and in a bitter spirit.

To this Otis replied with great asperity, and with his power of
invective untrammeled. He called his pamphlet "A Vindication of
the British Colonies against the Aspersions of the Halifax
Gentleman, in his Letter to a Rhode Island Friend." A single
passage from the work may serve to show the cogency of the
writer's style and especially his anticipation of the doctrines
of the Declaration of Independence.

"Is the gentleman," said he, "a British-born subject and a
lawyer, and ignorant that charters from the crown have usually
been given for enlarging the liberties and privileges of the
grantees, not for limiting them, much less for curtailing those
essential rights, which all his Majesty's subjects are entitled
to, by the laws of God and nature, as well as by the common law
and by the constitution of their country?

"The gentleman's positions and principles, if true, would afford
a curious train of consequences. Life, liberty, and property
are, by the law of nature, as well as by the common law, secured
to the happy inhabitants of South Britain, and constitute their
primary, civil, or political, rights."

The other pamphlet bearing date of September 4, 1765, was
entitled "Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists, in a Letter
to a Noble Lord." In this the writer discusses the question of
Taxation and in particular the specious claim of the British
Ministry that the home government might justly tax the colonists
to defray the expenses of the French and Indian War.