intervals. On behalf of the government he sent a letter to Lee,
quite touching for its fairminded simplicity. The council had
come into possesssion of a letter from Ireland making very
unfavorable mention of Lee. It produced no impression upon the
council. "On the contrary," says Otis, "we are at a loss to
know which is the highest evidence of your virtues--the
greatness and number of your friends, or the malice and envy of
your foes." This was a most delicate and effective way of
offering good advice.

When he had suffered so cruelly at the hands of Commissioner
Robinson and his companions at the British Coffee House, and had
been awarded damages by the court, Otis's high spirit revolted at
the idea of receiving pecuniary compensation for a personal
insult; and Robinson's release drawn up by Otis himself is to be
found in the files of the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts, along with Robinson's written acknowledgment and
apology.

Next to his impetuous devotion to the true relations of things,
the source of Otis's power lay in his adequate preparation for
the life of an advocate. Bred to the law at a time long before
the pathway had been smoothed by the multiplication of elementary
works and other modern improvements, he yet fully mastered that
abstruse science, which perhaps does more to quicken and
invigorate the understanding than many of the other kinds of
learning put together. As a sufficient foundation for his later
legal studies he had pursued at Harvard, the foremost college in
the colonies, not only the regular undergraduate classical
course, but also the three years of work required for the