typical Revolutionary orators. Oratory is usually born of an occasion, and when the occasion has passed the oration becomes largely a mere memory to those who heard the spoken words. Hence there is little literary permanency in the popular oratory born of a moment and uttered under the stress of fiery emotion. The reputation of the orator survives, but his extemporaneous speeches, delivered under the excitement and inspiration of the occasion, usually pass away with the breath which gives them utterance. This is precisely what happened in the case of Otis, and it is almost precisely what happened in the case of Henry's passionate extemporaneous orations.

James Otis. The most famous of Otis's speeches is the one delivered in 1761 at Boston in opposition to the Writs of Assistance or warrants of search in private homes for smuggled goods. No authentic reproduction has come down. to us, but John Adams, who heard the speech, made notes of it, and in his later reminiscences he spoke of Otis on this occasion as a flame of fire, and the hour of the delivery of the speech as the real birth hour of American independence. In the course of his argument Otis declared that the Navigation Acts were "a taxation law made by a foreign legislature without our consent," and this phrase in a slightly changed form became the chief slogan of the Revolutionary agitators. Otis was advocate-general of the colony, but he gave up this lucrative position under the crown rather than support the nefarious Writs of Assistance. He threw himself wholly into the cause of the colonists in their resistance to these oppressive laws and wrote several pamphlets distinguished by calmness and judicial poise quite in contrast with the passionate eloquence in his speeches; among them is the sound and conservative argument called "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved" (1764). In a personal affray with some of his political enemies, Otis suffered injuries from which he later lost his

mind and died, and thus he may be counted among the very earliest martyrs to the cause of American liberty and independence.

Patrick Henry: his "Speech on Liberty." Patrick Henry (1736-1799) was a typical Southern statesman, born of good family and representing the conservative and independent and at the same time emotional ideals of Virginia. He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1765, and here he first won fame in the discussion of the Stamp Act by making the famous comparison which brought out the cry of "Treason! Treason!" from the loyalist members. “Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First had his Cromwell; and George the Third,"—here the speaker was interrupted, but he calmly concluded in the midst of the cries of "Treason,"-"may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." In 1775 he made another famous speech, which has come down to us through the report given by William Wirt, himself an excellent orator and prose writer of the early nineteenth century. How much of Henry's "Speech on Liberty" is due to Wirt's own composition from his memory of the speech, it is now impossible to tell; but there is no question of the masterly style, ardent passion, and moving power exhibited in the famous oration now made almost universally familiar by innumerable declamatory repetitions. It begins, "Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope," and ends with the magnificent peroration,

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, “peace, peace!"-but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Henry's later speeches. In the discussions which followed the submitting of the Constitution to the several colonies for ratification, Henry opposed the adoption of the new form of federal government. He feared the results of too much concentration or centralization of power. He even went so far as to suggest that under the proposed plan the president might easily make himself king, and the colonies would again be subjected to the yoke of a monarchical form of government. In spite of Henry's opposition, however, Virginia finally adopted the Constitution. The later speeches of the great orator were more authentically recorded than the earlier famous one reported by Wirt, for they were taken down in shorthand, with perhaps a few verbal inaccuracies, as they were delivered in the Virginia Convention. The style shows all the powerful appeal of the traditional orator-climactic periods, exclamatory sentences, rhetorical questions, and passionate outbursts-but the quality is more purely argumentative and less perfervid than the highly emotional style of the "Speech on Liberty." All in all we may rank Patrick Henry as the most illustrious of our Revolutionary orators.

POLITICAL WRITERS

Samuel Adams. Samuel Adams (1722-1803) and his kinsman John Adams have been named among the orators, but their influence was probably greater as political writers than as speakers. Samuel Adams has been singled out by Englishmen as the man who was the greatest obstacle in the way of a peaceful adjustment between England and the colonies. He was an untiring enemy of compromise, and he wrote perhaps more-though he signed his name to very little of what he published-than any other of the early agitators. He prepared many reports, memorials, articles for the press, and state papers, all of which show his clear

and convincing style as a controversial writer. He directed the work of the Committee of Correspondence for Massachusetts, and became so vigorously aggressive in his opposition to England that he was not included in the general pardon which that country declared in 1775, a fact of which he was exceedingly proud. Samuel Adams was a skilful politician, a successful party manipulator, and a powerful political journalist, and he has been adjudged by historians to be the most influential of the Revolutionary agitators.

John Adams. John Adams (1735-1826), the cousin of Samuel Adams, was perhaps a more profound thinker and a more careful writer than his kinsman, and he eventually received higher political regard, being elected president in 1796 to succeed Washington; but his popular influence was not nearly so great as that of the elder Adams. He was what we may call a constitutional lawyer, basing his orations and pamphlets on the profound underlying principles of government rather than upon the principle of expediency and popular appeal. Though his writings command respect and admiration, the strong legal and logical bent of his mind robs them of much of that human element which is essential to literature.

Tory pamphleteers. It must not be assumed that all the good controversial writing was on one side of the questions at issue. There were some excellent loyalist pamphleteers, among them being Samuel Seabury (1729-1796), an Episcopal minister, later consecrated in Connecticut as the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church, the author of a number of attractive letters written under the pen-name of "A Westchester Farmer"; Joseph Galloway (1729-1803), a native of Maryland who moved to Philadelphia to practice law and there wrote a conservative pamphlet under the title of "Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies"; and Daniel Leonard (1740-1829), a graduate

of Harvard College and a Boston lawyer, author of strong loyalist newspaper articles signed "Massachusettsensis."

John Dickinson. Along with these writers, though not of them, should be mentioned John Dickinson (1732-1808), of Philadelphia, author of many excellent conservative articles and pamphlets. The best known of his writings is a series of newspaper articles called "Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies" (1767-68). In these articles he tried to show the merits of both sides of the controversy and thus lead to a friendly settlement of the difficulties confronting the people. Professor Tyler says, "No other serious political essays of the Revolution equaled the 'Farmer's Letters' in literary merit, including in that term the merit of substance as well as of form." These letters were published in practically all of the newspapers of the colonies and attracted a great deal of attention; they were also widely circulated in Europe, where they received serious consideration. When the war broke out, Dickinson became a staunch supporter of the colonial He was also the author of the commonplace but at one time popular "Song for American Liberty."

cause.

Alexander Hamilton. When he was a boy of seventeen studying at King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City, Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) began his career as a political writer by his successful answers to the letters of "A Westchester Farmer"2 in a series called "The Farmer Refuted." Hamilton was born in the West Indies and was at an early age thrown on his own resources. entered business, but he showed such precocious literary abilities that he was urged by admiring friends to go to New York to seek an education. He entered heartily into the pre-Revolutionary agitation as orator, pamphleteer, and

He

1 Moses Coit Tyler, Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763– 1783, Vol. I, p. 236.

2 See above "Tory Pamphleteers."