by Nathan Allen
The parliament of 1st of James 1st, “upon the knees of their hearts (as they express it) agnize their most constant faith, obedience and loyalty to his majesty and his royal progeny, as in that high court of parliament, where all the whole body of the realm, and every particular member thereof either in person or by representation upon their own free elections, are by the laws of this realm, deemed to be personally present.” But as much prone as those times were to mystick divinty, school philosophy, academick politicks, and other nonsense, they say not a word of the virtual representation of Ireland or the other dominions. There can be no doubt but the supreme legislature may if they please unite any subordinate dominion to the realm. It has not been yet asserted that the colonists are in fact represented in the house of commons, nor I believe will any man seriously affirm it. The truth is, the colonists are no more represented in the house of Commons than in the house of Lords. The king in his executive capacity, in fact as well as law, represents all his kingdoms and dominions: and king, lords and commons, conjointly, as the supreme legislature, in fact as well as in law, represent and act for the realm, and all the dominions, if they please. It will not follow from thence, that if all subordinate legislature and privileges are reassumed, without any equivalent allowed, but it will be a case of very singular hardship. The inhabitants of the British nations, and of the dominions of the British crown, in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, are in my idea but one people, fellow subjects of the most gracious sovereign on earth, joint heirs to the rights and privileges of the best civil constitution in the world, and who I hope e’er long to see united in the most firm support of their Prince’s true glory, and in a steady and uniform pursuit of their own welfare and happiness.
It may perhaps sound strangely to some, but it is in my most humble opinion as good law and as good sense too, to affirm that all the plebeians of Great-Britain are in fact or virtually represented in the assembly of the Tuskarora’s, as that all the colonists are in fact or virtually represented in the honourable house of Commons of Great-Britain, separately considered as one branch of the supreme and universal legislature of the whole empire.
These considerations I hope will in due time have weight enough to induce your lordship to use your great influence for the repeal of the Stamp Act. I shall transmit your lordship, by the next mail, a simple, easy plan for perpetuating the British empire in all parts of the world. A plan however that cost me much thought before I had matured it. But for which I neither expect or desire any reward in this world, but the satisfaction of reflecting that I have contributed my mite to the service of my king and country. The good of mankind is my ultimate wish.
I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient,
Boston, Sept. and humble Servant,
4, 1765. F.A.
Sources & Notes
Throughout the book, I’ve attempted to minimize the need for source notes by stating in the text the essential source information. For letters, the sender, receiver, and date of the letter are typically cited in the text, and for news papers, the paper’s name and publication date are cited. In most cases, anyone interested in reviewing the source can do so from this information.
Below, in cases where specific information or quotes are used, particularly out of context, the particular source page is given. More commonly, though, entire sources are used in order to not only gather information but also to understand the people involved and the circumstances in which they acted. In these instances, the source is noted without reference to a particular page. Sources are listed in the order in which they are utilized for each chapter.
Sources and notes are also updated and appended on the book’s website: www.jamesotis.net. A significant number of primary and secondary sources are available on the website for download.
The following sources are oft referenced, but no number of references can adequately reflect how extensively they were utilized in constructing the narrative.
