We may to-day be more interested in other things than in the homes and
unrestricted trade of our colonial ancestors, but Otis was willing to give
up a lucrative office to speak for the rights of the humblest cottager. He,
like the majority of the orators of the Revolution, also possessed another
quality, often foreign to the modern orator. What this quality is will
appear in this quotation from his speech:--

"Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The
only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man
are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to
the sacred calls of his country. These manly sentiments, in private life,
make the good citizen; in public life, the patriot and the hero."

John Adams, who became the second President of the United States, listened
to this speech for five hours, and called Otis "a flame of fire." "Then and
there," said Adams, with pardonable exaggeration, "the child Independence
was born."

PATRICK HENRY (1736-1799), a young Virginia lawyer, stood before the First
Continental Congress, in 1774, saying:--

[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY]

"Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of Colonies? The distinctions
between Virginians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not
a Virginian, but an American."

These words had electrical effect on the minds of his listeners, and helped
to weld the colonies together. In 1775 we can hear him again speaking