to be adopted for the suppression of the
illicit traffic. A third of the forfeited goods belonged to the king,
and were appropriated for the benefit of the colony; a third belonged to
the governor; and a third fell to the informers. But as that portion of
the spoils which accrued to the colony was not claimed, the money was
used to stimulate the zeal and vigilance of the customs-officers. These
persons, armed with "writs of assistance" issued by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer in England, were empowered to enter and search any private
house suspected of containing smuggled goods, and seize whatever
articles might be considered contraband within the meaning of the acts.
Against these proceedings resistance was bold and general, suspected
householders answering the demand of the customs-officers by closing the
doors in their faces. It was the duty of Otis, as Advocate-General of
the Province, to uphold the action of the executive government; but he
refused to argue for the writs, and resigned. On his resignation
becoming known he was at once retained, along with Oxenbridge Thacher,
to defend the cause of the people, and his splendid triumph in this
capacity made him the popular hero. His opponent, as has been already
intimated, was his old friend, Jeremiah Gridley, King's Attorney,--a
lawyer of great learning and acuteness. An eye-witness comments on the
sublime spectacle of Otis, spite of the difficulties of his position,
the excitement of the hour, and the fire and vehemence of his own
passionate nature, treating his old master "with all deference, respect,
and esteem", but confuting all his arguments, and reducing him to
silence, and Gridley, on the other hand, "seeming to exult inwardly at
the glory and triumph of his pupil."

In answering, almost at the outset, a charge which made his highest
public virtue his fault,--the charge that he had deserted his
office,--he said: "I renounced that office, and I argue this cause from
the same principle, and I argue it with the greater pleasure as it is in
favor of British liberty at a time when we hear the greatest monarch
upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of
Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the
most valuable prerogatives of his crown; and it is in opposition to a
kind of power, the exercise of which in former periods of English
history cost one king his head, and another his crown."

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