Otis James

Otis, James (1724-83), was born at Barnstable, in Massachusetts. In 1743 he graduated at Harvard, and applied himself to the law. He entered keenly into the questions that arose between the colonies and the home country, and in a dispute about the Navigation Laws he threw up his appointment as law-officer of the Crown, and pleaded the cause of the colonists before the High Court with such force and eloquence that he became a man of mark, and was chosen to represent Boston in the colonial Assembly. He wrote many papers to the colonists, and, on their behalf, to the home Government, and became the recognised chief of the revolutionary party. In 1769 he was attacked in a coffee-house, and received such injuries to his head as brought on insanity.