Collected Political Writings of James Otis. Otis James

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СКАЧАТЬ to a Noble Lord “F.A.,” and scholars have identified Otis as the author of the essays that seem to pick up that signature by “Freeborn American” and “Freeborn Armstrong” that appeared in the Boston Gazette not long after the Noble Lord essays were printed.² These essays are reprinted here as well. Helen Saltman identifies Otis as the author of two essays on the fight concerning Massachusetts’s agent in London,³ and they are included in this volume.

      The scholarly apparatus of this edition is minimal. I have sought to equip readers with the basic tools that they need to understand Otis’s writings in the general introduction and the section introductions. This approach will allow the reader to experience the texts as part of a live and ongoing debate about the nature and purpose of a free society. Notations that might lead readers to approach the text as an artifact of a strange and foreign time and place have therefore been minimized. Translations of Latin and French material are provided. The text retains Otis’s footnotes in their original format (usually marked by symbols, such as asterisks or daggers); all new editorial notes, including the translations, are indicated by arabic numerals. If a Latin translation is needed in an original footnote, the translation appears in brackets after the Latin in the note itself.

      As much as possible, the original spelling and punctuation have been retained. That has been easiest for the essays from the Boston Gazette. Because I turned to Charles Mullett’s fine edition of Otis’s pamphlets, I have allowed his editorial procedure to stand for those pamphlets, although I have silently corrected one or two typos that snuck into his edition. I have also followed Mullett’s practice of noting the original pagination of these pamphlets (in angle brackets inserted in the text). In a few instances, generally in the newspaper essays, when a word could not be determined due to the illegibility of the original source, I have put the assumed word in brackets with a question mark. Mullett chose not to print Otis’s 1765 pamphlets in chronological order. I have returned them to their original order of publication.

      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:	СКАЧАТЬ В начало < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 > В конец