*יי office himself. The charge is branded as an "execrable lie" by John Adams. Otis defended the merchants in this case, and with success. "American Independence was then and there born." His speech was widely circulated, and its author was elected to the State Legislature in May, 1761. In 1762, he published a pamphlet, entitled A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives. It was a defence of an address to the governor in answer to his message announcing an addition to the armament of the Massachusetts sloop (a small matter in itself, but involving the principle of the expenditure of the public money without the action of the legislature). This address, drawn up by Otis, contained the following passage: "It would be of little consequence to the people whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." A member cried out "treason" when it was read, but the address was passed by a large majority. "How many volumes," says John Adams, "are concentrated in this little fugitive pamphlet! Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs, issued by Congress in 1774. Look into the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. Look into all the French constitutions of government, and, to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Crisis, and Rights of Man; what can you find that is not to be found in solid substance in this Vindication of the House of Representatives?" Games Ctr In 1764, Otis's Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, a pamphlet of 120 pages 8vo., appeared. Its argument is given with admirable concision in the summary near its close. The sum of my argument is, that civil government is of God, that the administrators of it were John Adams. originally the whole people; that they might have devolved it on whom they pleased: that this devolution is fiduciary, for the good of the whole: that by the British constitution, this devolution is on the king, lords, and commons, the supreme, sacred, and uncontrollable legislative power, not only in the realm, but through the dominions: that by the pieces; that by the revolution it was renewed, and abdication, the original compact was broken to more firmly established, and the rights and liberties of the subject in all parts of the dominions more fully explained and confirmed: that in consequence of this establishment and the acts of succession and union, his Majesty George III. is rightful king and sovereign, and with his parliament, the supreme legislative of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging: that this constitution is the most free one, and by far the best now existing on earth: that by this constitution, every man in the dominions is a free man: that no part of his Majesty's dominions can be taxed without their consent: that every part has a right to be represented in the supreme or some subordinate legislature, that the refusal of this would seem to be a contradiction in practice to the theory of the constitution: that the colonies are subordinate dominions, and are now in such a state, as to make it best for the good of the whole that they should not only be continued in the enjoyment of subordinate legislation, but be also represented in some proportion to their number and estates in the grand legislation of the nation: that this would firmly unite all parts of the British empire, in the greatest peace and prosperity; and render it invulnerable and perpetual. Otis was elected to the first or Stamp Act Congress, but after the publication of his last work took a less prominent part in public debate. Sept. 4, 1769, he published an advertisement in the Boston Gazette, denouncing the commissioners of the customs who had sent over to England false and libellous charges against him. The next evening he met Robinson, one of these persons, in a coffee-house. An altercation ensued, Robinson struck him with a cane, Otis returned the blow, was attacked by a number of Robinson's adherents, and received a severe wound in the head-which is generally supposed to have led to the insanity which soon after made its appearance, and incapacitated him for future public or professional exertion. He brought an action against Robinson, and recovered £2000 damages, which he refused to accept. He retired from the legislature in 1770, and was re-elected in 1771, but did not take any important part in the debates. He withdrew the same year, and passed the remainder of his life at Barnstable and Andover, where he was struck by lightning, May 23, 1783, and died instantaneously. His life has been written by William Tudor.* ADVANTAGES OF REPRESENTATION. A representation in Parliament from the several colonies, since they are become so large and nume rous, as to be called on not only to maintain provincial government, civil and military, among themselves, for this they have cheerfully done, but to contribute towards the support of a national standing army, by reason of the heavy national debt, when they themselves owe a large one, con Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts. Boston, 1823. JAMES BOWDOIN. tracted in the common cause, cannot be thought an unreasonable thing, nor if asked, could it be called an immodest request. Qui sentit commodum sentire debet et onus, has been thought a maxim of equity. But that a man should bear a burthen for other people, as well as himself, without a return, never long found a place in any law-book or decrees, but those of the most despotic princes. Besides the equity of an American representation in parliament, a thousand advantages would result from it. It would be the most effectual means of giving those of both countries