Collected Political Writings of James Otis. Otis James

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СКАЧАТЬ a prosecution, or I am much mistaken. But I can’t think any of the weekly puffs worthy the notice of a gentleman armed with prudence, patience, and other christian graces, superadded to the experience of thirty years in the depths of Politics. Another consideration that should make us more patient with the hebdomadal scribblers on both sides is, that a little licenciousness is an inseperable incident and consequence of the liberty of the press, which is,

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      one of the great priviledges we enjoy; and tho’ I wish there was less cursing, swearing, hanging and burning in some of these entertainments, yet I can’t wish to see them under any other restraints than those of common sense and good manners, which if long kept out of sight, will most infallibly render a paper despicable, and bring on an easy death: whereas the common law restraints of fines, pillories and whipping posts, only increase a flame. For these and many other reasons, I am very glad to find the new Gazette is not published by authority, as some fondly conceived it would have been. The most distant hint of an Imprimatur is as impolitic as persecution in religion is wicked.

      Two or three observations upon his Honor’s state of facts will show which of us is right, as well as a volume. The Lieut. Governor is no where expressly charged by me with acting dishonorably as he seems to suppose. My whole argument will as [incontestibly?] follow upon his Honor’s state of facts, as from mine. ’Tis but this, namely, that a real or imaginary cause of offence given my Father, ought not to be considered as the [sole?] spring and motive of all my public conduct. I am as sure, however, of the truth of my state of facts, as ’tis possible for a man to be of any thing that happened two years and an half ago. I have met with divers instances that convince me his Honor’s understanding is much superior to his memory. The vast variety of facts that take place in a gentleman’s mind who fills so many important departments, so much to the satisfaction of all but one empty declaimer, as his Honor is pleas’d to represent me, and who spends his whole time in the public service for almost nothing may be supposed to forget a little; But ’tis surprizing he should find himself under any necessity of denying: what a man has forgotten he can’t affirm the truth of; but why he “must deny,” as his Honor expresses it, I can’t conceive.

      His Honor says “he express’d his doubts of his abilities to give the country satisfaction.” I supposed him sincere. Yet the next breath he denies he ever gave me any reason to suppose that he was determined to refuse the place. I would with all humility ask whether those very doubts did not furnish me with one reason to suppose his Honor would refuse? It was natural for me to conclude his Honor would not accept of a place of that importance, without a modest assurance of his own abilities. I am glad the receipt of the letter is not forgotten; and that ’tis admitted no answer was ever given to it.

      His Honor in the piece I am now considering has made one or two strange mistakes in point of fact: He charges me with asserting that he “sollicited the Governor for the place of Chief Justice.” If his Honor will be pleased to peruse my piece of Monday last once more he will find I positively assert no such thing. “A promise of the much sollicited favour was obtained” are my

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      words; by whom sollicited I did not say. That it was very much sollicited for his Honor, I think may be pretty fairly deduced from these words, “The Governor was pleased to say that the major voice seemed to be in my favour.” I wish his Honor had informed us who began the several conversations from time to time between his Excellency and himself, by which the reader would have been a little better enabled to judge who sollicited.

      If his Honor would furnish me with a list of the company that dined at the Cattle the day he met me at Dorchester-Neck, and the time of day they dined, I should take it as a favor. I don’t remember ever meeting his Honor at that place but once, that was the Monday after judge SEWALL’s death. I dined at home mounted my horse about three in the afternoon, and just on this side the Fortification I was over taken by his Honor in his chariot with Mr Paxton. I rode more moderately than they did, for when I got down to the Neck, I found them coming over with his Excellency and Capt. Phillips. I saw no other company, understood they drank tea and return’d. They could not have been on the island an hour.

      That I told his Honor that if he had any tho’ts of the place, his interest could not be expected, is natural; as ’tis that I should tell him no person would be more agreeable to Col Otis. All this was but a decent return for the many “Civil things” his Honor said but no great penetration is necessary to discover that this must have been upon supposition Col Otis should be refused; and so it was actually expressed. His Honor won’t easily persuade the world that any man can prefer the interest of a friend to his own, at the very time he is professedly seeking his own. But a mutual openness between friends is always due. The reason for not answering the letter is curious, “The son had declared that neither he nor his Father would give up their pretensions to the Lieut. Governor, nor any one else.” Had his Honor been as open, it might have saved him the loss of as good a friend, as he ever had in his life. As to the son, he could pretend to no interest, being a private man, and only a messenger to deliver the letters. Upon my being informed about a fortnight after my interview with his Honor, that the Governor had been persuaded that Col. Otis had given up his pretensions I tho’t it my duty to wait on his Excellency, and tell him, I knew of no such thing, nor did I believe it; and that the only colour for such a story was, my having said to the Lieutenant Governor and Secretary, that I believed his Honor would be more agreeable to Col. Otis than any man, if his own pretensions were rejected. But his Honour was informed that I had uttered revengeful threats, of mischief, flames &c. I wish this &c had been supplied, because I fear some of his Honor’s admirers will collect more from it than ever Lord Coke made out of one of Littleton’s. This most cruel and inhuman charge which never

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      was tho’t of till the late prosecution of some of the officers of the admiralty, set on foot by a number of worthy merchants, and in which, by reason of my old acquaintance with Mr. Paxton, I would not engage until I had his express consent and advice to it, however angry he grew against me afterwards, only for the faithful discharge of an unsought trust in the way of my profession. Before this, I challenge his Honor to prove one syllable of this kind being a “town talk.”

      But if this and a thousand times more was true, ’twould be no sufficient excuse for his Honor’s conduct, and neglect in not answering the letter. He was, I repeat it, under great obligations to Col. Otis, but for whose friendship, he would have been out of the council ten years ago, and in consequence of it at this time, perhaps a private gentleman. Col. Otis for years made himself more enemies by espousing his Honor’s interest, than by all the rest of his conduct in life. Often has his Honor been availed of the credit of measures at the old insurance office, that he had no more weight or influence in than I had. As often have his adorers & others blam’d Col. Otis, for measures he was trying to moderate, and which a former Governor was spurr’d on to by the present prime minister of this province. All this considered, should not his Honor have wrote his friend, that his son was ruining his father’s interest? Wou’d it have been an infinite condescention to have sent for the son, and have dealt with him in a christian-like manner? But his Honor “tho’t it most prudent to say nothing to Mr. Otis or his father upon the subject,” ’till the place was secured to himself; and then he never said a word to either, of those terrible threats. His Honor’s doubts of his abilities were now wonderfully cleared up, and “a call in providence was conscientiously listened to for the good of the people” a loud trumpeting by his relations and friends, that no other man in the province was fit for such a trust in point of capacity, or integrity, may be pretty well remembered, if intimations of the same kind never escaped his Honor. How far his Majesty has given his sanction to such an opinion, may be partly collected from his appointing BENJAMIN PRAT, Esq; to be Chief Justice of N. York.

      His Honor roundly asserts he soon after had reason to suspect that those threats СКАЧАТЬ