measures to curb Colonial trade and impose heavy customs duties
on articles entering New World ports. Flagrant acts of evasion
followed, and defiant smuggling at length brought its legal
consequences--in the issue by the English Court of Exchequer of
search warrants, or Writs of Assistance, as they were called, by
which it was sought to put a stop to smuggling, by resorting to
humiliating arbitrary measures sure to be resented by the
Colonies. These Writs of Assistance empowered the King's
officers, or others delegated by them, to board vessels in port
and enter and search warehouses, and even the private homes of
the Colonists, for contraband goods and all importations that had
not paid toll to His Majesty's customs. This attempted rigid
execution of the Acts of Trade, together with other arbitrary
measures on the part of the Crown which followed, such as the
imposition of the Stamp Act, and the coercive levy of taxes to
pay part of the cost of maintaining English troops in the
Colonies, was soon to cost England dear and end in the loss of
her possessions in America and the rise of the New World
Republic.

One of the most active men in the Colonies to oppose this
Colonial policy of England was, as we know, the patriot James
Otis, at the time Advocate-General of the Crown, who took
strong ground against the Writs of Assistance, arguing that they
were not only arbitrary and despotic in their operation, but
unconstitutional in their imposition on the Colony, since they
were irreconcilable with the Colonial charters and a violation of
the rights and prerogatives of the people. Rather than uphold
them as a Crown officer, Otis resigned his post of
Advocate-General, and became a fervent pleader of the popular