without having regard to any person, without letting to do right
for any letters or commandment which may come to them, or by any
other cause."


ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF OTIS, ETC. OTIS AND HIS FELLOW
PATRIOTS.

Professor Hosmer draws the following pictures of Otis and his
contemporaries:

"The splendid Otis, whose leadership was at first unquestioned,
was like the huge cannon on the man-of-war, in Victor Hugo's
story, that had broken from its moorings in the storm, and become
a terror to those whom it formerly defended. He was indeed a
great gun, from whom in the time of the Stamp Act had been sent
the most powerful bolts against unconstitutional oppression.
With lashings parted, however, as the storm grew violent he
plunged dangerously from side to side, almost sinking the ship,
all the more an object to dread from the calibre that had once
made him so serviceable. It was a melancholy sight, and yet a
great relief, when his friends saw him at last bound hand and
foot, and carried into retirement.

"Bowdoin, also, was not firm in health, and though most active
and useful in the Council, had thus far done little elsewhere.
Hawley, far in the interior, was often absent from the centre in
critical times, and somewhat unreliable through a strange
moodiness. Cushing was weak. Hancock was hampered by foibles
that some times quite canceled his merits. Quincy was a