In the same year the arbitrary temper of the government was exhibited in New York. Down to this time the chief justice of the colony had held office only during good behaviour, and had been liable to dismissal at the hands of the colonial assembly. The chief justice was now made removable only by the Crown, a measure which struck directly at the independent administration of justice in the colony. The assembly tried to protect itself by refusing to assign a fixed salary to the chief justice, whereupon the king ordered that the salary should be paid out of the quit-rents for the public lands. At the same time instructions were sent to all the royal governors to grant no judicial commissions for any other period than "during the king's pleasure;" and to show that this was meant in earnest, the governor of New Jersey was next year peremptorily dismissed for commissioning a judge "during good behaviour." [Sidenote: Otis's "Vindication"] In 1762, a question distinctly involving the right of the people to control the expenditure of their own money came up in Massachusetts. Governor Bernard, without authority from the assembly, had sent a couple of ships to the northward, to protect the fisheries against French privateers, and an expense of some £400 had been thus incurred. The assembly was now ordered to pay this sum, but it refused to do so. "It would be of little consequence to the people," said Otis, in the debate on the question, "whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." A cry of "Treason!" from one of the less clear-headed members greeted this bold statement; and Otis, being afterward taken to task for his language, published a "Vindication," in which he maintained that the rights of a colonial assembly, as regarded the expenditure of public money, were as sacred as the rights of the House of Commons. [Portrait: George Grenville] [Sidenote: Expenses of the French war] [Sidenote: Grenville's Resolves]