OTHO 



4426 



OTTAWA 



in his own right. In 998 he was called to Italy 

 to put down a disturbance caused by Crescen- 

 tius, a Roman noble, and was completely suc- 

 cessful. He placed his tutor, Gerbert, in the 

 Papal chair as Sylvester II, and began to form 

 plans for reviving the glories of the Western 

 Empire and making Rome again the great capi- 

 tal which it had once been. The Romans, how- 

 ever, rose against him and he was forced to flee 

 to Ravenna, where he died. Otho showed great 

 promise, both as a soldier and as administrator, 

 and had he lived might have proved one of the 

 worthiest representatives of his line. A.MCC. 



OTHO, M.\nrrs SALVIUS (32-69), one of three 

 Roman emperors, whose short reigns succeeded 

 that of Nero, and who were raised to power by 

 the soldiers. Otho had been a favorite at 

 Nero's court. He secured the throne for him- 

 self by murdering his predecessor, Galba, an 

 old man of seventy-three years. His accession 

 was not recognized by the German armies, who 

 proclaimed their general, Vitellius, emperor. 

 Vitellius led an army to Italy and defeated the 

 Roman forces, whereupon Otho stabbed him- 

 self. 



O'TIS, JAMES (1725-1783), a patriotic leader 

 in the American Revolution, whose eloquent 

 speech against the issuance of Writs of Assist- 

 ance, delivered in 1761, won him lasting fame. 

 Of this speech John Adams said, "American 



independence was then and there born." Otis 

 \\as born at West Barnstable, Mass. He was 

 graduated at Harvard College in 1743, studied 

 law. was admit! t\l to the bar in 1748, and be- 

 came advocate-general of Massachusetts. His 

 high character and ability wore fully disclosed 

 when the attempts of the colonists to evade 

 the navigation laws caused the surveyor-general 

 to apply to the superior courts for writs of 

 assistance, used in searching for smuggled 

 goods. Otis resigned his office rather than de- 

 fend the application, and he became counsel 

 for the opposition. Though the writs were not 

 declared illegal, no more were enforced (see 

 WRIT OF ASSISTANCE). 



From that time on Otis was increasingly 

 active in the Revolutionary agitation, and in 

 1765 he was on the Massachusetts committee 

 which recommended the Stamp Act Congress. 

 As a delegate to the Congress, he assisted in 

 preparing the address to the British House of 

 Commons. In 1769 he published a violent at- 

 tack on the commissioners of customs; as a 

 result of this he became involved in a quarrel 

 with one of the commissioners, in the course 

 of which he received a wound in the head. 

 Much of his later life was spent in retirement, 

 as his mind became unbalanced, probably as 

 the result of the wound. He was killed by 

 lightning at Andover, in 1783. 



STORY Of OTTAWA 



TTAWA, ot'awa, a city in Ontario, 

 the capital of the Dominion of Canada. As 

 befits the capital of a great Dominion, Ottawa 

 has a beautiful location; the scenery is scarcely 

 surpassed elsewhere in Canada. The city is 



built on a number of hills, rising sixty to 155 

 feet above the south bank of the Ottawa River. 

 Just above the town the Ottawa River rushes 

 over a picturesque cataract known as Chaudiere 

 Falls. The Indian name for the falls was Asti- 



