Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America

by Nathan Allen

  Nov’r 1st. being the day the stamp act was to take place, the morn’g was ushered in by the tolling of bells, & the vessels in the harbor displaying their colours half- mast high in token of mourning. Liberty tree adorned with the effigies of George Grenville & John Husk. The figures continued suspended whout molestation till 3 o'clock in afternoon, when they were cut down amid the acclamations of several thousand people of all ranks, & being placed in a cart were with great solemnity & order followed by the multitude, formed into regular ranks to the Court House, were the assembly was then sitting: from thence proceeding to the N. End of the town, & then returning up middle street they passed back thro’ the T. [town] to the gallows, where the effigies were again hung up, & after continuing some time were cut down, when the populace, in token of their detestation of the men they were designed to represent, tore ym in pieces & flung their limbs with detestation into the air. This being done, 3 cheers were given & every man retired quietly to his own home, & the evening was more remarkable for peace & quietness than common

  Freeman underlined “was to” in his notes; it was far from obvious whether the government could implement the Act. To further the mob’s absolute control of the town, the Sons of Liberty negotiated a peace and mutual cooperation treaty between the North End and South End mobs; the agitation efforts of these street brawlers were focused on “Liberty” rather than wasted protesting the pope and Guy Fawkes. The treaty was celebrated by the new banker to the radicals, John Hancock, buying a round of drinks for the town. Bernard wrote home to Pownall that the mob was dancing to “Otis’s tune,” singing the words, “Who will Seize Merchants Goods, what Judge will condemn them, what court will dare to grant Writs of Assistance now.” In a letter to Secretary Conway on November 25, 1765, Bernard admitted that he was only nominally the governor; the rebels ruled the mobs, and the mobs ruled the streets. Jemmy started signing his letters Anno Liberatus Primo – the first year of liberty.

  CHAPTER VIII

  a damned faction

  The General Assembly was called into session on October 23, and the following day issued a lengthy reply to Bernard’s September speech that read like a summary of Jemmy’s pamphlets, asserting “that there are certain original inherent rights belonging to the people, which the parliament itself cannot divest them of … among these is the right of representation in the same body which exercises the power of taxation.” The House repeated the theme throughout the letter, referencing repeatedly the “rights which are derived to all men from nature.” Near the end of the letter, the House refused to reimburse those whose property mobs destroyed, claiming that they “cannot conceive why it should be called an act of justice” for taxpayers to pay for the damages. Sam Adams was one of the primary drafters, and his work exhibited all the hallmarks of a thorough education in radical thought. On October 29, Sam Adams led the House in issuing their own “Sett of Resolves ready cutt & dried” that were replete with invocations of rights and consent and far more incendiary than those of the New York congress.

  On the afternoon of Friday November 1, the Boston House of Representatives reported that “James Otis, Esq; returned from New-York, making his Appearance in the House, laid upon the Table the Proceedings of the Commissioners of the Congress at New -York.” The House unanimously approved the resolves the next morning. The government that James Otis had threatened to set aflame was now a charred relic; the oligarchy went through the motions of governing, but in reality the radicals and mobs controlled Boston. Ruggles made it home alive but was officially sanctioned by the House for refusing to sign the Stamp Act resolves after testimony was given by “James Otis, and the Oliver Partridge, Esq’rs of their Conduct at the late Congress at New-York.” The House appointed special agent Dennis De Berdt to Parliament to promote the resolves. In a letter to John Pownall on November 5, Bernard wrote that Jemmy, upon learning that the Council approved additional expenses to safeguard the stamps at Castle William, delivered a speech to the House “so mad & devilish that they all stood astonished & no one durst contradict him” and labeled the Council “a cursed Septemvirate (7 being a quorum) that endeavored to destroy the liberties of the People.” Of course, Jemmy’s own father was on the Council. The House promptly elected Jemmy chairman of a committee appointed to formally rebuke the Council and governor for approving province funds to protect the stamps. The committee’s reprimand, adopted by the House, declared it “astonishing” that additional province funds were spent at the same time that “very heavy additional taxes, external and internal, have been imposed on them by the British Parliament, without their consent.”

