The section on the Writs case presents a peculiar challenge, as the case was argued twice, and parts of Otis’s argument were recorded (or reproduced) only at a later date. The first two texts in part 1, the notes on the case, are from the pens of John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr., as published by Quincy’s
[print edition page xix]
grandson Samuel Quincy in 1865 in his Reports,4 as is the final piece in this section, “A Sample Writ of Assistance.” As stated above, the spelling and punctuation of the original have been retained, except for the expansion of certain common abbreviations (“the” for “ye,” “that” for “yt,” etc.). In one or two places where eccentric spelling makes it difficult to determine with certainty the precise word intended, the likely term has been inserted in brackets. The case being short, Adams’s and Quincy’s notes are reprinted in their entirety, in addition to the notes of Otis’s pleadings. John Adams’s reconstruction of Otis’s argument is taken from The Works of John Adams, as edited by Adams’s grandson, Charles Francis Adams.5
The source for Otis’s pamphlets is Charles Mullett’s edition, published in the University of Missouri Studies in 1929.6 For Quincy’s Reports on the Writs of Assistance case I have used the edition in the University of Michigan’s “Making of America” digital archive. Otis’s Boston Gazette essays are taken from the newspaper itself, with the assistance of the microfilm edition of the essays from the Early American Newspapers series. The Boston Gazette became available in a digital edition after this project began. I turned to it late in the process to clarify bits of text that are unclear in the microfilm edition. All have been rekeyed for this edition.
[print edition page xx]
[print edition page xxi]
Chronology of the Life of James Otis
| 1725: | James Otis Jr. is born in Barnstable, Massachusetts. |
| 1739: | Otis enters Harvard. |
| 1740: | Religious revival at Harvard begins. Otis becomes studious. |
| 1743: | Otis graduates Harvard. |
| 1745 or 1746: | Otis begins to read law with Jeremy Gridley. |
| 1748: | Otis admitted to the bar in Plymouth. |
| 1755: | Otis marries Ruth Cunningham. |
| 1756: | Otis becomes a justice of the peace in Suffolk County. |
| [By] 1760: | Otis becomes deputy advocate general of Massachusetts. |
| 1760: | Francis Bernard becomes governor of Massachusetts. |
| George II dies. George III becomes king. | |
| Thomas Hutchinson becomes chief justice of Massachusetts. | |
| 1761: | Otis quits his official post, represents Boston’s merchants against the writs. |
| Writs of Assistance case heard in February and in August. | |
| 1762: | Otis-Hutchinson feud over currency and other local issues. |
| Otis publishes the Vindication of the House. | |
| 1763: | French and Indian War ends. Britain now master of a worldwide empire, and possessor of a substantial war debt. |
| 1764: | Sugar Act passes. |
| Otis publishes The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. | |
| 1765: | Stamp Act passes. |
| Otis publishes Vindication of the British Colonies, Brief Remarks on the Defence of the Halifax Libel, and Letter to a Noble Lord. | |
| Otis starts the “John Hampden” essays. In the spring, he proposes a Stamp Act Congress; in the fall he attends it. | |
| 1766: | Stamp Act repealed. Declaratory Act passes. |
| Otis concludes the “John Hampden” essays. |
[print edition page xxii]
| 1767: | Townshend Acts become law. |
| Otis sees to publication of “Farmer’s Letters” in Boston. | |
| 1769: | Otis-Robinson brawl. |
| 1770: | Otis no longer mentally competent. He is removed from Boston. |
| 1771: | Massachusetts Probate Court finds that Otis is a “distracted or lunatick person.” |
| 1776: | American independence is declared. |
| 1783: | Treaty of Paris ends America’s Revolutionary War. |
| Otis dies, struck by bolt of lightning. |
[print edition page xxiii]
Completing this project has put me in the debt of several people and institutions. I began working on James Otis not long after starting graduate studies under Peter S. Onuf’s direction at the University of Virginia. Thanks largely to Peter’s able mentoring, a master’s thesis blossomed into a scholarly article and now an edited collection as well.
I first conceived of the project when I was in residence at Liberty Fund as a visiting scholar, and I would like to thank Liberty Fund in general for supporting this project and for providing me with a welcoming environment in which to work for a year. I would also like to thank Laura Goetz of Liberty Fund for helping me see this project through to publication. Laura had both the patience to endure several delays and the vigor to push the project along. I also should thank the Massachusetts Historical Society and its librarian, Peter Drummey, for his assistance.
In preparing the text for publication, I received able assistance from Murray Bessette, then a student of political thought at the Claremont Graduate University, and now assistant professor of government at Morehead State University. Murray did a fine job compiling, organizing, and preparing the text for publication, as well as translating Otis’s occasional lines of French. James Chastek, formerly a student at the Claremont Graduate University, gracefully translated the Latin phrases that Otis sprinkled about his writing. And James Stoner of Louisiana State University helped with the translation of some Latin legal terms.
In addition, I owe a debt of gratitude to Nicholas Canny, the director of what is now the Moore Institute at the National University of Ireland, Galway, for providing me an academic home for a couple of years, part of which I spent on this project,