The statement of a partisan, especially if he be a beneficiary,
must be taken with the usual allowance of salt.

It may be that the patriotic trend of the Otises was intensified
a little by a personal pique in the matter referred to. But that
either father or son was transferred from the king's party to the
people's party by the failure of Colonel Otis to be appointed
Chief Justice is not to be believed. Other stories are to be
dismissed in the same manner.

One slander prevalent about the Custom House ran to the effect
that James Otis had declared that he would set the province on
fire even if he had to perish in the flames. The art of
political lying was known even among our fathers.

Such was the situation of affairs when the sycophants of the
foreign government in Boston undertook to enforce the Writs of
Assistance. They soon found that they needed more assistance to
do it. The banded merchants, and the patriots generally, said
that the acts were illegal, and that they would not submit to the
officers. The governor and his subordinates and the custom-house
retinue in particular, said that the writs were legal, and that
they should be enforced. The matter came to a clash and a trial.

The case as made up presented this question: Shall the persons
employed in enforcing the Acts of Trade have the power to invoke
generally the assistance of all the executive officers of the
colony?