the Third was a tyrant. 1 do not
speak the voice of America, even in the days of
her long and bitter struggles for liberty, for even
then she had not forgotten her ancient faith; and
the student of her early history will compare with
amazement, the truthful loyalty, the credulous
praise, the kindly attachment, with which the King
was spoken of all through those troubled times
which preceded the Revolution, and the stern
truths which English historians in their justice
utter, when they delineate the character of that
now unloved and unhonored King. Of a narrow
and uncultivated mind, in a Court where the
Authoress of "Cecilia" was a lady in waiting, the
monarch was so ignorant that the poorest paid
clerk in any department would have blushed at his
blunders in spelling. !t would have been a difficult
matter to murder the King's English, in George the
Third's day. His majesty's criticism upon
Shakespeare will give some insight into the char
acter of the Prince who gloried in the name of
Briton; and his opinions have at least the merit of
originality. In a moment of confidence he opened
his royal mouth and stammered out his opinion to
Miss Burney: " Was there ever such stuff as the
great part of Shakespeare, only one must not say
so!" Yet his ignorance was not caused by want
of industry, nor by want of natural intelligence;
the truth is, that his nature did not di.'^pose him to

liberal culture. He was a man of small, cold, vices;
he loved power, not as Chatham loved it, for its
grandeur, but for its meanness; not for its stately
empire on sea and land, but for its back-stair
influence, its votes, its servility, and its patronage.
Of the knowledge of a statesman, he had nothing;
but no one in his kingdom knew half so well as
he, the places, the patronage, and the small pre
rogatives of the Crown. Sincere in his antipathies
to genius, he called to his side, not the great men
of the hour, but only useful and subservient tools,
until m later years the sceptre which he was unable
to grasp, passed into the hands of Pitt.
In the dark night that followed the flattering
sunrise of his accession to the throne, there were
constellations shining, whose eternal light has not
faded yet, but every day grows brighter. Burke,
and Chatham, and Fox, and Erskine, and Sheridan,
were around him, but he never willingly called them
to his counsels, and never gave them his trust, or
his friendship. The greatest blot, however, upon
his name and reign, is his tyrannical and oppressive
policy towards America. It knew no change from
the first to the last; it was always the same, slow,
obstinate, unreasoning, and unrelenting determin
ation, to extend illegal and unconstitutional power.
The Colonies with a chivalric loyalty, had taxed
themselves year after year to carry on England's

war against the French; so extreme were these
self-imposed burdens that at one time the taxes in
Boston amounted to two thirds of the entire income
of the real estate; and yet no sooner was the war
in America ended by the Capitulation of the
Canadas, than a system of artful and insidious
measures was instituted to extend the royal power,
to levy new and illegal taxes, and to enslave the
Colonies. The Colony of Massachusetts Bay was selected
as the scene of the first assault upon liberty.
Fitting tools were needed to carry out these
designs, and they were at hand, — for when did a
tyrant fail to find a victim or a tool.' Francis
Bernard, Governor of New Jersey, had in his
correspondence shown himself to be a lover and an
earnest advocate of arbitrary power, ready to unite
in any measures, and to forward any tyrannical
schemes of the ministry. He was transferred
to Massachusetts, and became the royal Governor
there. His first step was to direct the Collector of the
Port of Salem to apply to the Supreme Court for
writs of assistance, to enable him, and his deputies,
to execute the unjust and tyrannical acts of trade.
But Chief Justice Sewall, a judge of great learning
and unstained purity of character, refused to issue a
writ for which there was no precedent or justifica-
10

tion. As the application, however, was made in
behalf of the Crown, he could not refuse to hear
the question argued; and it was postponed to be
heard before the full bench in Boston. Providence
seemed to smile upon the Governor's designs, for,
before the day of trial came, the Chief Justice
died, and it was left for the Crown to appoint a
more subservient successor. This dangerous
power was instantly exercised, and it was before
the tribunal in which the newly appointed Chief
Justice presided, that the Crown officers appeared
to demand aid in executing the illegal acts of trade.
These laws had been enacted for many years, but
had been allowed to sleep unexecuted. Threats of
their execution and partial attempts had been
made, which had brought them into execration,
but for a long time they had been inoperative.
Some of the Colonial lawyers knew them, and
dreaded their oppressive provisions, but their
practical execution had seemed unlikely. The
policy of the Board of Trade, however, and the
designs of the new Governor, and his coadjutor,
the Chief Justice, soon began to be whispered
abroad, and awakened the most lively apprehension
in the minds of the more thoughtful of the Colonists.
It is difficult to conceive of laws more odious or
unwise than the various acts of trade. A state
ment of a few of their provisions will give an idea
II

of their general nature. Foreign commerce was
impossible, for no imports of European manufacture
were allowed, except from England, and in English
vessels. To compel the use of English broad-cloths,
the Colonists were forbidden to sell their wool
from one plantation to another, and if they made
it into cloth they could not sell it abroad, or in
another Colony. To compel the use of English
tools, it was forbidden to erect furnaces for making
steel, and if men bought English iron they were
not allowed to manufacture it into American nails.
In short, every sailor, every merchant, every
mechanic, was to feel the iron hand of arbitrary
power, and the King in his folly believed that he
could by these means force thirteen American
Colonies to raise vast revenues for him, and cul
tivate cotton and corn for England, like the timid
natives of his Indian empire.
At this emergency, James Otis stood forth to
rule and sway the destinies of his countrymen.
Until then, he had been devoted to the laborious
duties of his profession. His eloquence and learn
ing had made him the acknowledged head of the
bar, and had secured to him its highest honors.
He had been appointed Advocate General, and as
such, it was his official duty to argue in favor of
these illegal writs; but he did not hesitate for a
moment between his interest and his love of liberty,
12

