CHAP. I.

PROTESTS AGAINST WRITS OF ASSISTANCE.

603

writ, he said: "A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court may inquire." "I am determined," he said, "to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life to the sacred calls of my country, in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king his head and another his throne."

These words of Otis went forth with amazing power. They stirred the hearts of the people through all the provinces. The speech and event constitute the opening scene of resistance in America to British oppression. On that day the trumpet of the Revolution was sounded; the seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown; and when the orator exclaimed, "To my dying day I will oppose, with all the power and faculties. God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on one hand and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is," "the independence of the colonies," John Adams afterward said, "was proclaimed." But absolute independence was not then desired. Even Otis deprecated the idea. The colonists were proud of their political connection with Great Britain. They asked only for justice and equality, and the privilege of local self-government as British subjects. The topic of American representation in Parliament, which assumed large proportions about two years afterward, was not then discussed.

When Otis left the Town Hall that day, he was greeted by loud huzzas from the populace, who threw up their hats in token of their delight; and from the day of that remarkable event in our history, that unflinching patriot, then six-and-thirty years of age, led the van of the phalanx of revolutionists in Massachusetts for several years. His eloquence and presence were magnetic. He was the incarnation of courage and independence. He had resigned the office of advocate-general of the colony that he might, with a good conscience, wield the sword of opposition. The royalists feared and hated him. His election to a seat in the Massachusetts Assembly in the spring of 1761, alarmed them. "Out of this," wrote the tory Timothy Ruggles, "a faction will arise that will shake this province to its foundations." The Governor (Bernard), fearing the influence of his tongue, exhorted the new legislature not to heed "declamations tending to promote a suspicion of the civil rights of the people being in danger. Such harangues might well suit in the reign of Charles and James, but in the time of the

Georges they are groundless and unjust," he said. At that very moment the perfidious governor was secretly promoting the scheme of the Board of Trade for taking away the colonial charters.

The public career of Mr. Otis was ended before the tempest of the Revolution which he had helped to engender, burst upon the colonies. In 1769, his bright intellect was clouded by a concussion of the brain, produced

by a blow from a bludgeon in the hands of a custom-house officer whom he had offended. Ever afterward he was afflicted by periods of lunacy. At such times, thoughtless or heartless men and boys would make themselves merry in the streets, at his expense. It was a sad sight to see the great orator and scholar so shattered and exposed. His ready use of Latin was remarkably illustrated one day. He was passing a crockery store, when a young man who was familiar with that language, standing in a door of the upper story, sprinkled some water upon him from a watering-pot he was using, saying: Pluit tantum, nescio quantum. Scis ne tu? "It rains so

CHAP. I.

ROYAL FAVORS BESTOWED ON PITT.

605

much. I know not how much. Do you know?" Otis immediately picked up a large stone, and hurling it through the window of the crockery-store, it smashing everything in its way, exclaimed: Fregi tot nescio quot. Scis ne tu? "I have broken so many. I know not how many. Do you know?” After the memorable argument in the Town Hall in Boston, the triumphs of the popular will in America began. Few writs of assistance were įssued, and these were ineffectual. The Americans prepared for the impending conflict with the British ministry, animated by a prophecy of success because their warfare would be just. They measured the strength of that ministry by true standards, and found them generally weak. Bute, in 1762, became Premier, with George Grenville, who prided himself on his knowledge of the science of finance, as his chancellor of the exchequer. Pitt, who had become disgusted with the ignorance and assumptions of Bute, had left public employment the previous year and retired to his country seat at Hays, in Kent. There, though tortured by gout, he watched the drift of public affairs with intense interest, and equally intense anxiety, for he trembled at the thought of the possible fate of his country, whose destinies. were held by such incompetent hands

