sources throw much light on the conduct of Otis as the chief
political opponent of the these two colonial executives.

It is the purpose of the present article merely to emphasize the
three striking traits of his character,--his impetuosity and
earnestness, his high integrity and devotion to truth and
justice, and his marked ability as an advocate before the bar.

In reading the memoirs of James Otis one is struck from first to
last with the impetuosity, the earnestness, the ardent temper of
his nature. This was at once the secret of a great measure of
his power and also the partial source of his mental undoing. As
a student at Harvard, the last two years of his college life were
marked with great assiduity in study, and while at home during
the vacations in this period, he devoted himself so closely to
his books, that he was seldom seen by his friends, and often it
was not known that he had returned, till he had been in his
father's house for some days. Such severe application doubtless
served to sow the first seeds of mental derangement, which
falling on the fertile soil of his feverish disposition and
nutured by the constant and intense argumentative strife of his
later political career, finally found their fruition in the
mental collapse which so distressingly darkened his latter days.
When participating in the common amusements of youth he exhibited
all the vivacity of an excitable temperament.

The earnestness of his nature led him to resign a lucrative
office, renounce the favor of government, abandon the fairest
prospects of professional emolument and distinction, and to
devote himself to the service of his country with unflinching