method, he was sometimes involved in law-suits in which he was constrained to turn upon his own client.

The story goes of one such instance in which he brought suit for the collection of a bill. Believing in his client and in the justice of the claim, he pressed the matter in court and was about to obtain a judgment when he accidentally discovered, among his client's papers, a receipt which the plaintiff had signed for the very claim under consideration. Through some mistake the receipt had again got back into the man's possession, and he had taken advantage of the fact to institute a suit for the collection of the claim a second time.

Seeing through the matter at once, Otis took the plaintiff aside, confronted him with the receipt and denounced him to his face as a rascal. The man gave down and begged for quarter, but Otis was inexorable; he went back to the bar and stated to the court that reasons existed why the case of his client should be dismissed. The court, presided over by Judge Hutchinson, afterward Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Justice of Massachusetts, expressed its surprise at the turn of affairs, complimented Otis for his honorable course as an advocate, commended his conduct to the bar, and dismissed the case.

With the spread of his reputation Mr. Otis was summoned on legal business to distant parts. On one occasion he was called to Halifax to defend some prisoners under arrest for piracy; believing them to be innocent he convinced the court in an eloquent plea and secured the acquittal of the prisoners.

On another occasion he was summoned to Plymouth to defend some citizens of that town who had become involved in a riot on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. It was the custom in the New England towns to observe this day with a mock procession, in which effigies representing the Pope, the Old Bad One, and James the Pretender, were carried through the streets to be consigned at the end to a bonfire. In this instance violence was done by some of the participants; windows were smashed, gates were broken down, etc. Mr. Otis conducted the defense, showing that the arrested persons taking part in a noisy anniversary, and committing acts that were innocent in spirit, if not innocent per se, ought not to be adjudged guilty of serious misdemeanor. This plea prevailed and the young men were acquitted.

It is to be greatly regretted that the legal pleas and addresses of James Otis have not been preserved. A volume of his speeches would reveal not only his style and character, but also much of the history of the times. The materials, however, are wanting. He kept a commonplace book in which most of his business letters of the period under consideration were recorded. But these give hardly a glimpse at the man, the orator, or his work. Tradition, however, is rife with the myth of his method and manner. He was essentially an orator. He had the orator's fire and passion; also the orator's eccentricities-his sudden high flights and transitions, his quick appeals and succession of images.

To these qualities of the orator in general Otis added the power of applying himself to the facts; also the

power of cogent reasoning and masterful search for the truth which gained for him at length the fame of first orator of the revolution. The passion and vehemence of the man made him at times censorious and satirical. His manner towards his opponents was at times hard to bear. His wit was of that sarcastic kind which, like a hot wind, withers its object.

All of these dispositions seemed to increase his power and to augment his reputation, but they did not augment his happiness. His character as an advocate and as a man came out in full force during the first period of his Boston practice; that is, in the interval from 1750 to 1755.

On attaining his thirtieth year Mr. Otis came to the event of his marriage. He took in union, in the spring of 1755, Ruth Cunningham, daughter of a Boston merchant. From one point of view his choice was opportune, for it added to his social standing and also to his means. From another aspect, however, the marriage was less fortunate.

The Cunningham family was not well grounded in the principles of patriotism. The timid commercial spirit showed itself in the father, and with this the daughter sympathized. The sharp line of division between patriotism and loyalty had not yet been drawn-as it was drawn five years afterward. But it began to be drawn very soon after the marriage with serious consequences to the domestic peace of the family.

It appears that beside this general cause of divergence, the staid and unenthusiastic character of Mrs. Otis rather

chilled the ardor of the husband, and he, for his part, by his vehemence and eccentricity, did not strongly conciliate her favor. There were times of active disagreement in the family, and in later years the marriage was rather a fact than a principle.

Mary Alleyne Otis, Mother of James Otis, Jr.

The result of Mr. Otis's marriage was a family of one son and two daughters. The son, who was given his father's name, showed his father's characteristics from childhood, and certainly a measure of his genius. lad, however, entered the navy at the outbreak of the Revolution, became a midshipman, and died in his

The

eighteenth year. The oldest daughter, Elizabeth, went wholly against her father's grain and purpose. Just before the beginning of the Revolution, but after the case had been clearly made up, she was married to a certain Captain Brown, at that time a British officer in Boston, cordially disliked, if not hated, by James Otis. Personally, Brown was respectable, but his cause was odious. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Afterwards he was promoted and was given a command in England. Thither his wife went with him, and Mr. Otis discarded them both, if not with anathema at least with contempt.

It would appear that his natural affection was blotted out. At least his resentment was life-long, and when he came to make his will he described the circumstances and disinherited Elizabeth with a shilling. The fact that Mrs. Otis favored the unfortunate marriage, and perhaps brought it about-availing herself as it is said, of one of Mr. Otis's spells of mental aberration to carry out her purposes-aggravated the difficulty and made her husband's exasperation everlasting.

The younger daughter of the family shared her father's patriotism. She was married to Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., a young lawyer of Boston, whose father was General Benjamin Lincoln of revolutionary fame. The marriage was a happy one, but ultimately clouded with honorable grief. Two promising sons were born, but each died before reaching his majority. The father also died when he was twenty-eight years old. The wife and mother resided in Cambridge, and died there in 1806.