Otis Papers, Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts
Francis Bernard Papers, Sparks Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge
Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts
Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Volume 16
Boston Gazette
Boston Evening-Post
The single greatest source of information regarding James Otis is William Tudor’s The Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts: containing also, notices of some contemporary characters and events, from the year 1760 to 1775 (Wells and Lilly, 1823). Tudor was able to interview a few who knew Otis and others of the period, including John Adams. Tudor’s work does suffer from the general urge of the era to idolize the founders, but, for the era, it is an unusually fair biography. Inevitably, every Otis biography is to a great degree a retelling of Tudor’s work. John Clark Ridpath’s book, James Otis, the Pre-Revolutionist; A Brief Interpretation of the Life and Work of a Patriot (The University Association, 1898) is largely a retelling of the essential facts as set forth by Tudor. Two sources also invaluable in constructing the general narrative are John Water’s The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (University of North Carolina Press, 1968) and Hugh F. Bell’s unpublished thesis James Otis of Massachusetts, The First Forty Years, 1725-1765 (Cornell, 1970). While Arsonist fundamentally differs from Otis Family and First Forty Years in focus, interpretation, and narrative analysis, both books represent impressive and essential scholarship. Alice Vering’s unpublished dissertation (James Otis, University of Nebraska, 1954), provides some basic facts but is otherwise far less helpful (and fundamentally more subjective) than other sources. The essential narrative of the Boston town meetings and the General Assembly are set forth in the Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts and in Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Volume 16 (Boston Town Records 1758-1769). Ellen Elizabeth Brennan’s “James Otis: Recreant and Patriot” (The New England Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4, Dec., 1939) is typically cited in Otis-related papers and books written in the 1960s and 70s and regarded as essentially sound and insightful; clearly, Arsonist’s focus and analysis is entirely opposed to Brennan’s conclusions and the conclusions of those who essentially agreed with her, including nearly everything written about Otis in the 1960s and 70s. James R. Ferguson’s “Reason in Madness: The Political Thought of James Otis” (The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 1979) is a regrettable example of uncritical acceptance of Brennan’s thesis. Richard A. Samuelson’s “The Constitutional Sanity of James Otis: Resistance Leader and Loyal Subject” (The Review of Politics, Vol. 61, No. 3, Summer, 1999) is more temperate in its treatment of Brennan’s thesis but resorts to interpreting Otis’s writings wholly outside of the context and turmoil in which they were created and exhibits a limited breadth of knowledge regarding Otis’s life.
Overture
For the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1826, Thomas Jefferson wrote: May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … Jefferson to Roger Weightman, June 24 1826, in The Jeffersonian cyclopedia: a comprehensive collection of the views of Thomas Jefferson classified and arranged in alphabetical order under nine thousand titles relating to government, politics, law, education, political economy, finance, science, art, literature, religious freedom, morals, etc. John P. Foley, ed. Funk & Wagnalls company, 1900. Page 245.
This is a deluded generation, veiled in ignorance, that though popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it … The terrific register: or, Record of crimes, judgments, providences, and calamities. Sherwood, Jones, and co., 1825. Page 186.
It has been argued that the American Revolution “does not appear to resemble the revolutions of other nations in which people were killed, property was destroyed, and everything was turned upside down. …
The Radicalism of the
American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood. Vintage Books, 1993. Page 3.
Traditional economic models that focus on labor, capital, population and technology cannot explain what happened in the West in the second half of the 18th century. For an exceptional treatment of this idea, see Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World, Deirdre N. McCloskey. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Chapter One
The time is which we have long foreseen
William Richard Cutter, New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: a record of the achievements of her people in the making of commonwealths and the founding of a nation, 4 vols. Lewis historical publishing company, 1913. The main Otis entry is on page 1991 (vol 4), though the name is referenced throughout.
William Richard Cutter, Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, 4 vols. Lewis historical publishing company, 1910. The main Allen entry is on page 693 (vol 2) though other entries appear for other spellings.
Glastonbury information in part from “Visitation Act Books” 1617 and 1618, Bath and Wells, Somerset Record Officer, Taunton, England.
Genealogical and other early colonial information: “Genealogical and Historical Memoir of the Otis Family,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, II (1848), 281-296. Somerset Record Office, Taunton. Exeter Diocesan Record Office. Plymouth Registry of Deeds (Plymouth, MA, USA). Records of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas (Plymouth), Minute Books of Common Pleas (Barnstable), Records of the Superior Court of Judicature, Suffolk Court files (Suffolk County Court House, Boston). Barnstable Registry of Probate (Barnstable), Plymouth Registry of Probate (Plymouth), Suffolk Registry of Probate (Boston). Barnstable Town Records (Town Hall, Hyannis). Particularly the First Book of Records for the Proprietors of the Common Lands in Barnstable, Hyannis, pages 16- 29.