  A week earlier at a Boston town meeting held the evening after his return, Otis gave an “inflamatory Harangue” that Bernard reported in a letter dated November 12, 1765; Otis “hoped no one would call pulling down 2 or 3 two penny Houses rebellion.” Did Otis regret mob rule? Did he truly condemn the destruction of Hutchinson’s house and Oliver’s business? Publically, he could condemn violence but then turn around and incite the mob again. It seems most likely that he was the master manipulator who could work into the confidences of opposing factions, telling each what they desired to hear, and then position himself to get what he wanted. Otis knew and well-described the problems, and he offered various solutions. But the path from the problem to the solution was unclear; it seems that he knew that revolution was the only possible answer; he’d hinted at that conclusion several times. But his heart was that of an Englishman, and it was nearly inconceivable to entertain a future apart from the great empire. Nearly.

  The opposing opinions that held sway in Otis’s mind were revealed in a letter he wrote to William Samuel Johnson on November 12, 1765 regarding riots that were sweeping the colonies.

  God only know what all these things will end in, and to Him they must be submitted. In the meantime, ‘tis much feared the Parliament will charge the Colonies with presenting petitions in one hand, and a dagger in the other.

  The dagger was part of the reorganized Popular Party; the revolution that had begun in the courtrooms and print shops had now moved to the streets. The “Black Act,” as it was called, was being openly defied. Newspapers continued printing without stamps, businesses operated, and mobs ensured that the absence of stamps didn’t shut down the city. But it did shut down the courts, which couldn’t operate without the stamps. On December 20, the town asked John Adams, Gridley, and Otis to plead with the Governor and Council to open the Courts with or without stamps. John Adams made the argument that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional and therefore “utterly void.” The same Adams who had written Otis off as insane a few years prior was now making the same argument that Otis had made. While Adams reached back to an Otis argument of a few years prior, Otis made an even older one: the refusal to operate the courts was an abdication of government, suggesting that either the Popular Party operate its own courts or the province revert to a state of anarchy. Bernard would have been quite aware that this argument had been made against James II almost a century earlier, and it was used to depose the king and justify the English revolution of 1688. Again, Otis could denounce mob action but then employ the same argument against the English that the English had used to depose a king – and to what end was Otis suggesting the people take his argument? He was too clever to ever state an answer, but it almost certainly terrified Bernard; both Bernard and Otis knew he’d built a party capable of revolution. On April 11, 1766, Jemmy wrote to his sister:

  Dear sister, for near two years I have not had it in my power to spend any time for myself; it has been taken up for others and some of them perhaps will never thank me. The time however I hope is at hand when I shall be relieved from a task I shall never envy any man who in performing it shall pass the anxious wearisome days and nights which I have seen. This country must soon be at rest, or may be engaged in contests that will require neither the pen nor the tongue of a lawyer. … If we are to be slaves the living have only to envy the dead, for without liberty … I desire not to exist …<
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  He then went on to reveal his fears, concluding that he could not leave Boston because he was the moderating force holding the empire together.

  Besides till matters are settled in England I dare not leave the Town, as men’s minds are in such a situation that every nerve is requisite to keep things from running to some irregularity or imprudence, and some are yet wishing for an opportunity to hurting the country.

  Without his steady hand guiding the party, the radicals would assume control, and the city would be engulfed in anarchy. In a letter to Otis on December 5, 1767, John Dickinson, the rebel from Philadelphia who Jemmy had met at the Stamp Act congress, expressed gratitude for Jemmy’s cautious approach to rebellion.

  This Subject Leads me to inform you with Pleasure, because I think it must give you Pleasure, that the Moderation of your Conduct in composing the Minds of your Fellow-Citizens, has done you the highest Credit with us; you may be assured I feel a great satisfaction in hearing your praises.