and he promptly resigned the very considerable
salary, and the office which he had no doubt
accepted with just pride. He was then free, and
he volunteered to appear, without fee or reward,
for his fellow citizens, and resist the application; —
and so in the month of February, 1761, the great
cause came on.
The importance of that trial cannot easily be
overstated, fer historians concede that it was the
spark that kindled the flame, — that it was in that
hour that American Independence was born. It
was the greatest of the two great lawsuits which
have become vital portions of the world's history.
First in order of time, comes the trial for ship
money, when John Hampden, in the High Court of
England's Exchequer, came forward, a plain country
gentleman, to resist the arbitary and unlawful taxes
of Charles the First. Time-serving judges decided
the cause for the Crown, but that trial made Eng
land free, and cost King Charles his Empire, and
his head. Second in order of time, is the great
cause of the Writs of Assistance, the results of
which made America a Republic.
The scene of the trial was a striking picture.
That high court was held in the great council
chamber, in the easterly end of the ancient build
ing which is now known as the "Old State
House ' '. It was a stately apartment in those days,
13

and its symbolic decorations must have seemed
strikingly sign ficant to the man who stood there as
the first advocate of American liberty. Full length
portraits of Charles the Second, and of James the
Second, in all the magnificence of their royal robes,
had been sent from England many years before,
to be hung there. But the sons of the Puritans
despised the weak vices of the profligate Chalres,
and more than suspected, what is now well known,
that he was in secret a Catholic notwithstanding
his treacherous vows and the falsehoods of a life
time; but they held the Second James in deeper
abhorrence; they hated him as England's last,
worst tyrant, and the glorious revolution which
drove him from his throne was as dear to the
Colonists as it was to the Englishmen. The royal
Governor who received these unwelcome gifts, had
the tact not to place them in the Council Cham
ber, and they were allowed to lie neglected in a
garret, until Governor Bernard came, as he thought,
to teach the obstinate provincials their duty.
It was a prophetic omen of his future course,
that he had caused these pictures to be brought
forth from their hiding place, cleaned and re
stored, and hung in gorgeous frames, as the
chief ornaments of the Council Chamber. And
so it chanced, that beneath those departed shadows
of kingly despotism, sat the Kings judges, not
14

dressed as of old, in Puritan simplicity; for by an
unpopular innovation, which the new Chief Justice
had then for the first time introduced, they had
come arrayed in flowing robes of scarlet broadcloth,
and wearing huge flowing wigs, like the great
Barons of the Exchequer.
Of these judges there is no occasion to speak,
except of the King's new Chief Justice, and he
was indeed a marked character. His appointnent
had taken every one by surprise; there were many
learned lawyers of reputation and experience,
ardent loyalists too, who might have been selected;
but the choice fell upon Thomas Hutchinson,
whose highest recommendation to the office was
his entire subserviency. He was never regularly
educated to the law, and had very little knowledge
of it, but the great and insuperable objection to
this appointment was that he held other executive
offices under Government, which were wholly
inconsistent with his duties as a judge. He was
Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, a member
of the Council, Commander of the Castle, and
Judge of the Probate of Wills. To these officers,
with their ample salaries and powers, had been
added the emoluments and honors of the Chief
Justiceship of Massachusetts. It may well be
believed that such powers were not thus bestowed
without the sure expectation of equivalent services
15

in return. Fifty years after, it was said that a
more deliberate, cool, studied, corrupt appoint
ment never was made than that of Hutchinson to
be Chief Justice. Great abilities he certainly
had, but they were wholly ,' perverted from the
right path. For years this profound dissembler
knew how to play two parts with surprising suc
cess. To the English Government, he was their
ready tool, and he had their unqualified support
and confidence. For years also, he was able to
deceive the Colonists. With a detestable hypoc
risy, he feigned great sanctity of life and strictness
of religious belief, while, in his private letters, he
scoffed at the religious forms and observances of
the Colonists. He wrote open letters, which he
showed to the Council, and secret letters at the
same time, to contradict them. He urged the
Government to take away the Charter of the
Colony and to make laws destructive of the liberty
of speech, and of the press. In short, he was
always the unrelenting, but secret foe to his
Countrymen's rights and liberties. It was not,
however, until his treacherous letters were dis
covered and exposed, some years after, by Ben
jamin Franklin, that his character was fully under
stood by his fellow citizens and his dark cloak of
dissimulation torn away: but now, he was in the
very zenith of his powers. The real Governor —
i6

for Bernard was wholly ruled by him — trusted by
the Crown and wielding and directing its great
powers, head of the executive as well as of the
judiciary, he sat there in his full bottomed wig and
ample scarlet robes, subtle, dissembling, unrelent
ing, but cautious, and courteous, the fit representa
tive of that civilized tyranny which is not clad in
mail, which deals not in the rack and torture
chamber, nor in brute force; but comes wearing
the peaceful garb of the law, or religion, or govern
ment, those three great truths, those three great
powers, those three great dangers of civilization.
In the Council Chamber were gathered the
chief men of the Colony. The officers of the
Crown were there, haughty, and confident of
success. The merchants were there, thoughtful
and anxious, with John Hancock at their head.
Nor were there wanting the representatives of
that revered clergy, who were soon to preach
liberty and religion, from the same sacred altars.
The leading lawyers of the Colony, too, were
assembled, but as we look back by the light of
history, upon those old days, one only is prominent.
It is a young lawyer from Braintree, then only
lately admitted to the bar, who sat there taking
notes, or listening to Otis with wonder and ad mir
ation. Twenty-four years after, he stood in St.
James to be presented, in due form, to the King,
17

