Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America
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The governor was gone, and the family representative on the council, the Colonel’s brother John Otis IV, was ailing and would die within a year at the age of 71. So sure was the Colonel of his own electoral success that he relinquished his seat in the House to his distant cousin, Edward Bacon, in the elections of May 1757. Bacon received much of the Colonel’s largesse, including a promise from Shirley that Bacon would be appointed to the rank of captain in the local militia. But when the General Court met, Colonel Otis was stunned to discover that he was not the commanding figure he thought himself to be as he was “left out” when the votes were counted. For the first time in many years, the Otis family did not hold a seat in the province government. It was a devastating blow for the Colonel, but instead of conspiring to avenge he sulked in Barnstable. At about the time the new governor, Thomas Pownall, landed in Boston, Colonel Otis realized that he had been duped. A nameless “D G Esqr” had informed him that Hutchinson and Oliver were laughing at the “little Low Dirty things” the Colonel had accomplished for Shirley and that the governor “made use” of him “as a Tool.” The “opposite Party” was pronouncing Colonel Otis and his country constituency finished. This revelation likely embittered the Colonel so much that he retired from public affairs for more than a year.
The new Governor Thomas Pownall sought to build a coalition that included important Shirley men, the Otises included, and Jemmy, perhaps drawn by Pownall’s youth and energy, readily assumed the role of intermediary between Pownall and his father. In an effort to conciliate Colonel Otis, Pownall quickly appointed Jemmy as acting advocate general of the Boston Vice-Admiralty Court. The titular advocate general was William Bollan who had held the office since 1741, but Bollan had worked as province agent in London since 1745, and his position with the Vice-Admiralty Court had apparently been filled on a temporary basis. William Bollan’s role as province lobbyist would later become one of the battle lines drawn by the revolutionary generation. In 1745, Governor Shirley wanted Bollan, his son-in-law, to be the province agent so as to solidify his control over the province’s efforts in Westminster, and Shirley succeeded in securing Bollan’s appointment with the help of Hutchinson and Colonel Otis. The agent who then lost his job had been supported by Hancock and the merchants. So the position of province lobbyist fell from merchant control to political control, and in typical colonial fashion, Bollan did not relinquish his old position as advocate general after being appointed as province agent.
Now a dozen years later, Jemmy Otis’s appointment as advocate general was not only meant to secure Otis support but also was part of Pownall’s attempt to diminish Bollan’s influence in London because, as a Shirley appointment, he could be dangerous to Pownall’s still shaky political position. What the appointment meant to Otis in terms of duties and fees is unknown because the Boston Vice-Admiralty Court is sometimes pictured as an engine of oppression grinding out forfeitures and condemnations of England merchant shipping, but in reality the work of the court during the 1750s was largely concerned with determining cases involving seamen’s wages, salvage, prize laws, and marine insurance. The advocate general was equivalent to the attorney general in the common law courts and represented the Crown in seizure cases arising from Acts of Trade violations. Otis variously claimed his fees were as large as £200 a year and as small as two guineas, depending on the point he was trying to prove. More important than the duties or fees is that Jemmy was integrating smoothly into the group Hutchinson called “the friends of government.”
While Hancock and Hutchinson had made a fortune during the Seven Years War, things were not going well for the Colonel. His whaleboat business had boomed from Thomas Hancock’s four boat order in 1755 to General James Abercromby’s 200 boat order in 1758, but payments were slower than usual. Shirley’s old enemies in New York vengefully blocked payment of Otis’s account, complaining about the quality of his boat crews. The very reason DeLancey supported Shirley’s ouster was that war contracts were going to Massachusetts merchants, and now DeLancey found every reason he could to withhold payment for hundreds of Otis-made whale boats.