  At the time, moderate Tory Quakers, who mostly had no interest in rebellion, controlled Pennsylvania politics; Dickinson’s rebelliousness was thus necessarily tempered by Quakers intolerant of radicalism. New England had been born and bred in fiery religious zealotry that approached the world with an active effort to shape it; in contrast, Quakers were greater dissenters, but could hardly be described as a people consumed with righteousness. Their grasp of principle was a firm tepidity with one foot always planted on the solid ground of caution. If it appeared that the rebels were inciting violence in Boston, Dickinson knew the cause would gain no traction in Philadelphia. Jemmy’s cautious approach and outward rejection of violence enabled rebels in other colonies to promote the cause. Dickinson pleaded with Otis in that December 5 letter that Massachusetts be the first to “kindle the Sacred Flame” of liberty. In another letter from Dickinson shortly thereafter, he refers to Otis as “deservedly placed at the Head of such excellent Citizens.” Dickinson’s writings were very influential in the colonies and were reprinted in nearly every colonial paper, and yet Jemmy and the Boston radicals set the example for other colonies of how to translate words into action and how to develop a rebellious consciousness among the general population; despite Dickinson’s popular writings and Boston’s example, Philadelphia wouldn’t become a rebellious city until 1775.

  Perhaps the most illuminating comment about Otis’s relationship to the radicals – the Sons of Liberty and the mobs – is contained in a private letter dated September 6, 1769 that Dr. Thomas Young wrote from Boston. Dr. Young was a radical’s radical; he was the first signer of the Albany Constitution of the Sons of Liberty in 1766, moved to Boston, and then advocated completely abolishing the oligarchy and redistributing their wealth. By 1769, Dr. Young was one of the most prominent members of the Sons of Liberty, openly managing the organization under the supervision of Sam Adams. As with all other radicals with direct and obvious connections to the street mobs, Young would have only limited contact with Otis, so it’s curious that in a letter to a friend, Young casually referred to Jemmy Otis as “our chairman.” This title is curious for two reasons. First, the letter was written in 1769, a time when many historians assume that Otis’s importance was negligible. By 1769, the Popular Party was long thought to have been under the control of the new group of radicals that included Sam Adams, Joseph Hawley, Hancock, Cushing and Bowdoin. Second, the only organization to which Dr. Young belonged is the Sons of Liberty. It’s assumed that Otis was a member of that group, though “membership” was not exactly an official process. But most historians have assumed that Otis’s interaction with the Sons of Liberty was, at most, tangential. He knew many of the active members well, particularly Sam Adams, but Otis didn’t rally the mob in the streets or sing drunkenly at the Liberty Tree. So to have a high-ranking member of the Boston Sons of Liberty refer to Jemmy Otis as “our chairman” challenges commonly held conclusions about Otis’s position in 1769 radical circles.

  Perhaps Dr. Young is referring to Otis as chairman of various committees to which Young was appointed. On June 14, 1768 – over a year before writing the letter – the Town of Boston appointed Young to a committee. The Town of Boston would create many such committees that were almost exclusively composed of Sons of Liberty members. The committee members weren’t necessarily members of the House or otherwise politically active; such committees were essentially a method of legitimizing the radical group and giving them official business. The 1768 committee’s purpose was, in essence, to go to Roxbury and harass Bernard. It was something the Sons of Liberty may have done anyway, but now their work was official. The chairman of this committee was, technically, James Otis. The effort to legitimize and incorporate the Sons of Liberty into the Massachusetts political landscape included the creation of many such committees, including the Committee of Correspondence created on November 2, 1772, of which Otis was also chairman. And yet Jemmy’s title was more honorary than indicative of his role on the committees, for he rarely engaged in any of their activities. Historians tend to dismiss as paranoia the oligarchy’s belief that Otis was the leader of the rebels because Otis often publically moderated or contradicted his radical positions and publically criticized mob activity. And yet the radicals seemed to agree with the oligarchy; in Dr. Young’s 1769 letter, no Otis-chaired Sons of Liberty committee had recently met and Young’s letter mentions no committee or related work. He wasn’t referring to Otis as the chairman of any particular committee but rather to his generally perceived position within the Sons of Liberty; James Otis was “our chairman.”

