Homes of American Statesmen; With Anecdotical, Personal, and Descriptive Sketches

JAY

Although the City of New-York claims the honor of being the birth-place of John Jay, it cannot properly be regarded as the home of his early years. Not far from the time of his birth, on the 12th of December, 1745, his father, Peter Jay, who, by honorable assiduity in the mercantile vocation, had accumulated a handsome fortune, purchased an estate in Rye, about twenty-five miles from the city, with the intention of making it his future residence. This town, situated on the southeastern corner of Westchester County, ranks among the most delightful summer resorts that adorn the northern shores of Long Island Sound. The village proper stands about a mile and a half from the Sound, on the turn-pike road between New-York and Boston. From the hills extending along its northern limits, the Mockquams (Blind Brook) a perennial stream, flows southwardly through it, adding much to the beauty of its scenery. On the outskirts are many elegant villas, the favorite haunts of those who rejoice to exchange the cares of business and the dust and heat of the neighboring metropolis for its grateful seclusion and the refreshing breezes that visit it from the ocean.

For the description of the Jay estate at Rye, in the absence of personal knowledge, we shall, in the main, rely upon the account furnished by Bolton, in his excellent History of Westchester County, adhering principally to his own language.

The situation of the estate is very fine, embracing some of the most graceful undulations of a hilly district, highly diversified with rocks, woods, and river scenery. Contiguous to the southern portion of it and bordering the Sound is Marle's Neck and the neighboring islands of Pine and Hen-hawk. The curious phenomenon of the Mirage is frequently witnessed from these shores, when the land on the opposite coast of Long Island appears to rise above the waters of the Sound, the intermediate spaces seeming to be sunk beneath the waves.

The family residence is situated near the post-road leading to Rye, at a short distance from the river. The building is a handsome structure of wood, having a lofty portico on the north. The south point commands a beautiful and charming view of the Sound and Long Island. Some highly interesting family portraits adorn the walls of the hall and dining-room, among which are the following: Augustus Jay, who emigrated to this country in 1686, a copy from the original by Waldo; Anna Maria Bayard, wife of Augustus Jay, by Waldo; Peter Augustus Jay, as a boy, artist unknown; an old painting upon oak panel, supposed to represent Catherine, wife of the Hon. Stephen Van Cortlandt, of Cortlandt, South Holland. This lady appears habited in a plain black dress, wearing a high neck-ruffle, and, in her hand, holds a clasped Bible. In one corner of the picture is inscribed "ætat. 64, 1630." In the library is the valuable cabinet of shells, amounting to several thousands, of which the collector, John C. Jay, M.D., has published a descriptive catalogue. Noticeable among the family relics is the gold snuff-box, presented by the Corporation of New-York with the freedom of the city to "his Excellency, John Jay," on the 4th of October, 1784, not long after his return from diplomatic service in Spain and at Paris. An old French Bible contains the following memoranda: "Auguste Jay, est né a la Rochelle dans la Royaume de France le 23/13 Mars, 1665. Laus Deo. N. York, July ye 10th, 1773, this day at 4 o'clock in ye morning dyed Eva Van Cortlandt, was buried ye next day ye 12 en ye voute at Mr. Stuyvesant's about six and seven o'clock."

In the opening of a wood on the southeast of the mansion is the family cemetery, where are interred the remains of the ancestors of the Jays. Over the grave of the Chief Justice is the following inscription, written by his son, Peter Augustus Jay:

in memory of

JOHN JAY,

eminent among those who asserted the liberty

and established the independence

of his country,

which he long served in the most

important offices,

legislative, executive, judicial, and diplomatic,

and distinguished in them all by his

ability, firmness, patriotism, and integrity,

he was in his life, and in his death,

an example of the virtues,

the faith and the hopes

of a christian

Born, Dec. 12, 1745,

Died, May 17, 1829

According to his expressed desire, the body of Mr. Jay was not deposited in the family vault, but committed to the bosom of the earth. He always strenuously protested against what he considered the heathenish attempt to rescue the worthless relics of mortality from that dissolution, which seems to be their natural and appropriate destination. Within the same cemetery are also memorials to Sir James Jay, Peter Jay Munroe, Peter Jay, Goldsborough Banyar, Harriet Van Cortlandt, and other members of the family.

Pierre Jay, to whom the Jays of this country trace their origin, was one of those noble and inflexible Huguenots who were driven from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a measure which deprived that kingdom of more than one-fourth of the most industrious and desirable class of its population. His descendants, settling in this country, retained the characteristics which had distinguished their forefathers, and became among its most respectable and prosperous inhabitants. Peter Jay, the grandson of Pierre Jay, and, like him, engaged in mercantile pursuits, was married in the year 1728 to Mary, the daughter of Jacobus Van Cortlandt, and was the father of ten children, of whom John was the eighth. Seldom has a son been more fortunate in his parents. "Both father and mother," we are told by the biographer, "were actuated by sincere and fervent piety; both had warm hearts and cheerful tempers, and both possessed, under varied and severe trials, a remarkable degree of equanimity. But in other respects they differed widely. He possessed strong and masculine sense, was a shrewd observer and accurate judge of men, resolute, persevering and prudent, an affectionate father, a kind master, but governing all under his control with mild but absolute sway. She had a cultivated mind and a fine imagination. Mild and affectionate in her temper and manners, she took delight in the duties as well as in the pleasures of domestic life; while a cheerful resignation to the will of Providence during many years of sickness and suffering bore witness to the strength of her religious faith."

