Francis Bernard was the first Massachusetts governor under George III. Bernard arrived August 2, 1760; the old king died on October 25; and in November the customs officials, stimulated by orders from home to enforce the provisions of the Sugar Act of 1733, petitioned for "writs of assistance," to empower them to summon help in forcible entries in search of smuggled goods. Now there can be no doubt that there was smuggling in the colony, even in Boston itself. On the other hand, the officials were inquisitorial and rapacious. Once they were armed with writs of assistance, no dwelling would be safe from entry by them. The struggle was at once begun, and in the council chamber of the old Town House was fought out before the eyes of the province. The scene is pictured on the walls of the modern State House. Chief among the justices sat Thomas Hutchinson, a man of property and education, and an excellent historian, but the very type of office-holder, and by prejudice and interest a partisan of the king. Against him stood James Otis, the first of the Massachusetts orators of liberty, a man of good family, and, like so many of the patriot leaders, a lawyer. His speech was the first definite pronouncement for a new order of things. "I am determined," he said, "to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of my country." He referred to the "kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of England his head and another his throne." Such language, publicly spoken, was new. His argument was, to Englishmen, irrefutable. No precedent, no English statute, could stand against the Constitution. "This writ, if declared legal, totally annihilates" the privacy of the home. "Custom-house officers might enter our houses when they please, and we could not resist them. Upon bare suspicion they could exercise this wanton power.... Both reason and the Constitution are against this writ.... Every act against the Constitution is void."[11] The speech, continued for four hours, was a brilliant example of keen logic combined with burning eloquence. This is Otis's great service to the cause of the Revolution. Fiery and magnetic, but moody and eventually unbalanced, he gave place in the public confidence to men perhaps of lesser talents, but with equal zeal and steadier purpose. Yet his service was invaluable. His speech expressed for his countrymen the indignation of the hour, and it pointed the way to younger men. To one at least of his hearers, John Adams, it was "like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal."[12] To many it was the final appeal that settled them in their patriotism. For history the scene has been called the beginning of the Revolution.