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known; and no one thought of reporting any speech.
Mr. Otis was a very captivating speaker; handsome, gesticulating gracefully, with a beautiful voice and fervent manner, he excited an audience sometimes to such a degree, that it was said, if it had pleased him, at the end of one of his speeches, to give a hurrah, and call on the people to follow him to burn the town, they would have done it. His manner was very natural.’
In politics the town was strongly Federal.
This was especially true of the educated and wealthier classes.
The clergymen, lawyers, physicians, and merchants were nearly all of that party.
Towards
Washington their feeling was such as was due to his unequalled virtues and services, and hardly stopped short of idolatry.
The opening scenes of the
French Revolution were watched with the keenest interest by both parties, soon passing, with the Federalists, to aversion deepening into horror.
Mr. Ticknor remembered
Washington's death, and says of it:—
There never was a more striking or spontaneous tribute paid to a man than here in Boston, when the news came of Washington's death (1799). It was a little before noon; and I often heard persons say at the time that one could know how far the news had spread by the closing of the shops.
Each man, when he heard that Washington was dead, shut his store as a matter of course, without consultation; and in two hours all business was stopped.
My father came home and could not speak, he was so overcome; my mother was alarmed to see him in such a state, till he recovered enough to tell her the sad news.
For some time every one, even the children, wore crape on the arm; no boy could go into the street without it. I wore it, though only eight years old.
In the household in which George was reared there was nothing of the
Puritan austerity which has been spoken of as tingeing the domestic manners of
New England at that time.
Of the peculiar characteristics of the Puritans, his father had only their pure morals and their strong religious faith.
Being the only child of his father, and much younger than his half brothers and sisters, he was naturally a good deal petted, but never unwisely indulged.
He was a docile, affectionate, and engaging child,