Sources regarding colonial Massachusetts Bay, the people involved and the culture in which they lived, particularly the 17th century, include:
Samuel Deane, History of Scituate, Massachusetts, From Its First Settlement to 1831 (James Loring 1831)
Thomas Bouve, Edward Bouve, John Long, Walter Bouve, Francis Henry, History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts, 3 vols. (Published by the Town 1893)
Amos Otis, Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families. (Barnstable, 1888).
Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Lothropp, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections. (1814), pp 163-178.
Donald Trayser, Barnstable, Three Centuries of a Cape Cod Town (Hyannis, 1939)
Simeon L. Deyo, History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts (New York, 1890)
Frederick Freeman, The History of Cape Cod: The annals of the Thirteen Towns of Barnstable County. Printed for the author by Geo C. Rand & Avery, 1862
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff (ed.), Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, 8 vols. {Boston, 1855-1861}, I, 57, 108, 120, 121.
William Haller, Jr., The Puritan Frontier--Town-Planting in New England Colonial Development 1630-1660 (New York, 1951), pages 20-24.
Justin Winsor, “Abstracts of Early Plymouth Wills.” (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, V, 1853), page 260.
The New England Historical & Genealogical Register, Volume 4. New England Historic Genealogical Society. S.G. Drake, 1850. Pages 201-221.
C. Benjamin Richardson, The Historical Magazine, and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History, and Biography of America. Oxford University, 1868. Pages 277-278. (Louisburg referenced on page 279).
John L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, 3 vols. Cambridge, 1873-1885.
Ethan Allen Doty, Doty-Doten family in America: descendants of Edward Doty, an emigrant by the Mayflower, 1620. E.A. Doty, 1897.
William H. Whitmore (ed.), The Massachusetts Civil List (Albany, 1870).
On business liquidity: “Winthrop Papers,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 6th Series, V, Pt. 6, 246; letter from Jonathan Sewall to John Otis, September 20, 1723, Otis Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Court Files Suffolk, 10705, 11803, and 11232.
Horatio Otis, “Genealogical Memoir,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, II (1848), 285-286
Charles Otis, “Description of Otis Estate,” Otis Papers, Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York.
“Barnstable, Mass. Vital Records,” The Mayflower Descendant, Vol. 32 (1934), pages 153-154.
Samuel Sewall, Diary of Samuel Sewall: 1699-1714. Massachusetts Historical Society, 1879.
Chapter Two
Storms & tempests are consequent
According to the Probate Records of Barnstable County, (Barnstable Court House), Record IV, page 475, John Otis III owned three slaves at the time of his death in 1727 that were listed under “swine” in his estate inventory.
“Young Jim” was often used in Barnstable to differentiate James Otis from his father, and “Jemmy” was used not only in Barnstable but also during his adult life in Boston. See Amos Otis, Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families; also see “Jemmibullero,” Boston Evening-Post, May 13, 1765.
James Thacher, History of the Town of Plymouth (Boston, 1835), pages 302-305.
Henry C. Kittredge, Cape Cod – Its people and their History. (Boston, 1930), Chapter 9.
John A. Schutz, Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 1691-1780: a biographical dictionary (UPNE, 1997),
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis: Federalist, 2 vols. (Boston, 1913). Vol 1 pages 15-17.
William Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789, 2 vols. New York, 1963 and 1890 , vol II, Cap. 13
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff (ed.), Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, 5 vols. (Boston, 1853-1854), II, 203 and Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, 12 vols. (Boston, 1855-18 1), XI, 14 , 233, 237; V, 107-108, 237, 246-247.
Robert Middlekauff, Ancients and Axioms; Secondary Education in Eighteenth Century New England (New Haven, 1963). Chapter 2.
Benjamin Bangs Diary, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass.,
Samuel Pearce May, The Descendants of Richard Sares (Sears) of Yarmouth, Mass., 1638-1888, Munsell’s sons, 1890.
Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard (Cambridge, 1937).
Samuel Batchelder, Bits of Harvard History (Cambridge, 1924).
Josiah Quincy, The History of Harvard University, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1840), Vol I, pages 230-264, 398-399.