as the first accredited Minister of the Republic to
the Court of George the Third, At the time of
the trial he was unknown; now we know him as the
statesman and the sage, the patriot president, the
venerable John Adams.
To the reflecting mind, the scene has higher
sources of interest than arise from the narrow
stage and these then obscure actors. Unlike that
other trial of which I spoke, it was conducted not
in the metropolis of the British Empire, but in a
distant province. The judges were not noble
lords, but plain citizens; the Court was not ven.
erable for its antiquity, nor terrible for its power.
History had not ennobled its records, with great
deeds and ancient memories; nor were there stains
of noble blood upon its judgment seats. But the
elements of moral grandeur were not wanting; it
was the cause of the people against the King, the
cause of liberty, struggling in the iron hand of
arbitrary power, and last, but greatest of all, it was
the cause of the Puritans. The ancient manners
were fast changing, the old faith was fading away,
the increasing wealth of the Colonies had brought
luxury with it; the influx of foreigners and advent
urers, from every clime, had taken away the con
trolling power of the Church, the late wars had
produced a certain laxity of morals, and men of
the old stamp were rare. The hour was indeed
i8

full of danger for liberty; for luxury and unsettled
faith, and the license of war, had paved the way
for the insidious progress of tyranny, which came
hidden beneath the ample robes of the law. In
vain had God's chosen people prayed and wept by
the cradle of that weak and suffering Colony, if in
later years, their prayers and tears were to be
unheard; in vain were all the sorrows and wrongs
and martyrdoms of the days that were past and
gone, if the sons of the Puritans were to be for
gotten now, and the bright visions of civil and
religious liberty were to vanish at last, like a
vanishing cloud.
It was before this Court, and this audience, that
the great cause was heard. For the Crown, the
case was opened and argued by Mr. Gridley, an
eminent lawyer of ripe attainments and genuine
ability, who supported his cause with much
research and learning. He was followed by
Oxenbridge Thacher, who is said to have argued
for the citizens with great ingenuity, although with
moderation; but when James Otis came to speak,
the whole scene was changed. The friends who
thought they knew him best, were awed and elec
trified by his astonishing eloquence. He grasped
the great subject as a statesman and an orator.
Not as a barren debate of musty precedents, or of
narrow construction of Statutes; but as a vast
19

question of the natural inalienable rights of man, —
a question of the fundamental powers of Govern
ment His great nature was stirred in its very
depths, and as he uttered the grand truths of free
dom, those solid walls floated away, that small
audience became a people, and the inspired orator
was pleading for the sacred cause of liberty, and
the wide world was his audience. Let it not be
understood that this was mere declamation; he knew
his cause thoroughly; he examined and analyzed all
the numerous acts of trade, and exposed their
combined tyranny and folly with a logic that was
unanswerable, and a humor that was irresistable.
That the writs demanded were wholly unconsti
tutional and illegal, he proved, with an affluence
of learning, and a force of reasoning, that even
prejudice could not resist, and to which there was
no reply. One can imagine the confusion of the
wily Chief Justice, as his predetermined decision
became gradually, even in his own eyes, so illegal
so absurd, and so arbitrary, that he dared not pro
nounce it; with what dismay must he not have
felt the solid ground rocking and failing beneath
his feet; what must have been his amazement,
when before that awed, but delighted assembly,
the great orator and statesman, with an inspiration
of genius, which bore him far in advance of his
age, uttered the great truths of the inalienable
20

rights of man, which are superior to all govern
ment, and all law, upon which ^\ government
rests, and without which all laws are null, and in
vain. One can imagine the smooth dissembler, as
a last resource, fumbling in his pockets, beneath his
scarlet robes, to find some sympathy and some
consolation in his many salaried guineas, assuring
himself that they at least were not vanishing like
fairy gold, but were solid and real; that they at
least were unaffected by that burning eloquence,
answering that mailed logic, with a logic of their
own. How he must have wished that the long
hours would roll by, and that terrible thunder cloud
would utter its voices and pass away. Subtle and
sagacious as he was, he did not know that those
great primal truths, once revealed, could never die,
that they would never cease to utter their voices,
that they would roll in echoing reverberations
through the everlasting gates of the mountains, and
from one sun-lighted peak to another, throughout all
our borders, that the great white-lipped surges
would take up the swelling mystery, and break it
in thunder on a thousand miles of gray storm-
trampled beach and blanching rocks, that the
great rivers would bear the new revelation to the
wilds and the hill countries, and the untrodden
paths of the ancient forests; and that all over the
land, angel voices falling from the sky would be
21

heard proclaiming to those who kept their flocks at
night, to those who watched their solitary camp
fires on the dark and bloody ground of the frontier,
to the sailors keeping their morning watches on
the lonely seas; proclaiming always the same glad
tidings, and the new revelation, that they, too,
were free.
The decision of the cause is of little consequence,
the predestined judgment was reserved for a pre
tended consultation, but when the time came, the
Chief Justice still dared not to pronounce it. With
his usual hypocrisy and dissimulation, he announced
that the Court could find no authority for issuing
the writs, and would write to England for inform
ation. Whether any letters were sent, or any
returned, is one of the secrets of those long plots,
and subtle intrigues, disgraceful alike to the King
and his Governors, which plotted away thirteen
great Colonies; but no decision was ever given.
The Court would not pronounce before an audience
which had heard the great argument of Otis, a
decision which that argument had doomed in
advance to contempt and derision; but without
pronouncing any judgment or giving any reasons,
they issued their illegal writs of assistance to the
Custom House officers. The decision was of no
consequence; the great truths had been spoken
which were to make a nation free. There was no
22