  The winter swept in to Massachusetts in late 1765, all stamp distributors had resigned, and the stamps were secured in Castle William like some plague bacillus that no one dared touch. Customs and court houses ceased operation due to lack of stamps, effectuating a near government shut-down. Governor Bernard, earnestly considering Otis’s abdication of government argument and fearful that any misstep on his part would invite another wave of violence, declared the arguments for opening the courts without stamps “very good” and asked the Superior Court to consider the matter. Meanwhile, both the Probate and Inferior Courts in Boston opened, even without stamps. Otis took to the pages of the Gazette to further the progress of his answer to the question What action can the colonies take if Parliament chooses to ignore their rights? Importantly, Otis had moved the debate of this question from the taverns and halls of government to the public sphere. Writing under the pseudonym “Hampden” in a December 30, 1765 Gazette article, Otis confessed:

  I am fully satisfied any kind of American representation in parliament would be universally disagreeable to the colonists, and from their distance, poverty, and other circumstances, is justly tho’t impracticable. That this topick was never handled, but principally as argumentum ad huminem …

  Parliament is the supreme power, so the people have a right to be represented in it. Yet the option of American representation is by late 1765 acknowledged by all to be unfeasible. Otis then moves on to the next possible solution:

  If in the nature of things, and in some future age, a plan of a general union of all parts of the British empire under one equal and uniform direction and system of laws be possible to be carried into execution, yet it must be on such noble, generous and disinterested principles, that it is ten thousand to one if any such thing ever takes place ---

  So Otis quickly moved on to some kind of imperial federation of equally balances parts and just as quickly dismissed Britain as capable of having the principles required to create “any such thing.” Otis positions the rebels as being the reasonable party constantly exploring solutions, and repeatedly claims that the “friends of government” are inflaming the problems.

  Bernard opened the House’s January session with a speech asserting that “the disordered state of the province had affected its very councils,” thus suggesting that the government had become as radical as the mobs and that the August riots were being transformed from aberration to policy. Recognizing the Popula
r Party’s power yet concluding it ephemeral, Bernard wrote to the Board of Trade on January 10 that the “system of Mr Otis” was fueling “Notions of Independency.” Bernard labeled Jemmy “The King of Massachusetts Bay” and asserted that he would challenge the King of Great Britain, though he would be alone, because most of the radicals were ultimately feckless and “would tremble, if they saw it like to be brought to a test.”

  After Bernard’s opening speech, the House created a committee with Otis as chairman to respond. While the committee’s report, issued January 21, squarely blamed government attitude and action for inciting the mobs, it largely ignored Bernard’s speech; instead, the committee’s report focused on Bernard’s actions in November and December. It castigated the governor and Council for even officially printing the Stamp Act and chastised Bernard for holding regular secret meetings. Most importantly, the report reiterated Otis’s argument that closing the courts was an abdication of government. The House then voted on January 24, 81 to 5, in favor of a resolution stating that all courts should operate, with or without stamps. Bernard continued to believe that, despite the overwhelming majority in favor of ignoring the Stamp Act, the House was controlled by a few extremists employing thuggish intimation to secure votes. On January 25, Bernard wrote to Conway, the new Secretary of State for the Southern Colonies, a detailed description of the intimidation tactics he believed was being employed. Meanwhile, Jemmy wrote to his father on January 30 that he’d received a letter from Conway attesting that the “Stamp Act must be repealed,” though Conway fretted about how to achieve this without appearing that the colonies had “conquered Britain.” The Council declined to even vote on the House resolution, with Hutchinson calling the House’s rejection of the Stamp Act “extra judicial.” Eventually, the Council decided that a meeting of judges should decide whether or not to open their courts. “The King of Massachusetts Bay” and his allies viewed the Council’s refusal to reject the House’s resolution as total victory.