George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

In the midst of these scenes arrived Hillsborough's letter, directing Massachusetts to rescind its resolutions.² After timid³ consultations between Bernard, Hutchinson and Oliver, after delays till the town meetings were fairly over, and after offers from Bernard to act as a mediator,⁴ on Tuesday, the twenty-first of June, the message was delivered. In the afternoon, when it was read a second time to a full house and a gallery crowded with one or two hundred persons,⁵ Otis spoke for nearly two hours.

‘The King,’ said he, ‘appoints none but boys for his Ministers. They have no education but travelling through France, from whence they return full of the slavish principles of that country. They know nothing of business when they come into their offices, and do not stay long enough in them to acquire that little knowledge which is gained by experience; so that all business is really done by the clerks.’ He passed an encomium on Oliver Cromwell, and extolled the times preceding his advancement, and particularly the sentence pronounced by the people of England on their King, contrasting the days of the Puritans with the present days, when the people of England no longer knew the rights of Englishmen. He praised, in the highest language, ‘the elegant, pure, and nervous Petition to the King,’