In an attempt to facilitate cooperation and a friendly relationship, Pownall wrote to the Colonel on August 25, 1757 because Pownall was very aware of Hutchinson’s and the Olivers’ power in Boston and of Hutchinson’s designs on the governorship. Pownall wanted to solidify support in the country, and few were as politically connected outside of Boston as the Colonel. Pownall placed an order with Otis for 100 whale boats for New York, and asked Otis to meet him and Lord Loudoun in Plymouth to finalize the details. Pownall clearly believed that Otis’s support was important to the war effort and had convinced Lord Loudoun of the same. But the Colonel would not leave Barnstable, not even at the prospect of a pre-paid boat contract, pleading gout and local court commitments. Jemmy was embarrassed and urged his father to “come in a chaise if necessary.” It is doubtful if it offered any comfort to Colonel Otis, but Thomas Hutchinson was also mired in ennui. He was disappointed that he had not been appointed governor after laying such careful groundwork with Lord Loudoun, but he was strongly recommended to the position of lieutenant governor by Pownall. Hutchinson accepted the position but found the younger Pownall too actively pragmatic for his orderly tastes; the Governor’s inability, or unwillingness, to delegate authority brought two tough minds into conflict as the lieutenant governor found himself with little authority or responsibility.
In May 1759 Colonel Otis made another attempt for a seat on the Council and was in Boston for the opening of the General Court, securing commitments for what he thought would be enough votes, but his handpicked successor in the House, his relative Edward Bacon, performed what in Colonel Otis’s eyes was classic political betrayal. The Council consisted of twenty-eight men chosen annually by the House and the previous year’s Council. The first eighteen were from the “Territory formerly called the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay,” four were from Plymouth Colony territory, three from Maine, one from Sagadahock, and two at-large. John Otis had been one of the four from Plymouth Colony but Bacon persuaded Otis not to force the displacement of their friend and neighbor Sylvanus Bourne and pledged his support to the Colonel for one of the at-large seats. Bourne was safely reelected, and Bacon immediately deserted the Colonel and engineered his defeat in an attempt to strike at Barnstable’s foremost resident for having “too much power.” This time the Colonel was furious; he was determined to return but abandoned further attempts to reach the Council without a firmer base in the House.
While these complex political struggles were unfolding, Jemmy was working on a variety of legal cases including leases, bonds, recoveries, ejectments, and accounting disputes. In one case he represented the Selectmen of Roxbury who had been presented “at the Suit of the King” in the Suffolk County Court of General Sessions in 1756 for failure to maintain the bridge on the main road through the town. Attorneys were rare in such cases but apparently the selectmen were either intimidated or felt the matter to be of great import. They retained Jemmy Otis who argued that the offending bridge was in fact a county responsibility since all land traffic in and out of Boston passed over it, but the justices were not convinced and fined the town £4 and court costs. Otis immediately appealed the decision, and the annoyed Court required an appeal bond totaling the unusually high sum of £150. The appeal was successful with the jury deciding that the bridge was a county responsibility. In October 1758, he accompanied Gridley to the term at Salem, and in 1759 he ventured as far as Portland, Maine. So while he did travel on circuit with the Superior Court to Plymouth, Taunton, and occasionally Barnstable, the bulk of his practice was in Boston. His membership in the Masons began to produce clients, and his reputation amongst the merchants was strong.
In one noteworthy case Jemmy faced Oxenbridge Thacher; Otis v. Leonard probably arose as a result of the case Otis had handled for Thomas Flucker. On appeal, Otis obtained a judgment in Flucker’s favor for £102 and costs, and collected it in the form of a packet o
f those old Land Bank bills that had nearly torn the province asunder almost two decades earlier. The bills carried a face value of £357, but their actual value was purely speculative. The defendant was doubtless pleased to dispose of the judgment with what was probably considered to be worthless paper, and Flucker probably received his judgment in lawful money from Otis, who in turn took possession of the bills on speculation. So even by the late 1750s, wretched Land Bank bills were surfacing. By 1758, the great bulk of the outstanding bills had been partially redeemed or discarded as worthless, but Otis now possessed some of these bills. But why would Jemmy pay Flucker over £100 for Land Bank bills that so many would have considered entirely worthless?