telegraph then to flash from sea to sea the living
history of the hour; but all great truths have their
own magnetic electricity, and from heart to heart,
and brain to brain, flashed the inspired thoughts of
genius, through an electric chain of freemen. Of
that argument, scarcely a fragment remains.
Some of the phrases indeed were remembered
then, and are remembered still, and the words
"taxation without representation is but tyranny "
were in every man's mouth.
The only valuable account of that striking scene
is given by one whom I have named among the
audience. More than fifty years after, the vener
able John Adams in his retirement wrote some
most valuable and interesting reminiscences of that
important trial, and of its then unforseen conse
quences; of the result of that great debate he
says, " I do say, in the most solemn manner, that
Mr. Otis's oration, against writs of assistance,
breathed into this nation the breath of lifel"
Would that I could transcribe all that this revered
patriot so eloquently and generously wrote of his
companion, in those days of doubt, almost of
despair. Otis was buried in his unhappy and untimely
grave, but he was too great to be permitted to rest
undisturbed; old rancours remained, the old
hatreds of party were not forgotten, and we need
23

not to be reminded, even in our own day, that the
great dead cannot rest in peace; calumnies pursue
them in their graves, and unclean hands pluck
away the flowers which love and sorrow have
planted there.
Hear the eulogy which, with pathetic emphasis,
John Adams laid as an unperishing garland, upon
the tomb of his friend ;
"He was generous, candid, manly, social,
friendly, amiable, witty, and gay by nature and
by habit; honest almost to a proverb, though
quick and passionate against meanness and deceit.
I have been young, and now am old, and I solemnly
say, that I have never known a man whose love
of his country was more ardent or sincere; never
one who suffered so much, never one whose ser
vices for any ten years of his life were so impor
tant and essential to the cause of his country as
those of Mr. Otis, from 1760 to 1770!"
And is not this man worthy of our love and
admiration.? Not for him the costly prizes of life;
he could easily have won them all, he had but to
stretch out his powerful arm to grasp them, but
they were not for him, he felt only that he must
preach his crusade of liberty. His great soul
would not let him keep silence, he was too sadly
and deeply in earnest to compromise with the
truth. His wealth fell away from him, his friends
24

deserted him, the fever in his brain burned his life
away, but he only saw that one narrow, rugged
path before him. With prophetic vision, he saw
that this narrow path led downward for him, but
for his country, he also saw hope and sunshine,
and the beautiful Delectable Mountains beyond;
and so he sadly but resolutely kept on his way.
This great cause of the writs of assistance was
but the opening scene of Mr. Otis's career in public
life. In May, his fellow citizens eagerly called
upon him to represent them in the Colonial Legisla
ture and defend the cause of liberty there also. The
Royalists heard of this with dismay, and prophesied
with truth, that out of this election a faction would
arise that would shake the land. From that time,
for ten long years, Mr. Otis was a member of that
assembly where the battle of liberty was fought
but this was not all, he was the prophet, and the
preacher, of a new creed, and with his voice, and
by his pen, he won the battle of liberty in the
hearts and brains of the once loyal Colonists, and
prepared the way for the Declaration of Indepen
dence and the battles of the Revolution. His ser
vices and his mission cannot be understood unless it
is remembered that the Colonists at the time of the
trial were legal subjects of England, that the King
and his ministers and the Governors and the office
holders of America were united in a determined
25

plot to enslave America in their net of taxes and
statutes and acts of trade, until the industry
and the commerce and the revenues of the country
were in their grasp. Against these dangers the
loyal Colonists were to be warned; the lessons of
liberty were to be taught; to them and a revolution
to be made based upon the principle of eternal
truth. James Otis came to instruct the Puritans
who loved liberty of conscience and civil liberty as
well. He came to instruct men in the rights of man
and the powers of Kings, and until these lessons
were learned, liberty was impossible, for, at the
time of which we are speaking, armed resistance
to the royal power was not dreamed of, and the
patriots of Lexington and Concord would then
have been executed as traitors by the people who,
a few years after, honored the living as heroes and
the dead as martyrs.
It is wholly impossible in these brief limits to
give any adequate idea of those struggles between
Governor Bernard and Hutchinson, backed by the
influential Royalists and the power of Great
Britain, on one side, and James Otis on the other.
Governor Bernard was a man of no mean ability
and with the aid of Hutchinson he contended long
against the growing sentiment of liberty. He had
the folly, however, year after year, to engage in a
wordy warfare of messages to his refractory Legis-
26

lature, which Otis answered in debate, with indig
nant eloquence, or to which he framed the most
bitter official replies; and the controversy usually
terminated in the loss or his temper, and his
dignity, on the part of the Governor, and always
in his total discomfiture. He hated Otis cordially,
and this was repaid with a deep contempt, that
was not always silent.
One biting sarcasm of Otis's is recorded, which
will illustrate Governor Bernard's want of learn
ing. Mr. Otis was arguing some case before him,
and cited Domat, a well known authority of the
civil law. "Who is Domat?" enquired the
Governor. "A very learned civilian. Sir, and
none the less an authority, because he is unknown
to your honor," was the reply ; — very courteous
in manner, very bitter in meaning.
Governor Bernard was far from a perfect
character. His avarice was proverbial, and the
populace nicknamed him " Governor Tom-cod "
because, it was said, his principal amusement
was in catching the fish which his parsimony
compelled his family to eat. But more serious
crimes were laid to his charge. Proofs taken
under oath are still in existence, showing that the
Collector of Salem defrauded the Government,
and that Governor Bernard shared his illegal gains.
Generous wines, too, from the sunny south side of
27