a thorough knowledge of each other's interests, as well as that of the whole, which are inseparable. Were this representation allowed, instead of the scandalous memorials and depositions that have been sometimes, in days of old, privately cooked up in an inquisitorial manner, by persons of bad minds and wicked views, and sent from America to the several boards, persons of the first reputation among their countrymen might be on the spot, from the several colonies, truly to represent them. Future ministers need not, like some of their predecessors, have recourse for information in American affairs, to every vagabond stroller, that has run or rid post through America, from his creditors, or to people of no kind of credit from the colonies. JAMES BOWDOIN Was born in Boston, August 7, 1726. He was of Huguenot descent; his grandfather Pierre Baudouin having been a refugee from France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, who, living for a short time in Ireland, in 1687 was an applicant to Governor Andros, in New England, for a grant of land in Maine. His son, James Bowdoin, became a wealthy merchant of Boston; and his son James, of whom we are writing, inherited a handsome paternal fortune. He was educated under Master Lovell at the South Grammar School of the city, and was a graduate of Harvard of 1745. of he had visited Frankage At twenty-four years lin in Philadelphia, and disclosed a taste for scientific pursuits which induced the philosopher, then twenty years his senior, to communicate to him This was the beginhis papers on Electricity. ning of a correspondence by which the friends have become united in reputation. A resumé of this scientific connexion is given by the Hon. R.C. Winthrop, a descendant of Bowdoin, in his address on the Life and Services of Bowdoin.* . At the outset of this correspondence, Bowdoin appears to have availed himself of the invitation to make observations on Franklin's theories and specu lations, with somewhat more of independence of opinion than might have been expected from the One of his earliest letters disparity of their ages. (21st Dec. 1751) suggested such forcible objections to the hypothesis, that the sea was the grand source of electricity, that Franklin was led to say in his reply, (24th January, 1752,)—" I grow more doubtful of former supposition, and more ready to allow weight to that objection, (drawn from the activity of the electric fluid and the readiness of water to have indeed stated with great you conduct,) which In the following year strength and clearness." Franklin retracted this hypothesis altogether. The same letter of Bowdoin's contained an elaborate explication of the cause of the crooked direction of lightning, which Franklin pronounced, in his reply, my Winthrop's Maine Historical Soc. Address, 1849, pp. 10-12. to be "both ingenious and solid,"-adding, "when we can account as satisfactorily for the electrification of clouds, I think that branch of natural philosophy will be nearly complete." In a subsequent letter, Bowdoin suggested a theory in regard to the luminousness of water under certain circumstances, ascribing it to the presence of minute phosphorescent animals, of which Franklin said, in his reply, (13th Dec. 1753,)-"The observations you made of the sea water emitting more or less light in different tracts passed through by your boat, is new, and your mode of accounting for it ingenious. It is, indeed, very possible, that an extremely small animalcule, too small to be visible even by our best This theory glasses, may yet give a visible light." has since been very generally received. Franklin soon after paid our young philosopher the more substantial and unequivocal compliment of sending his letters to London, where they were read at the Royal Society, and published in a volume with his own. The Royal Society, at a later day, made Bowdoin one of their fellows; and Franklin writing to Bowdoin from London, Jan. 13, 1772, says: "It gives me great pleasure that my book afforded any to my friends. I esteem those letters of yours among its brightest ornaments, and have the satisfaction to find that they add greatly to the reputation of American philosophy." He bore a leading part in the political agitations of the times, in opposition to the parliamentary and local government tyranny; and was an early advocate of the union of the Colonies. He was a member of the Colonial Council, where his patriotism rendered him an object of dread to Governor Bernard and Hutchinson, while he was specially set aside by the English home government. He was elected to the Old Continental Congress and prevented attendance only by family illness. His own health was weak, and his life became a long consumptive disease; but he was In 1785, he always vigorous in public affairs. became Governor of the Commonwealth, in the discharge of the duties of which he applied all his energies to the suppression of Shay's RebelHe lived to see his lion against law and order. efforts for union fully established in the formation of the Federal Constitution; received Washington, with whom he had conferred on the perilous heights of Dorchester, in 1776, at his house in Boston in 1789; and on the 6th of November, 1790, followed, after an interval of a few months, his old friend Franklin to the grave. Besides his participation in Franklin's discoveries, he has a claim upon our attention here as a contributor to the Pietas et Gratulatio, the volume of Cambridge poems on the accession of George III., to which he contributed three articles,* and the author of a volume of verses published His Paraanonymously in Boston, in 1759. phrase of the