Without doubt James Otis was a strong man,--a man of strong and positive character, whose friends and enemies were equally strong in their feelings of like and dislike. The men who were ranged as his enemies have for the most part been relegated to a second place on the page of history (this does not apply to Thomas Hutchinson, who in his official capacity was Otis's chief political opponent, but who did not exhibit the personal enemity of Bernard and others); while those who were his friends stand out boldly among the notable characters of the past. As Otis himself remarked concerning Charles Lee, we are not at a loss to know which is the highest evidence of his virtues--the greatness and number of his friends, or the malice and envy of his foes. But friends and foes alike agree in ascribing to him a very ardent temperament, though with the latter it is unjustly regarded as violent. There is a great contrast between the estimate of Otis given by Hutchinson (quoted below) and that exhibited in the following extract from a long letter written by Governor Bernard to Lord Shelburne, near the end of the year 1766, which is entirely filled with a review of Otis's career and character, and is a curious specimen of studied calumniation. The introductory remarks show sufficiently well the spirit of the whole. "I would avoid personalities, but in the present case it is impossible. The troubles in this country take their rise from, and owe their continuance to, one man, so much, that this history alone would contain a full account of them. This man, James Otis, Esq., was a lawyer at Boston when I first came to the government. He is by nature a passionate, violent, and desperate man, which qualities sometimes work him up to an absolute frenzy.--I say nothing of him, which is not known to be his certain character, confirmed by frequent experience." While sympathy for Otis made the public commonly ascribe the alienation of his reason chiefly to the injuries received during his encounter with Robinson in the British Coffee House, it is fairly certain that the commencement of the disease dates further back, and that the blows on the head hastened and aggravated an already incipient malady superinduced by very different causes.