with the cherished names of the home places in England. They
defended themselves as well as they could against the
inhospitality of nature, the neglect of the mother country, and
the cruelty of savage races.

It was only when they grew and multiplied and flourished that our
little seashore republics attracted the attention of the mother
land and suggested to the ministers of the crown the possibility
of plucking something from the new states which had now
demonstrated their ability to exist and to yield an increase.

Meanwhile, for six generations, the colonists had developed their
own social affairs and managed their own civil affairs according
to the exegencies of the case and the principles of democracy.
Their methods of government were necessarily republican.

The military necessities which were ever at the door had taught
our fathers the availability of arms as the final argument in the
debate with wrong. The conflicts with the Indians and the
experiences of the French and Indian war had shown that the
Americans were able to hold their own in battle.

Under these conditions there was a natural growth of public
opinion in the colonies tending to independence of action, and to
indignant protest against foreign dictation. In the sixth decade
of the eighteenth century many of the leading young men of
America talked and wrote of independence as a thing desirable and
possible.

In 1755, when James Otis was thirty years of age, his young