"In the next place, you know I love pleasure. But I have renounced all amusement for ten years. What is that worth to a man of pleasure?" "No great matter," said Molineux, "you have made politics your amusement." A hearty laugh.
"In the next place, I have ruined as fine health and as good a constitution of body, as nature ever gave to man." "This is melancholy indeed," said Molineux. "There is nothing to be said upon that point."
"Once more," said Otis, holding his head down before Molineux, "look upon this head!" (where was a scar in which a man might bury his finger.) "What do you think of this? And what is worse, my friends think I have a monstrous crack in my scull." This made all the company very grave, and look very solemn. But Otis setting up a laugh, and with a gay countenance, said to Molineux, "Now, Willy, my advice to you is, to say no more about your grievances; for you and I had better put up our accounts of profit and loss in our pockets, and say no more about them, lest the world should laugh at us."
This whimsical dialogue put all the company, and Molineux himself into good humour, and they passed the rest of the evening in joyous conviviality.
It is provoking, and it is astonishing, and it is mortifying, and it is humiliating to see, how calumny sticks, and is transmitted from age to age. Mr. ****** is one of the last men I should have expected to have swallowed that execrable lie, that Otis had no patriotism. The father was refused an office worth 1200l. old tenor, or about 120l. sterling, and the refusal was no loss, for his practice at the bar was worth much more; for Colonel Otis was a lawyer in profitable practice, and his seat in the legislature gave him more power and more honour; for this refusal the son resigned an office which he held from the crown, worth twice the sum. The son must have been a most dutiful and affectionate child to the father. Or rather, most enthusiastically and frenzically affectionate.
I have been young, and now am old, and I solemnly say, I have never known a man whose love of his country was more ardent or sincere; never one, who suffered so much; never one, whose services for any ten years of his life, were so important and essential to the cause of his country, as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770.
The truth is, he was an honest man, and a thorough taught lawyer. He was called upon in his official capacity as advocate general by the custom house officers, to argue their cause in favour of writs of assistants. These writs he knew to be illegal, unconstitutional, destructive of the liberties of his country; a base instrument of arbitrary power, and intended as an entering wedge to introduce unlimited taxation and legislation by authority of parliament. He therefore scorned to prostitute his honour and his conscience, by becoming a tool. And he scorned to hold an office which could compel him or tempt him to be one. He therefore resigned it. He foresaw as every other enlightened man foresaw, a tremendous storm coming upon his country, and determined to run all risques, and share the fate of the ship, after exerting all his energies to save her, if possible. At the solicitation of Boston and Salem, he accordingly embarked and accepted the command.
To attribute to such a character sinister or trivial motives is ridiculous. You and Mr. Wirt have "brought the old man out," and I fear he will never be driven in again, till he falls into the grave.
JOHN ADAMS.