Madeira, found their way to the Collector's store
houses, and the passage thence to the Royal
Governor's cellars, was short and easy. We can
imagine his Excellency, after one of his numerous
defeats, drinking confusion to Otis in these
smuggled liquors. Nor can we suppress the mal
icious wish, that a modern fashion had been antici
pated, and that the wholesome vintage had been
extended liberally before it reached his Excellency's
cellars. But these small, mean vices are of little impor
tance, compared with his graver crimes. The
worst enemys of American freedom were in
America, and Francis Bernard and his Chief
Justice, with the intriguers whom they gathered
around them, were the implacable foes of liberty.
The Royalists were untiring in their efforts to crush
the spirit of freedom and extend the powers of the
Crown. It was a struggle carried on in the social
circle, in the newspapers, and in the Provincial
Legislature. This is not the occasion to describe,
in detail, the events of that struggle: the passage
of the Stamp Act, the determined resistance of the
Colonies, the Stamp Act Congress in New York in
which Otis took so conspicuous a part, that first
surprise tea party with its uninvited guests, at
Liverpool wharf, the Boston Port Bill, the occupa
tion of Boston by British regiments, and the Boston
28

Massacre, — all these are written in history. Our
only object is to gain some insight into the char
acter of Otis, and although a century has not yet
elapsed, the materials are not ample or easy of
access. The best sources for information are in
the writings which Mr. Otis has left. From the
time when he laid the first sacrifice on the altar of
Liberty, he watched the sacred flame, and never
allowed its light to be extinguished. He became
involved in an endless struggle with the Governor,
with the Judges, with the Custom House officers
and all the officials.
In the Provincial Legislature, he was the
acknowledged leader, and in the long vacations,
between the sessions, he was constantly employed
with his pen, for the cause of liberty. He has
left some acknowledged papers, and many which
can be discovered by their style, but if we examine
only the acknowledged works of his hand, we
shall find abundant proofs of his greatness.
One cannot study his writings and history, and
escape the conviction that there were two natures
in this great man. One was the high-toned
gentleman, unlike his royal master, educated in all
the learning of his day, a trained lawyer, a man
of action, prompt and brave in any emergency, an
unselfish patriot, who loved his country, and in
too sad-earnest indeed; gave up his life for her, a
29

lover of liberty, but at first a lover of the regulated
constitutional liberty of England. His habits of
education and thought had made him conservative.
He loved liberty but he respected and obeyed the
laws. But there was in him another nature, higher
than this. In all times, men have entertained
angels unawares, ministering spirits, whose mis
sions are not wholly known to themselves even;
men living beyond, and in advance of their age.
We call them prophets, inspired seers, in the
widest and largest sense poets, for they come to
create new empires of thought, new realms in the
history of the mind. Unawares indeed, for when
has it happened that the prophet was honored, or
his revelations understood? When have prophets
not been called madmen? When have their lives
not been short and full of sorrow?
It is the trusting faith of those who love
humanity, that in the majestic history of the ages,
America has not been made free, without great
purposes, and sublime ends. Latest-born child of
time, heritor of the wisdom, the sorrows, the
martyrdoms of the days that are past and gone;
with the holy stars of liberty for her diadem, with
the promises of morning on her brow; the world
will not willingly let this last hope vanish away,
that in the mighty future, liberty and the religion
30

of love and sorrow, and the higher arts and the
muses, the beautiful children of genius, will make
their chosen home in the new Atlantis of the West.
But for all this, there was a long preparation
needed. No one can understand the history of our
American Revolution, no one can prophesy of its
future, nor understand its past, who does not
realize that it was the Revolution in the minds and
the hearts of the people of which I have spoken.
For long years, its deep foundations had been laid,
and the people had been prepared for liberty.
The discipline and government of the New Eng
land churches, the training of the common schools,
the management of their town affairs, their
Colonial assemblies, their wars with the savages,
their isolation and separation from civilized Europe,
with Its bonds and fetters of custom; — all these
had slowly matured, and prepared, a religious,
earnest, and thoughtful race, for the higher lessons
of liberty and independence. This independence,
however, might have been the conservative Con
stitutional liberty of England, instead of the untried
mystery of self government.
But when at last, the hour had come, Otis came
as the inspired prophet of freedom, the messenger
of those great truths, which were to be revealed to
his countrymen, which were to leap from heart to
heart, and brain to brain, until a people were fit to
be free, fitted for self government.
31

The seven years war of the Revolution produced
its own great band of brave soldiers, of true patriots
and thoughtful statesmen; but among that roll of
great names, 1 find but this one who possessed
those transcendent and inspired powers, which for
want of another name we call genius. One can
not read without wonder and admiration, his more
careful state papers or those forgotten pamphlets
written in haste, upon questions of local interest,
written for his plain countrymen, written for the
moment only, and without any attempt at beauty
or finish of style. He gave in those writings that
most convincing proof of a great, original mind,
that he was far in advance of his age. He spoke
great and sublime truths, the secret love of that
unwritten law which is born with us. He discussed
lofty principles; but they were new revelations to
his wondering countrymen. Learned philosophers
had speculated upon Government, and written
elaborate treatises upon its origin, its obligations,
and upon the rights of man. He had studied them
all to see their insufficiency, and with one blow
this unknown lawyer, in an obscure town of that
New England which was so little known that even
English secretaries of state addressed their orders
to the "Governor of the Island of New England!" —
this Boston lawyer with one blow cut sheer down
to the very root of the matter, and gave to his
32

