And you will also see the confused manner in which they were first recorded, and how they have since been garbled in history. My remarks at present will be confined to the anecdote in page 65.
Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles the first, his Cromwell, and George the third. Treason cried the speaker—treason, treason, echoed from every part of the house. Henry finished his sentence by the words, "may profit by their example." If this be treason make the most of it.
In judge Minot's history of Massachusetts Bay, volume second, in page 102 and 103, you will find another agony of patriotism in 1762, three years before Mr. Henry's. Mr. Otis suffered one of equal severity in the house of representatives of Massachusetts. Judge Minot's account of it is this.
The remonstrance offered to the governor was attended with aggravating circumstances. It was passed, after a very warm speech, by a member in the house, and at first contained the following offensive observation.
"For it will be of little consequence to the people whether they were subject to George or Louis; the king of Great Britain, or the French king; if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes without parliament." Though judge Minot does not say it, the warm speech was from the tongue, and the offensive observation, from the pen of James Otis; when these words of the remonstrance were first read in the house, Timothy Pain, Esq. a member from Worcester, in his zeal for royalty, though a very worthy and very amiable man, cried out, treason! treason! the house however were not intimidated, but voted the remonstrance with all the treason contained in it, by a large majority; and it was presented to the governor by a committee of which Mr. Otis was a member.
Judge Minot proceeds—"The governor was so displeased with the passage, that he sent a letter to the speaker, returning the message to the house; in which he said, that the king's name, dignity and cause, were so improperly treated that he was obliged to desire the speaker to recommend earnestly to the house, that it might not be entered upon the minutes in the terms in which it then stood. For if it should, he was then satisfied they would again and again, wish that some part of it were expunged, especially if it should appear, as he doubted not it would when he entered upon his vindication, that there was not the least ground for the insinuation, under colour of which, that sacred and well beloved name was so disrespectfully brought into question."
Upon the reading of this letter, the exceptionable clause was struck out of the message.
I have now before me a pamphlet printed in 1763, by Edes & Gill, in Queen-street, Boston, entitled a vindication of the conduct of the house of representatives of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, more particularly in the last session of the general assembly, by James Otis, Esq. a member of said house, with this motto—