so powerfully as to bring into full play all of his faculties and
to direct the whole force of his nature against the tyrannical
method of the mother country.

Let us look for a moment at the course of events which had
preceded and which succeeded the crisis in James Otis's life, and
made him the born leader of his countrymen in their first
conflict for independence.

Great Britain had aforetime permitted the American colonists to
plant themselves where, when, and as they would. Almost every
colonial settlement had been an adventure. The emigrants from
the other side of the Atlantic had been squeezed out by the hard
discipline of church and state. In America they settled as they
might.

"And England didn't look to know or care."

In the language of one of the bards of this age,

"That is England's awful way of doing business."

She permitted her persecuted children to brave the intolerable
ocean in leaking ships, to reach the new world if they could, and
survive if they might.

Notwithstanding this hard strain on the sentiment of the
Pilgrims, the Cavaliers, and the Hugenots, they remained loyal to
the mother country. They built their little states in the
wilderness and were proud to christen their towns and villages