NOTE 36, p. 164.—This reference is probably to James Otis’ volume published in London in 1765, entitled: “The Rights of the Colonies Asserted and Proved.” It had previously been published in Boston, after having been read in MS. in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. The instructions of May, 1764, contained in the appendix were drawn up by Samuel Adams. It is possible, however, that the orator referred to Otis’ “Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of Mass. Bay,” which had appeared in 1762, and which contained in a nutshell the whole American cause. John Adams said of it: “Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs issued by Congress in 1774; look into the Declaration of Independence of 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,’ and what can you find that is not to be found in this Vindication of the House of Representatives?” During the same year also, Otis published “A Vindication of the British Colonies,” and “Considerations on behalf of the Colonists, in a letter to a Noble Lord.” The London reprint of the “Vindication of the British Colonies” was accompanied with the statement: “This tract is republished, _not for any excellence of the work, but for the eminence of the author_.” We see here the leader in the American disputes declaring the universal opinion of the Colonies against the authority of the British Parliament. NOTE 37, p. 185.—This exordium is almost bad enough to justify Hazlitt’s remark: “Most of his speeches have a sort of parliamentary preamble to them; there is an air of affected modesty and ostentatious trifling in them; he seems fond of coquetting with the House of Commons, and is perpetually calling the Speaker out to dance a minuet with him before he begins.” NOTE 38, p. 185.—This was an Act to restrain the Commerce of the Provinces of New England, and to confine it to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British West Indies. NOTE 39, p. 187.—Reference is made to the Repeal of the Stamp Act, which took place in Rockingham’s Administration by a vote of 275 to 161. NOTE 40, p. 189.—This rather striking thought was firmly implanted in Burke’s mind. In his paper on “Present Discontent,” he apologized for “stepping a little out of the ordinary sphere” of private people. In one of his letters he says: “We live in a nation where, at present, there is scarce a single head that does not teem with politics. Every man has contrived a scheme of government for the benefit of his fellow-subjects.”