countrymen the fundamental truth that all Govern
ment rests originally and ultimately in the people,
and that it has its everiasting foundations in the
unchangeable will of God. These now are familiar
and accepted truths, almost household words, but
they were strange and novel then, and they were
scoffed at as the ravings of madness by the Royal
ists in England and America.
Of his speeches in the Provincial Assembly, and
his addresses to his countrymen in Fanueil Hall,
we have few fragments even. The debates in the
Legislature were with closed doors, until, late in his
career, he moved and carried ths vote for opening
the debates to the public. But more ample tradi
tions remain of his powers as an orator, and of the
astonishing effects of his eloquence. He was emi
nently an orator of action, in its widest and truest
sense; his contemporaries speak of him as a flame
of fire, and repeat that phrase as if it were the
only one which could express the intense passion
of his eloquence, the electric flames which his
genius kindled, the magical power which swayed
the great popular assemblies with the irresistible
sweep of the whiriwind. But his eloquence was
not confined to one note, or tone, of celestial music;
it, ranged through the whole compass of passion
and emotion, sometimes in simple and pathetic
beauty, or brilliant fancy and sparkling flashes of
33

wit and humor; sometimes in bitter invective or
lofty declamation, displaying the never-ending
variety and luxuriant power of his enthusiastic
nature, his sympathies with humanity, and all that
is beautiful and true in nature and in feeling. But
there were moments of sublimer inspiration, when
he was transfigured before his audience, when the
speaker seemed something more than mortal, and
he uttered the lofty oracles of the poet, orator,
ratner felt, than wholly understood; secrets from
the untranslated hieroglyphics of the human
heart, sublime truths, which have their deep
foundations in the profound mysteries that join the
wondrous soul of man to his great Creator.
As we recall the lavish magic of his glow ng and
tropical eloquence, we remember that the muses
were sisters long ago, and some hidden law of
association, or affinity, as we seek to form an
ideal picture of his greatness, seems in these days,
while we are yet in the flush of enthusiastic admir
ation, to link his memory by the sympathy of
genius with that grand painting, the bright morn
ing star of American art, which so lately illumined
yonder now solitary galleries with the light of its
regal loveliness.
There too, we recognize the same glowing and
lavish wealth of beauty, the tropical luxury of
those Southern forests, where every painted leaf
34

throbs and swells with the rich fulness of life;
where birds of gorgeous plumage hang themselves
like flowers in the foliage, and flowers of brilliant
hues float like birds in the perfumed breeze, where
the waterfalls fill the air with rainbow clouds of
spray and the delicious music of their own silver
chiming, while the sweet expanses of the sunlit
river lend to the landscape the magical effects of
the transparency of water, as they mirror the trees
and the white flocks of fleecy clouds, which are
slowly wandering there. But in the midst of this
affluence of voluptuous beauty with its uncounted
loveliness of glancing lights and vanishing shadows,
lo, — a deeper wonder and mystery! The scene is
transfigured: — from summit to their deep founda
tions, the mighty hills are cloven asunder, and we
see far away through the grand vistas of that
mountain gateway, across unknown and untrodden
valleys, at some remote and incalculable distance,
the eternal ranges of the upper Sierras; soaring
away in the lovely and transparent light of the
tropical sky, lifting one mountain wave above the
other in snowy surges, amid that mighty solitude
and silence, which no human footfall has ever
disturbed, where even the great mountain eagles
and the solitary condor do not dare to soar; until
as we gaze, we realize and feel the mystery and
sublimity which dwell among the everiasting
35

mountains, and with uplifted hands, and eyes, and
voice, we exclaim in wonder and admiration, "Oh,
wonderful, wonderful, 'Heart of the Andes!' "
In his eariier days, before his mind became so
wholly absorbed in his passionate dreams of liberty,
he was more willing to indulge his fancy, and then
a broad, rich flood of humor threw its own warm
light upon the subject; but in later years his style
was changed, and it became remarkable for its
simplicity and want of ornament. He was too
terribly in earnest to think of rhetoric, or to allow
even the graceful flowers which grew naturally
in that rich soil, to blossom there: they were
withered and burned away by the fire of intense
thought, which haunted him, by night and by
day, the never-sleeping, never-resting longing for
liberty. He grew more imperious too, and more
harsh as the contest grew more bitter, his sarcasm
and invective were more withering even than
before, and there soon ceased to be any among the
Royalists who dared to cope with him in debate.
He was called haughty and proud, his manner was
said to be insolent and overbearing, and he was
sometimes accused of coarseness in debate. His
biographers have attempted to defend him from
these charges, but the proofs seem to be unfavor
able, nor indeed is the defence necessary. With
an ardent temperament, which was easily aroused,
36

it would have been strange, if in that long bitter
struggle, there were not many words spoken
which in calmer moments he would wish recalled.
Battling against the despotism of the King, sur
rounded by petty tyrants, whom he knew and
despised, with the tools of corrupt governors about
him, always fighting against open enemies and
lukewarm patriots and secret traitors, it may be
well believed that he was at times stung to mad
ness. They must read history in romance only,
who believe that heroes and patriots are not
mortals also. Sir Charies Grandison would have
cut a sorry figure in a stormy provincial assembly,
and Beau Brummel would have made a poor New
England patriot. The patriot's crown is of thorns
only ; the roses are all stripped away before it is
placed on his brow. That there was much of
harshness, that many hot, hasty words were
spoken: — all this we can well believe, but these
are only the forgotten and unnoticed stains on the
snow-drifts which shine, far away, on the sunlit
mountain peaks.
Mr. Otis was charged with inconsistency in his
course, and in a certain sense that is true. As the
contest went on, old ties were gradually ruptured,
and old feelings of loyalty were effaced: the
truths which he taught, and which he acknow
ledged, led him farther, and brought graver con-
37