Economy of Human Life furnishes at least a pleasing study of the tastes of the man and the period. He was a fellow of the Corporation of Harvard College, subscribed liberally to its funds, and left the institution a handsome legacy to be applied to the encouragement of literature in premiums among the students. He was one of the founders and first Presidents of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, and published a philosophical discourse on * Ante, p. 18. his induction in 1780. The poem of Bowdoin, to which we have alluded, is called a Paraphrase of Dodsley's collection of aphorisms under that title, but, though it originated in a simple version of the Economy, it is rather an amplification or extension of that little work, with new illustrations. It follows the original in its general classification of personal duties and emotions, and the relation of the sexes, without taking up each of the topics. Bowdoin's is good moral sense, in a good declamatory tone, without much originality. As an example of its more pleasing descriptions, we may take a passage on the Virtuous Woman, in the section on Desire and Love. Now view the maid, the love inspiring maid, With virtue and with modesty array'd: Survey her matchless form; her mind survey; And all their beauty in full light display. Her matchless form, display'd in open light, Attracts the eye, and charms the ravish'd sight. Survey'd, and re-survey'd from feet to head, A thousand nameless beauties round her spread: See down her neck the charming locks descend; And, black as jet, in waving ringlets end: As down her beauteous neck they careless flow, The lovely white to great advantage show: Her comely neck with symmetry and grace, Rises majestic on its noble base: And, like a column of superior art, Does to the eye a fine effect impart : Her piercing eyes their harmless lightning play: Her cheeks, adorn'd with lovely white and red, These matchless charms, which now in bloom appear, Are far exalted by the dress they wear: * A Paraphrase on Part of the Economy of Human Life, inscribed to his Excellency Thomas Pownall, Esq., Governor of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. Boston, New England: Printed and Sold by Green and Russell, at their PrintingOffice, in Queen st. 1759. Than roses far more grateful is her smile; As yonder stars that deck heav'n's sparkling And like to her's, which bro't down fabled Jove, The reader may like to compare Bowdoin with his original Dodsley. We add a few sentences from the latter's brief parallel chapter. The madness of desire shall defeat its own pursuits; from the blindness of its rage thou shalt rush upon destruction. Therefore give not up thy heart to her sweet enticements; neither suffer thy soul to be enslaved by her enchanting delusions. When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven; and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist. The innocence of her eye is like that of the turtle; simplicity and truth dwell in her heart. The kisses of her mouth are sweeter than honey: the perfumes of Arabia breathe from her lips. Dodsley's sentiments have a strong flavor of common-place to readers of the present day, but they were once very popular. James Bowdoin, the son of the preceding, was a gentleman of many accomplishments. He was born Sept. 22, 1752, and died Oct. 11, 1811. He gave much attention to literary pursuits, and on the incorporation of Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, in Maine, made it a donation of one thousand acres of land, and more than eleven hundred pounds. He was sent by Jefferson as minister to Spain in 1805, and subsequently to France, and remained abroad till 1808, passing two years in Paris, where he made a collection of books and minerals which he subsequently presented to Bowdoin College. He lived during the summer months on Naushaun Island, near Martha's Vineyard. He was interested in the cultivation of sheep, and translated Daubenton's Advice to Shepherds. He published anonymously, Opinions respecting the Commercial Intercourse between the United States and Great Britain. A short time before his death he gave a valuable grant of land to Bowdoin College, and by his last will bequeathed a philosophical apparatus, and a costly collection of paintings to that institution. EZRA STILES. THE grandfather of Ezra Stiles was brought an infant to New England, in 1634. The family settled in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1635. The Rev. Isaac Stiles was his son, and settled, as minister, at North Haven. He married a daughter of the Rev. Edward Taylor, of Westfield, Mass., who died a few days after giving birth to their only child, Ezra, December 10, 1727. He was prepared for Yale College by his father, at the early age of twelve, but his entrance was wisely deferred until three years later. He was graduated with distinguished honors in 1746, and remained a resident at the college, where he was chosen a tutor, in May, 1749. He was licensed, and preached his first sermon, in June of the same year, and in the following September received the Master's degree, being regarded as one of the ablest scholars the institution had produced. In 1752, finding the exertion of preaching prejudicial to his health, and influenced to some extent by religious doubts, by which his mind was then disturbed, he commenced the study of the law, with ⚫a view to a change in his career. In 1754, he made a tour to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, with great benefit to his health. In April of the following year, he accepted an invitation to preach during the college vacation, at Newport, R. I., and