of the House, but he witnessed in 1780 his service as a member of
the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts. Afterward, in
1787, he was a commissioner to negotiate a settlement with the
participants in Shay's Rebellion. With the organization of the
new national government he became Secretary of the Senate of the
United States, and served in that capacity until his death, April
22, 1814.

In 1781, Mr. Otis was taken by his friend, Colonel Samuel Osgood,
to the home of the latter in Andover. There the enfeebled
patriot passed the remainder of his life. He became very obese,
and his nervous excitability to an extent subsided.

He was amiable and interesting to his friends. His health was in
some measure restored, but his intellectual strength did not
return. He thought of going back to Boston, and in one instance
he accepted and conducted a case in the court of Common Pleas;
but his manner was that of a paretic giant.

The favorable turn in Mr. Otis's condition was at length arrested
by an attempt on his part to dine with Governor Hancock. At the
dinner he was observed to become first sad and then to waver into
mental occultation. He was taken by his brother, Hon. Samuel
Alleyne Otis, to Andover. The event convinced the sufferer that
the end of his life was not distant.

Strange, strange are the foregleams of the things to come! On
one occasion he said to his sister, Mrs. Warren, "I hope when God
Almighty in his Providence shall take me out of time into
eternity, it will be by a flash of lightning!" The tradition