sequences than he had at first realized. But
why make apologies or explanations for him which
he himself would have disdained. One cannot
believe that a truly great man lives forever in fear
of the shadow of his own greatness. His mis
sion is to speak the truth, as it is revealed to
him, and if today contradicts yesterday, be it so;
let the latest, best truth be spoken only the more
plainly and boldly. There is a higher consistency
than the narrow role which measures yesterday
against today, and finds that one is a minute
shorter than the other; and that is the consistency
of a life time. Measured by that standard, Otis
was always a pure, a consistent, and an ardent
patriot. His heart and brain, his free thoughts,
and fearless words were always his country's.
His greatness, his passionate ardor for liberty, his
fearlessness, made him the common object of the
slander, the hatred, the fear, and the malignity of
the Royalists. Hutchinson and Bernard filled
their letters to the ministry with old, thrice
repeated slanders of the purity of his motives,
and charged with disappointed ambition, the man
at whose feet they would willingly have laid all
the honors of the Colony. Their retainers abused
him in the government newspapers, with a coarse
ness and virulence borrowed from the worst days
of Grub Street. Dull pasquinades were circulated,
38

which no one would have read but for his name,
and when all these failed in injuring his influence
with the people, — although they did not fail in
their other object, of saddening and darkening his
lonely weary life, — they resorted to baser means.
This great man, who might have been a leader as
he was the Pioneer of the Revolution, upon whom
later days m.ight have shone the sweet sunshine
of that liberty which was now but a gray dawn
scarce tinged with the first faint, rosy light of
morning, this patriot who might have been a sol
dier, this statesman who might have been one of
the signers of that Declaration of Independence,
whose starry truths he proclaimed as the watch
words of liberty, long before they were collected
and recorded in Philadelphia as the voice of United
America, this true patriot and statesman was the
first victim in the strife; — the first to suffer
because he dared to exercise the right of free
speech: would that he were the last and only one.
The British regiments had not been quartered in
Boston for a twelve-month, when the first act of
violence and brute force, the natural consequence
of stationing soldiers in a peaceful city, occurred.
Mr. Otis had discovered that his enemies had
written to England accusing him of high treason;
and there is little doubt that there was a plan on
foot to have him arrested, and taken to England,
39

for trial on the odious charge of constructive high
treason, because he had defended the rights and
liberties of America. The discovery of these
letters was announced in the newspapers, and Mr.
Otis published a card denouncing the authors.
The next evening he was sent for to go to the
British Coffee House on King Street ( now State
Street), and unhappily he went alone, unarmed.
Whatever the designs of his enemies were, it is
evident that they were premediated. He found
there John Robinson, Commissioner of the Cus
toms, who was his bitter enemy, and many English
officers of the army and navy. Mr. Robinson at
once commenced an altercation, soon ending in a
violent assault. What followed is not wholly
known. Mr. Otis although alone and unarmed,
defended himself successfully, when suddenly
the lights were extinguished, that there might
be no witness of the crime, and then a cruel
and dastardly assault was committed upon him.
The tumult was heard in the street, and a young
man who was passing by rushed in, but he was
beaten and thrown out into the street again; he
called for aid and a crowd was soon gathered who
hastened to rescue the beloved patriot; they
stormed the doors, but the cowardly assailants had
fled away by a back passage, leaving the unhappy
man stunned and bleeding upon the floor. He
40

was not killed, but on his head was a dreadful
wound. It was believed at the time with too
much reason, that an assassination was intended,
for they found five or six heavy bludgeons, and an
empty scabbard, on the floor. In the darkness
and secrecy of that fatal night, the owner of the
sword was unknown, but it had inflicted a deep
and dangerous wound, from the consequences of
which the unfortunate victim never recovered.
For a time indeed, it seemed, as if his health were
restored, but this was apparent only; itwas soon
evident that his faculties were impaired, and that
this shock to his brain had unsettled his reason.
Ardent, excitable, and eccentric by nature, this
fatal blow brought on a train of dangerous symp
toms, and ended at last in hopeless insanity.
There were lucid intervals indeed, when his friends
hoped for the restoration of his powers, but
although the crisis was not immediate, and he
served his country afterwards, still from that
hour, there was a rapid and progressive decline.
He lived for many years after, he lived indeed
until the work which he had commenced was
accomplished, and his beloved country was free.
He lived until a new flag was flung to the breeze,
and a new star of empire was given to the western
world; — but he was unconscious of all this great
history, he lived only in a fantastic worid of his
41

own, haunted by shadows of the mournful past,
or the visionary dreams and wild imaginings of the
lunatic. His death was as strange as his life. It
is said that during his insanity, he had more than
once expressed the wish that he might die by
lightning, and the wild wish was remembered long
afterwards. His friends had provided a home for
him in Andover. It was hoped that the solitude of
the hills, and the deep pastoral quiet, would restore
his shattered frame, and soothe his broken mind,
and he had lived there for some years in compar
ative tranquility. It was summer, the family
were all assembled, driven to the shelter of the
house by an approaching thunder storm, the air
was darkened by the gathering clouds, the whirl
wind of dust and rustling leaves fled before the
wind; and then there was an awful lull in the
brooding tempest. It was the moment of fearful
stillness which listens for God, walking in the storm :
suddenly there came a terrible crash, and a blind
ing glare of livid light in that darkened room.
When they recovered from their terror, they
found that he had left them, and gone his way;
they raised up his body, but he was dead. There
was no sign upon his noble features, there was no
mark upon his body, but he was dead. That
beautiful soul bound so long to a ruined form,
which like a shattered mirror distorted its pure
42

