JOHN JAY John Jay was born in New York City December 12, 1745. He was a son of Peter Jay, a West Indian merchant, of Huguenot and Dutch ancestry. He received his early education at a boarding-school in New Rochelle. There he acquired a proficiency in the French language which proved of great advantage to him in his later career. He was graduated from King's, now Columbia, College in 1764, entered the law offices of Benjamin Kissam soon afterwards, and was admitted to the bar four years later. Being in complete sympathy with the colonial aspirations, after the measures Great Britain imposed upon her American colonies in 1773, Jay was sent as a delegate to the Congress that convened at Philadelphia in 1774, where he wrote one of the three addresses voted by that body. In November of the following year he was elected to the second Congress, and in January, 1776, he was called to New York to become a delegate to the provincial Congress of his own State. During the following years Jay's work and influence, both in a public and a confidential character, proved of the greatest benefit to his country. He of all the great men connected with the momentous events of the time possessed in a large degree not only powers of organization, but the fine tact and diplomacy which proved eventually a qualification most requisite to gather the fruits of the labors in connection with attaining American independence. Among the eminent services rendered to his own State was his plan for a State constitution, which was presented in March, 1777, and was adopted with but few modifications. He was appointed Chief Justice of his State in September, 1777, and being a member of the Council of Safety, his position was one of almost absolute power. Jay's diplomatic career begins with his appointment as Minister to the Court of Spain in 1779, an office that brought him at the time little honor and much financial embarrassment. In 1782 he was summoned to Paris to co-operate with Franklin and John Adams in the peace negotiations between America and England. The credit of negotiating a treaty so favorable to this country belongs no doubt to Jay and Adams rather than to Franklin, and the diplomatic sagacity of the descendant of the Huguenots reaped the most signal triumphs. On his return to America he was made Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and on the organization of the Federal government Washington appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1794 Jay was sent on a special mission to England to bring about an adjustment of the boundary between the United States and the British possessions in North America, and also to conclude a commercial treaty. The result of his negotiations was the "Jay Treaty," which was ratified by the United States Senate August 18, 1795. This treaty was the most important and comprehensive compact ever entered into by Great Britain and the United States. It provided for the surrender to the United States of the military posts in the Northwest; for the settlement of the boundary; for the payment of British and American claims, and for neutrality at sea. On his return Jay was twice elected Governor of New York, and in 1801, declining both renomination for Governor and reappointment to the Bench, he withdrew from public life to spend the closing years of his public career at his country seat at Bedford, in Westchester County. He died there on May 17, 1829. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT F BRITAIN * RIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS: When a nation led to greatness by the hand of liberty, and possessed of all the glory that heroism, munificence, and humanity can bestow, descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her friends and children, and instead of giving support to freedom, turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect she has either ceased to be virtuous or been extremely negligent in the appointment of her rulers. In almost every age, in repeated conflicts in long and bloody wars, as well civil as foreign, against many and powerful nations, against the open assaults of enemies, and the more dangerous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants of your island, your great and glorious ancestors, maintained their independence and transmitted the rights of men and the blessings of liberty to you, their posterity. Be not surprised, therefore, that we who are descended from the same common ancestors, that we whose forefathers participated in all the rights, the liberties, and the constitution you so justly boast of, and who have carefully conveyed the same fair inheritance to us, guaranteed by the plighted faith of government, and the most solemn compacts with British sovereigns, should refuse to surrender them to men who found their claims on no principles of reason, and who prosecute them with a design that, by having our lives and property in their power, they may, with the greatest facility, enslave you. The cause of America is now the object of universal attention; it has at length become very serious. This unhappy coun * Congress, on October 11, 1774, ap: pointed Mr. Lee, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Jay a committee to prepare a memorial to the people of British America, and an address to the people of Great Britain. It was agreed in the committee that Mr. Lee should prepare the former, and that Mr. Jay should prepare the latter. On the eighteenth, Mr. Jay delivered the address, which was ap proved by Congress. try has not only been oppressed, but abused and misrepresented; and the duty we owe to ourselves and posterity, to your interest, and the general welfare of the British Empire, leads us to address you on this very important subject. Know, then, that we consider ourselves, and do insist, that we are and ought to be as free as our fellow-subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent. That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by the English constitution, and particularly that inestimable one of trial by jury. That we hold it essential to English liberty that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, without having an opportunity of making his defence. That we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets; or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any quarter of the globe. These rights we, as well as you, deem sacred; and yet, sacred as they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly and flagrantly violated. Are not the proprietors of the soil of Great Britain lords of their own property? Can it be taken from them without their consent? Will they yield it to the arbitrary disposal of any man or number of men whatever? You know they will not. Why, then, are the proprietors of the soil of America less lords of their property than you are of yours? or why should they submit it to the disposal of your Parliament, or any other parliament or council in the world, not of their election? Can the intervention of the sea that divides us cause disparity in rights, or can any reason be given why English subjects who live three thousand miles from the royal palace should enjoy less liberty than those who are three hundred miles distant from it? Reason looks with indignation on such distinctions, and freemen can never perceive their propriety. And yet, however chimerical and unjust such discriminations are, the Parliament assert that they have a right to bind us, in all cases, without exception, whether we consent or not; that they may take and use our property when and in what manner they please; that we are pensioners on their bounty for all that we possess, and can hold it no longer than they vouchsafe to permit. Such declarations we consider as heresies in English politics, and which can no more operate to deprive us of our property than the interdicts of the Pope can divest kings of sceptres which the laws of the land and the voice of the people have placed in their hands. At the conclusion of the late war-a war rendered glorious by the abilities and integrity of a minister to whose efforts the British Empire owes its safety and its fame; at the conclusion of this war, which was succeeded by an inglorious peace, formed under the auspices of a minister of principles, and of a family, unfriendly to the Protestant cause, and inimical to liberty-we say at this period, and under the influence of that man, a plan for enslaving your fellow-subjects in America was concerted, and has ever since been pertinaciously carrying into execution. Prior to this era you were content with drawing from us the wealth produced by our commerce: you restrained your trade in every way that could conduce to your emolument. You exercised unbounded sovereignty over the sea. You named the ports and nations to which alone our merchandise should be carried, and with whom alone we should trade; and though some of these restrictions were grievous, we nevertheless did not complain. We looked up to you as to our parent state, to which we were bound by the strongest ties, and were happy in being instrumental to your prosperity and your grandeur. We call upon you, yourselves, to witness our loyalty and attachment to the common interest of the whole empire. Did we not, in the last war, add all the strength of this vast continent to the force which repelled our common enemy? Did we not leave our native shores and meet disease and death to promote the success of British arms in foreign climates? Did you not thank us for our zeal, and even reimburse us large sums of money, which you confessed we had advanced beyond our proportion, and far beyond our abilities? You did. To what causes, then, are we to attribute the sudden change of treatment, and that system of slavery, which was prepared for us at the restoration of peace? Before we had recovered from the distresses which ever attend war, an attempt was made to drain this country of all its money, by the oppressive stamp act. Paint, glass, and other |