soon after received a call to retain the position permanently. After much deliberation, he determined to abandon the law and accept the appointment. He had previously, by laborious study and earnest thought, dispelled the theological difficulties which had disturbed his mind, and was ready to devote himself with earnestness and zeal to his sacred calling. His clerical duties did not, however, prevent his attention to the scientific and philological studies in which he also delighted. In 1757, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Col. John Hubbard, of New Haven. A discourse delivered on the public thanksgiving for the capture of Montreal, September 8, 1760, shows him to have been among the first to foresee American Independence. He says: "It is probable that, in time, there will be formed a Provincial Confederacy, and a Common Council, standing on free provincial suffrage: and this may, in time, terminate in an imperial diet, when the imperial dominion will subsist, as it ought, in election." In July, 1766, he was urged to allow himself to be proposed as a candidate for the presidency of Yale College, but declined. The proposal Ezra Stiles was renewed by his formal election, in 1777. He was at this time resident at Portsmouth, having removed on the British occupation of Newport, until "it might please Divine Providence to reassemble his dear scattered flock." At the urgent solicitation of his own and the friends of the col lege, he accepted the office, and commenced its duties, June 23, 1778. In the spring vacation of 1780, the British having evacuated Newport, the President paid a visit to his old congregation. The church had been desecrated by the enemy, who "had put up a chimney in the middle of it, and demolished all the pews and seats below, and in the galleries, but had left the pulpit standing. My little zealous flock," says the President, "took down the chimney, and cleansed the meeting house, and then procured some benches, made for the king's troops' entertainment and left behind: so that we attended divine service very conveniently, though with a pleasure intermixed with tender grief." He retained his Presidency with high honor to himself and usefulness to the institution, until his death, May 12, 1795. Dr. Stiles was an indefatigable student throughout his life. By the aid of a Jewish acquaintance in Newport, he instructed himself in Hebrew, and afterwards acquired an acquaintance with the other oriental languages. He corresponded with the Jesuits on the geography of California, with Greek bishops on the physical formation of Palestine and the adjacent countries, and addressed queries of a scientific and philological nature to travellers from the interior of Africa, Behring's Straits, and other remote regions. The late Chancellor Kent, who was one of Stiles's pupils in the college, has paid a handsome tribute to the warmth and character of his political principles and personal virtues: "President Stiles's zeal for civil and religious liberty was kindled at the altar of the English and New England Puritans, and it was animating and vivid. A more constant and devoted friend to the Revolution and independence of this country never existed. He had anticipated it as early as the year 1760, and his whole soul was enlisted in favor of every measure which led on gradually to the formation and establishment of the American Union. The frequent appeals which he was accustomed to make to the heads and hearts of his pupils, concerning the slippery paths of youth, the grave duties of life, the responsibilities of man, and the perils, and hopes, and honors, and destiny of our coun try, will never be forgotten by those who heard them; and especially when he came to touch, as he often did, with a master's hand and prophet's fire,' on the bright vision of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States. Take He him for all in all, this extraordinary man was undoubtedly one of the purest and best gifted men of his age. In addition to his other eminent attainments he was clothed with humility, with tenderness of heart, with disinterested kindness, and with the most artless simplicity. was distinguished for the dignity of his deportment, the politeness of his address, and the urbanity of his manners. Though he was uncompromising in his belief and vindication of the great fundamental doctrines of the Protestant faith, he was nevertheless of a most charitable and catholic temper, resulting equally from the benevolence of his disposition and the spirit of the Gospel." ""** Address delivered at New Haven, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, by James Kent, September 18, 1831. Dr. Channing has also been the eulogist of Stiles. In his discourse at Newport, he speaks with animation of this "noble friend of religious liberty," who "threw a lustre on this island immediately before the Revolution;" and adds, "to the influence of this distinguished man in the circle in which I was brought up, I may owe in part the indignation which I feel towards every invasion of human rights. In my earliest years I regarded no human being with equal reverence."