words of Otis, and who was inspired by
them with the desire to rise and mutiny, was destined to play even a
greater part in the history of his country. If Otis was one of the
first to assert actively, by deed as well as by word, the determination
of the colonies to oppose and, if needs were, to defy the domination of
England, John Adams was the first to applaud his action and to
appreciate its importance. In 1763 John Adams was no more than a
promising young lawyer who had struggled from poverty and hardship to
regard and authority, and who had wrested from iron Fortune a great
{86} deal of learning if very little of worldly wealth. Short of
stature, sanguine of temperament, the ruddy, stubborn, passionate small
man had fought his way step by step from the most modest if not the
most humble beginnings, as zealously as if he had known of the fame
that was yet to be his and the honor that he was to give to his name
and hand down to a long line of honorable descendants. If the
ministers who weakly encouraged or meanly obeyed King George in his
frenzy against America could have understood even dimly the temper of a
race that was rich in sons of whom John Adams was but one and not the
most illustrious even to them, there must have come dimly some
consciousness of the forces they had to encounter, and the peril of
their policy. But the Ministry knew nothing of Adams, and knew only of
Otis as a mutinous and meddlesome official. Otis and his protest
signified nothing to them, and they would have smiled to learn that
young Mr. Adams, the lawyer, believed that American independence was
born when Mr. Otis's oration against Writs of Assistance breathed into
the colonies the breath of life that was to make them a nation.

[Sidenote: 1765--Taxation without representation]

If Otis voiced and Adams echoed the feelings of the colonists against
Writs of Assistance and the enforcement of the Acts of Trade, they
might no less eloquently have interpreted the general irritation at the
proposed establishment of a permanent garrison on the continent. The
colonists saw no need of such a garrison so late in the day. When the
Frenchmen held the field, when the red man was on the war path, then
indeed the presence of more British soldiers might have become welcome.
But the flag of France no longer floated over strong places, no longer
fluttered at the head of invasion. The strength of the savage was
crippled if not crushed. The colonis