The bills had been issued by George Leonard, leader of the powerful Bristol clan, chief justice of the Bristol County Court of Pleas, friend of Thomas Hutchinson and member of the Council that had aided in the defeat of Colonel Otis’s Council candidacy. It’s surely no coincidence that Jemmy took an interest in these old bills as most would have little hope of ever collecting on something long discredited; an attorney armed with genius and persistence saw not worthless paper but rather an enormous opportunity. So in April 1758, Jemmy Otis faced Harvard friend Oxenbridge Thacher and won a judgment against George Leonard for the face value of the bills and accrued interest – £730. Per custom, Thacher appealed for Leonard, but the judgment was affirmed. Otis’s first writ of execution to collect the sizable judgment was dated August 15, 1759 and was returned by the deputy sheriff “in no part satisfied.” A subsequent attempt in January 1760 likewise yielded nothing, and the deputy accurately noted that he could not arrest Leonard because of his exemption as a councilor. A third attempt that December finally brought a partial payment by the “commissioners” designated “for finishing the land Bank” in the amount of £140; in order words, Leonard got the government to partially pay for the bills. A fourth levy squeezed another £125 from the same government source. A fifth, in September 1761, brought in nothing, but by now Colonel Leonard was exhausted by being constantly pursued by deputy sheriffs and the sixth execution in March 1762 brought him a personal note and supporting bond for every farthing of the balance. Thus by unconditional determination Otis was able to gain a return of nearly six hundred per cent on his £102 investment and at the same time humble one of the high and mighty councilors he was starting to detest. It is doubtful that he made many friends, but it is certain that he now felt skilled wielding the weapon of the law.
The Boston bar was transforming even more rapidly in the late 1750s. The men who dominated Boston legal practice during the first half of the decade – Gridley, Trowbridge, Dana, Kent, Prat, Otis, Thacher, and Auchmuty – were quickly joined by several young new lawyers as the practice of law increased in respectability and profitability. Robert Treat Paine and Jonathan Sewall were admitted to practice in 1757, and Samuel and John Adams were admitted the following year. While Gridley had continued to mentor lawyers, Jemmy either did not desire or could not attract apprentices in the law. Only Pelham Winslow seems to have mentored under Otis, and that was in 1754-55, so he had no apprentices for the remainder of the decade. John Adams had studied with James Putnam in Worcester, but when he decided to return to his native Braintree he had to be admitted by the bar to practice in the Suffolk County Inferior Court, a formality Adams approached with considerable anxiety. On October 24, 1758, Adams rode to Boston and went to Court to appear before the bar. He nervously “sett down by Mr. Paine att the Lawyers Table” and “felt shy, for awe and concern, for Mr. Gridley, Mr.Prat, Mr. Otis, Mr. Kent, Mr. Thatcher were all present looked sour.” He next visited Jeremy Gridley and with his characteristic mood swings came away from the interview excited and with lists of the fields of study for a lawyer in the colonies, advice on not marrying too soon, and suggestions on the “pursuit” of law, “rather than the Gain of it.” His interview with “Thatcher” (whose name Adams never learned to spell correctly) was depressing; Adams received a lecture the “Origin of Evil” and the overcrowding of the legal profession. At this time Adams’s opinion of Jemmy Otis one of palpable admiration and perhaps even awe, and his aim was “to win the Applause and Admiration of Gridley, Prat, Otis, Thatcher &c.” In one of his unique character sketches, Adams pictured Otis as “extremely quick and elastic. His apprehension is as quick as his temper - He springs, and twitches his Muscles about in Thinking.” With Thacher, Adams was not so kind: “Thatcher had not this same Strength Elasticity. He is sensible, but slow of Conception and Communication. He is queer, and affected. He is not easy.”
