forgave, upon an acknowledgment of the offense.

"Can you expect any more such instances of magnanimity under the
principle of the Bill now proposed?"


THE GENEROSITY OF OTIS.

He was distinguished for generosity to both friends and foes.
Governor Hutchinson said of him: "that he never knew fairer or
more noble conduct in a speaker, than in Otis; that he always
disdained to take advantage of any clerical error, or similar
inadvertence, but passed over minor points, and defended his
causes solely on their broad and substantial foundations."


JOHN ADAMS ON OTIS.

But in that contest over the "Writs of Assistance," there was
something nobler exhibited than superiority to mercenary
consideration.

"It was," says the Venerable President, John Adams, "a moral
spectacle more affecting to me than any I have since seen upon
the stage, to observe a pupil treating his master with all the
deference, respect, esteem, and affection of a son to a father,
and that without the least affectation; while he baffled and
confounded all his authorities, confuted all his arguments, and
reduced him to silence!