radiance into the false glitter and wild brilliance of
insanity, had vanished away with the lightning.
He died, as he had lived, in a storm, — he died as
he had lived, unlike his fellowmen, he died by the
Providence of God, but his martyrdom by man
had gone long before.
Looking back to the hour of his death, as to the
last scene in this drama, we find that the principal
characters had vanished from the stage. Bernard
had died, and was forgotten. Hutchinson, the
great enemy of Otis, had been a wanderer in a
foreign land, his offices and his titles had all been
taken away, and we read of him as a disappointed
old man, haunting the Court of St. James, seeking
for a smile from the ungrateful King, who was said
to turn his back upon him with unconcealed dis
dain and contempt. It is said too, that in shame
and despair, he died by his own hand; but what
ever his death, it was the moral of a corrupt and
selfish ambition.
There is one noble memorial of James Otis
which must not be forgotten now. It is Crawford's
grand statue in the Stone Chapel at Mt. Auburn.
Would that it stood in the corridor of the State
House, or in Faneuil Hall, instead of being buried
in that gloomy vault. The friends of the artist
speak of it as his greatest work, and one can well
believe that it might have been wrought by a sculp-
43

tor, of whom it has been said that ' ' in his whole
body there was not one drop of courtier's blood."
It is an ideal image of the inspired patriot, not as
he was after years of changes and decay, but in
his glorious prime, before care and sorrow, and the
heavy heritage of greatness, had furrowed his
cheek and saddened his brow. He stands in a
noble and dignified posture, the Stamp act beneath
his feet, the great speech against the Writs of
Assistance in his hand. Lofty visions of liberty
light up that imperial brow, and those piercing eyes
are looking forward, to a glorious future, beyond
those hours of doubt, and fear, and strife, — looking
forward with prophetic vision to that promised land
which was nigh at hand, for all but him.
Let us pray in sad earnest, and not without
anxious doubts and fears, that this vision may not
vanish away like a broken dream. God by
mysterious and inscrutable decrees has fashioned
that sun of liberty, not as mortals in their vanity
would have it, perfect and without blot; for there
were dark spots upon its surface, which dim its
splendor; but who for that cause would utter the
imperious wish that this central sun should be
blotted out from Heaven, and that these sister
states, which like the morning stars, sang together
the great anthem of liberty and were bound to
each other then, by eternal laws as profound as
44

those which link the sun and the planets together,
that these sister stars should be sundered; — sun
dered only to fade and to fall from the sky, even as
the evangelist saw, in apocalyptic vision, the
sundering of the seals and the unnumbered stars
falling from Heaven. May this fearful doom be
averted until that final hour when the Angel of
God shall stand upon the earth and upon the sea,
and lifting up his hand, shall swear by Him that
liveth forever and ever, that thenceforth there
shall be time no longer.

45

Copy of letter from Edward Everett to (Mr. Durant.
Summer Street,
2 February, i860.
My dear Mr. Durant: I cannot easily tell you how much I
enjoyed your discourse last evening, without incurring
the suspicion of being bribed by your introductory
remarks. But though greatly indebted to you for them, I
am conscious of entire sincerity in assuring you that
I listened to you with extreme pleasure. Your lecture was
what all lectures ought to be, and so very few are,
instructive; but was more than this: it inculcated sound
principles in an impressive manner. The ornamental
parts, like the description of Mr. Church's picture, — were
of matchless beauty.
I do not know that I should say quite so much, — though
1 could honestly say more, — had you not seemed a little
dissatisfied with yourself last evening.
I called at your house this morning to tell your wife
how much I was pleased, and afterwards at your office,
when I learned to my regret that you are indisposed at
home. I trust not seriously.
With great regard, truly yours,
Edward Everett.
You called Miss Burney a " Lady in waiting, " which
probably described her position more accurately to your
audience than if you had called hei " Dresser," which I
think was the precise designation, — not a menial office
certainly, but far below that of " Lady in Waiting "—
and therefore still more pointedly illustrating your idea.
46

Copj> of letter from Prof. Ehen N. Horsford to Mr. Durant.
My dear Friend: I have just read your address in the Courier—
and beg to say I am delighted with it. Mr. Merrick (Rev.),
who was present, called at my Laboratory this morning
and gave me the most animating account of the perform
ance—your speaking without notes, and the great gratifi
cation of the audience,— without knowing what very
pleasant things he was saying to his particular auditor.
I beg to congratulate you.
Ever yours,
E. N. H.
Feb. 2, i860.

Copy of letter from Mr. G. H. Preston to CMr. Durant.
Thursday afternoon.
My Friend: I regret to learn of your indisposition— trust it is
but temporary. I heard you last eve, as did many others,
with pleasure and profit. I do not see but Napoleon is A
No. I in, as well as out of, the Lecture Room.
Truly yours, G. H. PRESTON.

47

Copy of letter from Edward G. Parker to!Mr. Durant
Mr. Durant, My dear Sir: I feel tempted to express to you this
morning my great gratification at hearing your lecture
last night. Unfortunately for me, you had taken the
very subject 1 was intending to seize next winter, and I
attended with a double interest, therefore. Will you
permit me to say that I think the delivery (which is the
main thing in public speaking) was charming, and the
matter worthy the delivery. I expected not to stay till
the end, but was charmed into staying.
Yours very truly,
edw. g. Parker.

Copy of Utter from Professor Katharine Coman to Mrs.
Durant Wellesley,
February 23, 1898.
My dear Mrs. Durant: I thank you very much for giving me
the privilege of reading the lecture on James Otis. It
gives me a deeper impression of the vital personality and
lofty ideals of Mr. Durant than anything of his writing
1 have read. One feels convinced that he was a James
Otis himself, — so keenly does he feel the aspirations and
the defeats of that martyred patriot.
Thanking you again for according me the privilege of
the lecture, I remain Very sincerely yours,
Katharine Coman.
48