"Can you expect any more such instances of magnanimity under the principle of the Bill now proposed?" THE GENEROSITY OF OTIS. He was distinguished for generosity to both friends and foes. Governor Hutchinson said of him: "that he never knew fairer or more noble conduct in a speaker, than in Otis; that he always disdained to take advantage of any clerical error, or similar inadvertence, but passed over minor points, and defended his causes solely on their broad and substantial foundations." JOHN ADAMS ON OTIS. But in that contest over the "Writs of Assistance," there was something nobler exhibited than superiority to mercenary consideration. "It was," says the Venerable President, John Adams, "a moral spectacle more affecting to me than any I have since seen upon the stage, to observe a pupil treating his master with all the deference, respect, esteem, and affection of a son to a father, and that without the least affectation; while he baffled and confounded all his authorities, confuted all his arguments, and reduced him to silence! "The crown, by its agents, accumulated construction upon construction, and inference upon inference, as the giants heaped Pelion upon Ossa; but Otis, like Jupiter, dashed this whole building to pieces, and scattered the pulverized atoms to the four winds; and no judge, lawyer, or crown officer dared to say, why do ye so? "He raised such a storm of indignation, that even Hutchinson, who had been appointed on purpose to sanction this writ, dared not utter a word in its favor, and Mr. Gridley himself seemed to me to exult inwardly at the glory and triumph of his pupil." OTIS COMPARED WITH RANDOLPH. "The wit exemplified by Mr. Otis in debate," says Dr. Magoon, "was often keen but never malignant, as in John Randolph. The attacks of the latter were often fierce and virulent, not unfrequently in an inverse proportion to the necessity of the case. "He would yield himself up to a blind and passionate obstinacy, and lacerate his victims for no apparent reason but the mere pleasure of inflicting pangs. "In this respect, the orator of Roanoke resembled the Sicilian tyrant whose taste for cruelty led him to seek recreation in putting insects to the torture. If such men cannot strike strong blows, they know how to fight with poisonous weapons; thus by their malignity, rather than by their honorable skill, they can bring the noblest antagonist to the ground. "But Mr. Otis pursued more dignified game and with a loftier purpose. "He indeed possessed a Swiftian gift of sarcasm, but, unlike the Dean of St. Patrick's, and the forensic gladiator alluded to above, he never employed it in a spirit of hatred and contempt towards the mass of mankind.