The court adjourned for consideration, and after some days at the close of the term, Hutchinson chief justice arose and said, "The court has considered the subject of writs of assistance, and can see no foundation for such a writ; but as the practise in England is not known, it has been thought best, to continue the question to next term, that in the mean time opportunity may be given to write to England for information concerning the subject." In six months the next term arrived; but no judgment was pronounced; nothing was said about writs of assistance; no letters from England, and nothing more was said in court concerning them.—But it was generally reported and understood that the court clandestinely granted them; and the custom house officers had them in their pockets, though I never knew that they dared to produce and execute them in any one instance.
Mr. Otis's popularity was without bounds. In May, 1761, he was elected into the house of representatives, by an almost unanimous vote. On that week I happened to be at Worcester attending a court of common pleas of which, brigadier Ruggles was chief justice. When the news arrived from Boston, you can have no idea of the consternation among the government people. Chief justice Ruggles at dinner at colonel Chandler's on that day, said, "Out of this election will arise a damn'd faction, which will shake this province to its foundation."
For ten years afterwards Mr. Otis, at the head of his country's cause, conducted the town of Boston and the people of the province with a prudence and fortitude, at every sacrifice of personal interest and amidst unceasing persecution, which would have done honour to the most virtuous patriot or martyr of antiquity.
I fear I shall make you repent of bringing out the old gentleman.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
Quincy, April 5, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
IN Mr. Wirt's elegant and eloquent panegyrick on Mr. Henry I beg your attention from page 56 to page 67, the end of the second section, where you will read a curious specimen of the agonies of patriotism in the early stages of the revolution. "When Mr. Henry could carry his resolutions but by one vote, and that against the influence of Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, Wythe and all the old members whose influence in the house had till then been unbroken; and when Peyton Randolph afterwards president of congress swore a round oath, he would have given 500 guineas for a single vote; for one vote would have divided the house, and Robinson was in the chair, who he knew would have negatived the resolution."