* Stiles was twice married, his second wife being the widow of William Checkley, of Providence. One of his daughters married the Rev. Abiel Holmes, by whom his life was written and published in 1798. There is also a biography by Prof. Kingsley, of Yale, in the second series of Sparks's collection. His chief literary production was his History of Three of the Judges of King Charles It A letter written in 1793, by a gentleman of South Carolina, to the President, suggesting a monument to the memory of John Dixwell, one of the three Judges of Charles I. who escaped to and died in this country, led him to the completion of a work on these worthies for which he had long been engaged in collecting materials. It appeared in 1795. The kindly pen of Chancellor Kent has placed its political merits in a strong light: "This work contains proof," he says, "that the author's devotion to civil and religious liberty carried him forward to some hasty conclusions; in like manner as his fondness for antiquarian researches tended to lead his mind to credulous excesses. He dwells on trifling traditionary details on a very unimportant inquiry; but the volume also contains a dissertation on republican polity, and his vindication of the resistance of the Long Parliament to King Charles I., and of the judicial trial and condemnation of that monarch. Here he rises into a theme of the loftiest import, and discusses it with his usual boldness, fervor, acuteness, and copiousness of erudition. He takes occasion to condemn all hereditary orders in government, as being incompatible with public virtue and security; and he was of opinion that monarchy and aristocracy, with all their exclusive political appendages, were going fast into discredit and disuse, under the influence of more just and enlightened notions of the natural equality and liberties of mankind. In these opinions the President did no more than adopt and declare the principles of the most illustrious of the English Puritans under the Stuarts, and of many, at least, of the English Protestant Dissenters under the Brunswick line. His fundamental doctrine, that a nation may bring to trial and punishment delinquent kings, is undoubtedly true as an abstract proposition, though the right is difficult to define and dangerous in the application. This humble little volume was dedicated to the patrons of unpolluted liberty, civil and religious, throughout Channing's Works, iv. 341. A History of Three of the Judges of King Charles I., Major General Whalley, Major General Goffe, and Colonel Dixwell: who at the Restoration, 1660, fled to America, and were secreted and concealed in Massachusetts and Connecticut, for near Thirty years. With an account of Mr. Theophilus Whale, of Narragansett, supposed to have been also one of the Judges. By President Stiles, Hartford. Printed by Elisha Babcock, 1794. "A Poem, commemorative of Goffe, Whalley, and Dixwell, three of the Judges of Charles I., by Philagathos," was published in Boston, during the same year. the world; and when we consider its subject, its republicanism, its spirit, its frankness, its piety, its style and its tact, we are almost led to believe that we are perusing the legacy of the last of the Puritans. He gives us also a conspectus or plan of an ideal commonwealth, and it is far superior to the schemes sketched by Harrington, or Milton, or Locke, or Hume, or to any other plan of a republic prior to the establishment of our own American constitutions. It is very much upon the model of some of the best of them, and though entire political equality and universal suffrage were the basis of his plan, he was fully aware of the dangerous propensities to which they might expose us, and therefore he checked the rapidity of his machine by a Legislature of two Houses, chosen, the one for three and the other for six years, and by a single Executive chosen for seven years, and by an independent Judiciary. In addition to all these guards, he insisted on the necessity of a general diffusion of light and knowledge, and of the recognition of Christianity." Stiles's other works consist principally of addresses and sermons. One of the latter is an able plea for the union of various New England denominations. His election sermon in 1783, entitled The United States Elevated to Glory and Honour, is an animated eulogium on the revolutionary contest, and an eloquent and sensible anticipation of its consequences. In his eulogy of Washington, his enthusiasm carries him to its utmost limits: Thy fame is of sweeter perfume than Arabian spices in the gardens of Persia. A Baron de Steuben shall waft its fragrance to the monarch of Prussia; a Marquis de la Fayette shall waft it to a far greater monarch, and diffuse thy renown throughout Europe: listening angels shall catch the odour, waft it to heaven, and perfume the universe. Stiles's Diary and bound manuscripts preserved at Yale College, fill some forty-five volumes. Of these fifteen are occupied with his literary Diary, embracing the narrative of daily occurrences, public and private, notices of the books he read, the sermons he preached and heard, and his doctrinal reflections. It includes numerous important details of the Revolution. A Meteorological Record occupies five volumes; an Itinerary of his tours, notices of Town and Church Records, Tombstone Inscriptions and such matters, five more; while the remainder are filled with letters addressed to him, and miscellaneous extracts. He was a good draughtsman, and occasionally sketches plans of the battles. There is an account, in particular, of the battle at Charleston, taken down from the narrative of an eye-witness and participant, the Rev. Mr. Martin. Though the Diary has been freely drawn upon by Dr. Stiles's biographer, Holmes, and consulted since for historical purposes, it contains much unpublished matter worthy to see the light. We are indebted to Mr. E. C. Herrick, of Yale, for the following extracts, which exhibit the activity of the writer's mind, and the extent of his pursuits : EXTRACTS FROM THE LITERARY DIARY OF EZRA STILES. NEW PORT, R. 1. (TILL 1777). 1770. Mar. 9. Q Heb. Arab. This day news |