When Pitt resigned the seals of office into the hands of the king in the autumn of 1761, the public discontent was unmistakable. Bute, in a reply to a letter from Lord Melcombe congratulating the former on being delivered of a most impracticable colleague (Mr. Pitt), said: "My situation, at all times perilous, is become much more so; for I am no stranger to the language held in this great city-'Our darling's resignation is owing to Lord Bute, and he must answer for all the consequences.'" The king, too, felt unpleasant forebodings concerning the future; and when the great statesman laid the seals before him, his majesty expressed his deep concern. at the loss of so able a minister. The king showered kind words so profusely that Pitt, acknowledging the royal condescension, burst into tears. The king offered to confer a title of honor upon the retiring statesman, but Pitt was "too proud to receive any mark of the king's countenance and favor," he wrote to Bute, and declined it. He intimated, however, that he should be happy could he see those dearer to himself "comprehended in that monument of royal approbation and goodness" with which his majesty should condescend to distinguish him. The king acted upon this hint, and conferred upon Pitt's wife the honorary title of Baroness of Chatham, with a pension for Lady Chatham, her husband and their eldest son, of fifteen thousand dollars a year. With these marks of royal approbation, Pitt remained in retirement, maintaining his popularity and appearing in Parliament only when great questions came up, until 1766, when he was elevated

to the peerage with the title of Viscount Pitt and Earl of Chatham. His acceptance of the title damaged his popularity. Chesterfield said: "Pitt has gone to the hospital for incurable statesmen "-the House of Lords.

When Bute became prime minister, the opposition press attacked him without mercy, and innumerable caricatures appeared: some of the latter were coarse and indecent. Intoxicated by power, the minister lavished

offices upon his countrymen in profusion, as did James the First. This called out many caricatures. One of these represents a northern witch on an enormous broomstick, conveying Scotchmen through the air to the land of promotion. Another entitled "The Royal Dupe," represents the Princess of Wales seated on a sofa, lulling the young king to sleep in her lap, while Lord Bute is stealing his sceptre, and another is picking his

CHAP. I.

TAXATION SCHEMES DISCUSSED.

607

pockets. Caricatures and satires concerning Bute's private relations with the princess were highly libellous and sometimes obscene. In the spring of 1763, his administration, which was founded on prerogative and power, was ended. He suddenly resigned, for causes never clearly understood, and was succeeded by George Grenville, Pitt's brother-in-law.

The new minister was an honest statesman, rigid in his morals, an indefatigable worker and possessed of great political knowledge; but, according to Burke, his mind could not extend beyond the circle of official routine, and was incapable of estimating the result of untried measures. He found an empty treasury and the national debt increased by the expenses of the war then just ended, nearly seven hundred million dollars. Increased taxation was necessary. That burden upon the English people was then very great, and, viewing the temper of the public mind then, he dared not increase its weight; so he looked to the Americans for relief, and formed schemes for drawing a revenue from them. He did not doubt the right of Parliament to tax them, and he knew they were able to pay. At about the same time there was a warm debate upon the subject of an act for imposing an excise on cider, and which worked in a partial manner in England. It was odious to a large portion of the people, and especially to the country members of the House of Commons, and Pitt, who was in that House, denounced it as "intolerable." Grenville defended it, and turning toward Pitt, said: "I admit that the impost is odious, but where can you lay another tax? Let him tell me where-only tell me where?" Pitt, who was not much given to joking, hummed in the words of a popular song:

"Gentle Shepherd, tell me where?"

The House burst into laughter, and Grenville was ever afterward called the Gentle Shepherd. At the same time Pitt, with the most contemptuous look and manner, rose from his seat, as Grenville stood to reply, and bowing to the chairman walked slowly out of the House.

The subject of the right to tax the Americans, they not being represented in Parliament, had been debated in the House of Commons in March (1763) for the first time, when it was determined in the affirmative by a unanimous vote. When the news of that debate and vote reached Massachusetts, the Assembly of that colony, then in session, immediately resolved: “That the sole right of giving and granting the money of the people of this province is vested in them, as the legal representatives; and that the imposition of taxes and duties by the Parliament of Great Britain upon a people who are not represented in the House of Commons, is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights. That no man can justly take the property of