Loss of Ease:
Toil, Confinement & Isolation
James Otis lost his ease, or mental peace, slowly over the course of the 1760s and 1770s. Some of his stress was caused by his own intensity and devotion to the American Revolution, while some was the result of unavoidable life tragedies.
All Work And No Play
From the moment James Otis entered public service, his time was absorbed by law and politics, leaving little room for relaxation. As political tensions rose in Boston, Otis threw himself into the fight. It became all-consuming.
In 1766, as angry mobs protested the Stamp Act, he wrote his sister, Mercy Otis Warren: “for near two years I have not had it in my power to spend any time for myself; it has been taken up for others and some of them perhaps will never thank me.” This stress almost certainly worsened his existing mental instability. Sometimes despondent, sometimes enraged, Otis swung unpredictably between moods, frustrating and alarming those around him.
Isolation and Restricted Movement
Whenever Otis experienced a particularly unstable period, his brother and guardian Samuel Allyne sent him to the countryside. If he resisted leaving the city on his own, his guardians sometimes resorted to force. In 1771, he was sent to recover in Hull, “bound hand & foot.” In one of his few remaining letters, Otis complained bitterly to John Hancock about his treatment in 1783:
Removing Otis from his home in Boston did limit arguments with his wife and political adversaries, but it also deprived him of his once-vibrant social life. While the relative tranquility of Cape Cod was calming, Otis missed intellectual stimulation. When a rare visitor stopped by the Otis household, James engaged him in a conversation touching on every possible topic until well past midnight. Otis probably felt similarly in Andover, where various members of the Osgood family continued the revolutionary cause that Otis himself had started.
“Those villains seized me in my shirt and I demanded their Warrants. I was told they had authority but would show no warrant…. Hurried me thro the town in a damned savage, barbarous manner the ferry and to Andover (tho very lame and unwell).”
Letter to John Hancock, May 12, 1783
Memorial marking the Otis homestead in Barnstable
From 1775-1778, Otis returned to live with his father and brother Joseph in the family home in Barnstable, which burned down in 1830.
Family Tragedies
Otis spent much of his political life promoting a reformed relationship with Great Britain, never a complete break between the Crown and the colonies. But while he suspected that declaring independence would be devastating for the Americans, he could never have imagined how it would destroy his family.
Both Otis’ wife, Ruth, and oldest daughter, Betsy, were staunch loyalists. Otis and his wife fought bitterly at home over their political differences; Betsy married a British officer and moved to England. His only son, James III, joined the Continental Navy and died as a British prisoner of war in 1777. Soon after, his father died. Otis probably relied on his siblings for support during these years, but no letters between them remain to tell us how Otis was coping.
Mr. James Otis, ca. 1760.
When James Otis, Sr. died in 1778, he left his Barnstable home to his son Joseph and daughter Hannah. Later that year, Otis, Jr. moved to Andover and boarded with the Osgood family.
New Nation Nerves
Otis had not been meaningfully active in the revolutionary cause since before the outbreak of war, but during calmer phases, he was still a trusted political mind. Several times after the colonies declared independence from Great Britain, Otis was invited to participate in political gatherings, but often found it too overwhelming.
In 1778, Otis attended a debate about the ratification of the new Massachusetts State Constitution. Otis apparently spoke so passionately and persuasively against the document that it was not adopted. Given his strong performance, his peers asked him to preside over the next Boston Town Meeting. They rescinded their offer when he was found wandering drunk in the streets soon after. Later, he was witnessed trading his law books for liquor.
Otis also visited former colleagues in Boston as they assumed their roles as leaders of the new nation, but nearly every time, he had to be taken back to Andover after becoming agitated or overwhelmed.
In 1761, Otis framed the loss of ease as a sacrifice someone may have to make in service to their country as a patriot. By his death in 1783, Otis was isolated from his family and the lively political scene in Boston which meant so much to him.
How do your relationships and time spent with others affect how you feel and act?