In reporting an endless courtroom dispute over a plea offered by Prat after an appellant’s death, Adams quoted a typical Otis comment, “I will grant, Mr. Prat, very readily, that there has been a time since Wm. the Conqueror when this Plea would have abated this Writ in England. But I take it that Abatements at this day are rather odious than favored and I dont believe that this Plea would abate this Writ at any time within this Century in Westminster Hall.” Jemmy Otis was sharp, direct, and impatient. Further, he was very aware of the law’s evolution, both in theory and practice, and strongly desired to be at the fore of that evolution. He could be brutally persistent as witnessed by his behavior in the Fletcher v. Vassall case and his dogged pursuit of Colonel Leonard, but he also refused clients and cases that he felt were flimsy or fraudulent. And in some cases he refused any fee as he did after the successful defense of a few teenage Pope’s Day rioters in Plymouth.
At the same time James Otis was rising to fame in the British colonies in the 1750s, another man was rising to fame in England. Thomas Gray had been a bookish boy who attended Eton and Cambridge and was similarly bound for the law. But unlike Jemmy, Thomas couldn’t pry himself away from Latin and Greek, and became a somewhat reclusive scholar and sometime poet; he taught at Cambridge for most of his life, spending more time with books than with people. In so many ways, Gray was an example of what James Otis could have been – if not propelled by his father, if not for the tremendous legal, merchant and political connections, and if not for the elevation of and newfound respect for lawyers and low regard for poets in the colonies. It was generally respectable for a man to follow his dreams in England, even if such dreams resulted in a life of no apparent utility; in contrast, the colonists seemed to be on a mission, fueled by the concept of progress and grounded in the notion that each generation has a burden to leave this earth wealthier, more efficient and more effective than they had found it. Such concepts did not brook dreams of no apparent utility.
So it seems that if Jemmy Otis had his druthers, he would have spent his life studying the classics; thus, it shouldn’t be surprising that his first published work was academic. The vacant lot between the Otis home and King’s Chapel had been the site of the Boston Latin School, previously razed and rebuilt across the street in order to extend the Chapel and erect a larger school. Jemmy Otis was known to spend considerable time at Boston Latin, and in 1759 he was a member of the town’s official school visitation committee, which functioned as something of a school board and accreditation council. Otis’s interests in education went beyond this somewhat honorary position; in 1760, he published his first work: The Rudiments of Latin Prosody, with a Dissertation on Letters and the Principles of Harmony in Poetick and Prosaick Composition, Collected from some of the Best Writers. It was originally intended to be a trilogy, but the section on Greek prosody was abandoned for the lack of Greek type among the province’s printing presses; the two Latin volumes of the book were printed and sold by Benjamin Mecom, Benjamin Franklin’s nephew. Scholars at the Latin School spent seven years learning Latin and Greek, spending the last two years translating Aesop’s Fables and the Psalms in Latin verse. Otis sought to mend the deficiencies in the standard texts that tended to be of little help with the intricacies of Latin poetic rhythms and syllable duration, and his effort was part of progress in the science of language. The Rudiments of Latin Prosody was well received and was still considered the best book on the subject 50 y
ears after its first publication.
As was Thomas Gray, the English sometime poet who locked himself away with his books, Otis was inclined to the scholastic and literary. Gray had risen to fame with the 1751 publication of Elegy in a County Court-yard, a somewhat short, melancholy poem that became a phenomenon. It was claimed that British General Wolfe read it to his troops before the battle of Quebec and lamented that he’d rather have written that poem than successfully take the city from the French. Gray would publish little other poetry. And while Jemmy was known to recommend Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope to students interested in poetry, he let his erudition and perhaps affinity for modern poetry slip one day. At one point Jemmy was cross-examining an attractive young witness who had testified against his client; he asked where she was from and educated, to which she replied a village not far from the courthouse. Jemmy then inquired where she had travelled, to which she plainly stated that she had never been out of the county. Impressed by the eloquence of the country girl, he tossed out a couplet from Gray’s Elegy:
Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen