LIVES AND NOTES

JAMES OTIS

James Otis was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, February 5, 1725. In 1743 he was graduated from Harvard. He soon became a distinguished lawyer. In February, 1761, as a result of his famous speech on the Writs of Assistance, he was elected to the Colonial Assembly. In 1765 he was a delegate for Massachusetts to the Colonial Congress. Four years later his active life was ended by a ruffianly attack received in a darkened room in a coffee house from a number of men whose anger he had stirred through a controversy in the newspapers. He never recovered from the effects of this brutal assault and was thereafter subject to recurring periods of insanity. May 23, 1783, he was killed by a stroke of lightning.

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE

On

The text is taken from William Tudor's Life of James Otis, Boston, 1823.

1 The whole range of argument. The speech as originally delivered was a learned and exhaustive legal argument that occupied four or five hours. The brief section given here was recorded by John Adams, who was present, and is all that remains.

2 I engaged in it from principle. Note the persuasive influence of his manly and conscientious attitude.

3 One king his head. Charles I had been executed after trial by the Rump Parliament in 1649. As a result of the "Peaceful Revolution of 1688" James II had been forced to flee, and William of Orange was invited to become king.

4 Curse of Canaan. See Genesis 9:25. The curse was visited upon Canaan by Noah because of Canaan's father's sin.

5 14th Charles II refers to a law made in the fourteenth year of the reign of Charles II.

6 Tumult and blood. Is the last part of Otis's speech an exaggeration?

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was born at Westminster in 1708. He was educated at Eton, and at Trinity College, Oxford. At both schools he gave much attention to rhetoric and elocution. On account of ill health he was not graduated from Oxford, but after leaving the university continued his studies. His favorite pastime was to translate and read aloud the works of Demosthenes, his model. In addition to this, he studied the sermons of Dr. Barrow, and memorized Bailey's Dictionary. With this preparation in rhetoric he coupled arduous study of voice and gesture. To a tall, imposing—almost princely-bearing, Chatham added every kind of power known to orators. Ridicule and taunt vied with pathos and exultation as he moved his hearers to enthusiasm. His language at all times was simple and free from figures of speech. He followed intuition rather than reason. His speeches naturally were not set pieces, for he depended on the occasion for his choice of words.

To this unusual ability in rhetoric and a magnetic personal bearing, Chatham added unquestionable sincerity and a deep sense of national honor and dignity. His passion for liberty made him the friend of the American people. "I rejoice," he said, "that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms-never-never-never!"

While Chatham was in power, Walpole and the other ministers were forced to take second place. The jealousy of his opponents and the autocracy of his manner, nevertheless, did not diminish his popularity. When he died, May 11, 1778, liberty and democracy lost one of their staunchest advocates.

AMERICAN TAXATION

The text is slightly abridged from The World's Famous Orations, vol. III, p. 197, New York, 1906.

1I could have endured to be carried. In what ways does the use of this expression help Chatham to get a hearing?

2 His majesty recommends. Compare this reference to the King with that of Otis.

3 The importance of the subject. Burke said of the American question, Surely it is an awful subject or there is none this side the grave." The vision of these two statesmen is as remarkable as the shortsightedness of the King and most of his ministers. Had America been granted full participation in the English Constitution and even representation in Parliament, England, through the precedent, would have become the center of a great world empire; there would have been no Irish question, and instead of being joined as now by an uncertain and intangible bond, the British colonies would have become organic members of a vast but unified nation.

4 The distinction between legislation and taxation. This was the British view and was maintained also by Burke. The Americans, however, prior to the declaration of independence had denied the distinction and had passed from "No taxation without representation" to "No legislation without representation."

5 Virtual representation should be recognized as a step toward democracy. It at least acknowledged the right of representation.

I am no courtier of America. Chatham's career as statesman illustrates the ultimate correctness and worth of a policy based on justice and right.

The whole house of Bourbon. Kings descended from the Bourbon family ruled at this time in France, Spain, and Naples.

JOHN WILKES

John Wilkes was born in London in 1727. He came from a wealthy family and received a good education at the University of Leyden. He was elected to Parliament in 1757. In 1762, when Lord Bute forced Pitt from office, Wilkes published The North Briton in order to aid Pitt. No. 45 of this paper in which he maligned the government was adjudged a seditious libel and Wilkes was sent to jail. On appeal to the courts, however, he was awarded $20,000 damages for illegal imprisonment. In 1769 he was elected four times in succession to sit in Parliament for Middlesex, but the House of Commons each time refused to accept him and seated his opponent who had received fewer votes. He became a popular hero and would have gained the support of the entire country but for his bad personal character. In 1774 he was elected Lord Mayor of London. He represented Middlesex in Parliament from

1774 to 1790 and became the champion of the right of free representation by British constituencies. He died in 1797.

WAR WITH AMERICA

For the complete text see Speeches of Mr. Wilkes in the House of Commons, Third ed., p. 7. Preface dated London, December 9, 1786.

1 Some very powerful cause. This statement finds a point of agreement with the audience and arouses their interest in what is to come.

2 Carry to the foot of the throne. The House of Commons, assembled as a committee of the whole, was considering an address to the King upon the disturbances in America. The language and spirit of the resolution was such that it virtually proposed a policy of war.

3 I well know what will follow. Only those who are familiar with the state of public opinion in the colonies in February, 1775, can appreciate how remarkable is this prophecy and its fulfillment. The Americans at this time sought merely to use whatever means were necessary to secure their rights as Englishmen under the English Constitution. Although, no doubt, there were in America as in every country discontented individuals who sought revolution as the remedy for all political evils, there was when Wilkes spoke no general demand in the colonies for independence. John Jay said that previous to the rejection of the second petition of Congress in 1775 he never heard an American of any class or any description express a wish for the independence of the colonies.'

Even after the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill in the Dickinson declaration, published by George Washington when he took command of the American troops, it is said, "We most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator has graciously bestowed upon us, the arms which we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen than to live slaves.

Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish

to see restored. Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced us to incite any other nation to war against them. We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states."

The demand for independence that was prevalent throughout the colonies a few months later was the outgrowth of military necessity. After Arnold's disastrous expedition into Canada it seemed impossible that the poorly organized American troops could cope with the armies of Great Britain without foreign help. Although the great body of Englishmen sympathized with the colonists in their struggle for liberty, Parliament and the King seemed bent on destroying America. The government finding it difficult to induce Britons to fight their kin across the sea, hired seventeen thousand Hessians to prosecute the war. The use of mercenary soldiers, of whom an indefinite number could be secured, convinced the colonists that they never could succeed in arms except through an alliance with foreign powers, which necessitated separation from the empire. The eyes of the American patriots, therefore, turned in 1776 more or less reluctantly to France, and Silas Deane was sent as ambassador to Paris.

On June 7 1776, Richard Lee of Virginia introduced into the Continental Congress the following resolution:

"Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and of right ought to be, totally dissolved." On July 4, 1776, the resolution was incorporated in the Declaration of Independence and was passed.

Wilkes, on February 6, 1775, was led to make his remarkable prophecy, not through any rumor that the colonists would seek independence, but merely through his knowledge of the temper of the King and his ministers, and his belief in the determination and earnestness of the American people, and his faith in the ultimate triumph of the principles of universal liberty that were involved.

The blue riband. Lord North, the prime minister, was a Knight of the Garter. The badge of the order was a blue ribbon.