perior Court of the province. Chief Justice Hutchinson, still holding the office of Lieutenant-Governor, his membership in the Council, and his position of Judge of Probate, presided at the trial. Perhaps there was never in. America an instance in which a high official so nearly fulfilled the part of "Pooh Bah."

The trial evoked an attendance of all who could be admitted, and of many more. The officers of the crown were out in full force, and resolute patriotism completed the crowd. John Adams was one of the spectators. Another element in the dramatic situation was the fact that James Otis had, in the meantime, received the appointment to the crown office of Advocate General, to which an ample salary was attached. In this relation it

would be his especial duty to support the petition of the custom-house officers in upholding the Writs of Assistance and in constraining the executive officers of the province to support them in doing so.

This contingency brought out the mettle of the man. When the revenue officers came to him with the request that he defend their case, he at once resigned his office, and this being known the merchants immediately sought his services as counsel to uphold their protest against the Writs. For his assistant they selected Mr. Oxenbridge Thatcher.

Otis accepted the invitation without a fee. His action involved the loss of his official position as well as his means of living. It chanced at this time that his old law preceptor, Jeremiah Gridley, was selected as King's Attorney, and it fell to his lot to take the place which

Otis would not accept. Thus master and pupil were brought face to face at the bar in the hottest legal encounter which preceded our rupture with the mother country.

The trial that ensued has been described by John

Adams, an eye witness of the whole proceedings. He gives in his works a description of the conduct of the case as it was presented for and against the crown, and also notes of Otis's argument.

After the pleas were presented and other preliminary matters arranged, Mr. Gridley addressed the court in

support of the government's position. He defended the petition of the custom-house officials as both legal and just. Two statutes of the time of Charles II, empowering the court of Exchequer to issue writs such as those which were now denied, were adduced. He then cited the statute of the sixth year of Queen Anne, which continued to inforce the processes which had been authorized in the twelfth and fourteenth years of the reign of Charles.

Still more to the point were the statutes of the seventh and eighth years of William III, which authorized the collection of revenue "in the British plantations" by officers who might search both public and private houses to find goods that had evaded the duty. These statutes Mr. Gridley claimed as a warrant for the like usage in America.

In answer to Gridley, Oxenbridge Thatcher, * himself a lawyer of no mean abilities, spoke for the counter petitioners. His plea was a strong confutation of Gridley's arguments. After this brief address Mr. Otis rose to continue the plea for the people.

Of the speech which followed we have no complete record or wholly satisfactory summary. It is to John

* John Adams attempts to classify the pre-revolutionary orators of New England according to their ardor and influence. "The characters," says he, "the most conspicuous, the most ardent and influential, from 1760 to 1766, were first and foremost, above all and over all, James Otis; next to him was Oxenbridge Thatcher; next to him, Samuel Adams; next to him, John Hancock; then Doctor Mayhew." -Works of John Adams, Vol. X, p. 284.

If we should insert in this list the name of John Adams himself, his place would be between his cousin and Hancock.

Adams, and to the notes which he made on the occasion, that we must look for our opinion of what was, if we mistake not, the greatest and most effective oration delivered in the American colonies before the Revolution. Such was the accepted belief of those who heard Otis, and witnessed the effect of his tremendous oratory.

Making all allowance for exaggeration, it seems to have been one of those inspired appeals by which History and Providence at critical epochs make themselves known to mankind. John Adams, then twenty-five years of age, passing from his notes of Thatcher's speech, says of the greater actor:

"But Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. American Independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes, to defend the Non sine diis animosus infans, to defend the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. fifteen years, that is in 1776, he grew up to manhood, and declared himself free."

In

We may allow a little for the enthusiasm of a young patriot such as Adams, but there can be no doubt that

his unmeasured eulogy was well deserved. Such was the description of Otis's speech.

As to the speech itself we have only a second-hand and inadequate report. Minot, in his "History of Mas

sachusetts," presents what purports to be a tolerably full outline of the great address.

Mr. Otis spoke for five hours, during which time with his rather rapid utterance he would perhaps deliver an oration of 30,000 words. Minot's report appears to have been derived from Adams' notes done into full form by an unknown writer, who proba