26 THOMAS HUTCHINSON 



ascended the throne as George III. No one could 

 then have dreamed what this announcement portended. 

 But soon there followed the news of Pitt's resignation, 

 and the next three years saw the abandonment of the 

 whole grand policy in support of which British and 

 American troops had for the last time stood side by 

 side, and its replacement by that domestic struggle for 

 supremacy between the king and the Whig families, 

 out of which grew some of the immediate causes of 

 the American Revolution. In the year 1761 there 

 appeared in the horizon the little cloud like unto a 

 man's hand which came before the storm. This was 

 the famous argument on the writs of assistance en- 

 abling revenue officers to enter houses and search for 

 smuggled goods. In this case, in which Hutchinson 

 presided and Gridley appeared for the crown officers, 

 the younger James Otis made the startling and pro- 

 phetic speech in which he showed successfully that 

 the issue of such writs was contrary to the whole 

 spirit of the British constitution. According to the 

 letter of the law, however, the case was not so clear. 

 Such general search-warrants had been allowed by a 

 statute of Charles II., another statute of William III. 

 in general terms here granted to revenue officers in 

 America like powers to those they possessed in 

 England, and neither of these statutes had been re- 

 pealed. As to the legality of the writs there was 

 room for doubt; and Hutchinson accordingly sus- 

 pended judgment until the next term, in order to 

 obtain information from England as to the present 

 practice there. In accordance with advice from the 

 law officers of the crown, the writs were finally granted. 

 Here, as in other yet weightier matters which were 