Under the tutelage of such a mother was John Jay educated till his eighth year, and from her he learned the rudiments of English and Latin grammar. Even at this tender age, the gravity of his disposition, his discretion and his fondness for books were subjects of common remark. When eight years old, he was committed to the care of Mr. Stoope, a French clergyman and keeper of a grammar-school at New Rochelle, with whom he remained for about three years. This gentleman being unfitted by reason of his oddities and improvidence for the efficient supervision of the establishment, left the young pupils, for the most part, to the tender mercies of his wife, a woman of extremely penurious habits; by whom, we are told, they were "treated with little food and much scolding." Every thing about the house under the management of this ill-assorted pair went to ruin, and the young student was often obliged, in order to protect his bed from the drifting snow, to close up the broken panes with bits of wood. Various other inconveniences fell to the lot of young Jay, but it is probable that the rigid discipline of Mrs. Stoope was not without its advantages. It had the effect of throwing its subject on his own resources, and taught him to disregard those thousand petty annoyances which, after all, are the chief causes of human misery, and which often disturb the tranquillity of the strongest minds.

From Mr. Stoope he was transferred to a private tutor, and in his fifteenth year entered King's, now Columbia College, at that time in its infancy. Here, as might have been supposed, his conduct, exemplary character and scholarship won him the esteem and respect of all. Beside the improvement and expansion of his intellect, and the opportunity of measuring himself with companions of the same age and the same studies, he received other advantages from these four years of college training. His attention being called to certain deficiencies which might impede his future success, he at once set himself at work to remedy them. An indistinct articulation and a faulty pronunciation of the letter L, he was able by the constant study and practice of the rules of elocution entirely to remove. Special attention was also paid to English composition, by which he attained that admirable style, which in purity and classical finish was afterwards not surpassed by that of any other contemporary statesman, a style polished but not emasculate, and of such flexibility as to adapt itself equally well to the vehemence of patriotic appeal, the guarded precision of diplomatic correspondence, or to the grave and authoritative judgments of the bench. He also adopted Pope's plan of keeping by his bedside a table supplied with writing materials, in order to record at the moment of its suggestion any idea which might occur to him in waking.

During his senior year, the young student had occasion to display that decision and firmness which at a later period shone so conspicuously in affairs of greater moment. Certain mischief-making classmates, perhaps to avenge themselves on the steward, undertook to break the table in the college hall. The noise produced by this operation reaching the ears of Dr. Cooper, the President, that arbitrary personage suddenly pounced upon them without leaving them a chance of escape. The young men were at once formed in a line and two questions – "Did you break the table? Do you know who did?" – were each answered by an emphatic "No," until they were put to Jay, the last but one in the line, who had indeed been present at the disturbance but took no part in it; to the first question he replied in the negative, to the second his answer was "Yes, sir," and to the further inquiry – "Who was it?" – he promptly said, "I do not choose to tell you, sir." The remaining student followed Jay's example. The two young men, after resisting the expostulations of the President, were summoned before the Faculty for trial, where Jay appeared for the defence. To the allegation that they had been guilty of violating their written promise, on their admission, of obedience to the college statutes, Jay responded that they were not required by those statutes to inform against their companions, and that therefore his refusal to do so was not an act of disobedience. Reasonable as this defence might appear, it, of course, failed to satisfy judges, clothed with executive powers, and anxious to punish the least disregard of their own authority, and the two delinquents were at once rusticated. At the termination of his sentence Jay returned to college, where his reception by the instructors proved that he had suffered no loss of their esteem. On the 15th of May, 1764, he was graduated with the highest collegiate honors.

On leaving college, Jay entered the office of Benjamin Kissam, in the city of New-York, as a student at law. Between this gentleman and himself a degree of familiarity and mutual respect existed, quite remarkable considering their relative positions and their disparity of years. For two years in the office of Mr. Kissam, he was the fellow student of the celebrated grammarian, Lindley Murray, with whom he formed an enduring friendship, and who, in a posthumous memoir of himself, thus alludes to his companion: "His talents and virtues gave, at that period, pleasing indications of future eminence; he was remarkable for strong reasoning powers, comprehensive views, indefatigable application, and uncommon firmness of mind. With these qualifications added to a just taste in literature, and ample stores of learning and knowledge, he was happily prepared to enter on that career of public virtue by which he was afterward so honorably distinguished, and made instrumental in promoting the good of his country." Murray was a tall, handsome man, the son of Robert Murray, a venerable quaker of New-York, the location of whose farm at the lower part of the city is still pointed out by the antiquarian. Mr. Jay was admitted to the bar in 1768, and in the pursuit of his profession so extended his reputation that he was soon after appointed secretary of the commission named by the king to determine the disputed boundary between the States of New-York and New Jersey. In 1774 he was married to Sarah, the youngest daughter of William Livingston, an eminent supporter of the American cause during the Revolution, and afterwards for many years governor of New Jersey.

The limits to which we are confined allow us to take but a brief notice of Mr. Jay's numerous and most valuable public services, extending over a period of twenty-eight years, and terminating with his retirement in 1801 from the office of governor of his native State. In no one of the colonies had the cause of resistance to the mother country less encouragement than in New-York, and in no other could Great Britain number so many influential allies, yet, on the receipt of the news of the enforcement of the Boston Port Bill, Mr. Jay took a decided stand on the side of the patriots. At a meeting of the citizens of New-York, May 16, 1774, we find him on a committee of fifty appointed "to correspond with the sister colonies on all matters of moment." Young as he was, he was required to draft the response to the proposal of the Boston committee for a Congress of deputies from "the colonies in general." In the first Congress in the same year, he was a member of some of the most important committees. The "Address to the People of Great Britain," the distinguishing act of that Congress, was drafted by Mr. Jay. This eloquent document was pronounced by Jefferson, then ignorant of its author, to be "the production certainly of the finest pen in America," and Mr. Webster considered it as standing "at the head of the incomparable productions of that body [the first Congress], productions which called forth the decisive commendation of Lord Chatham, in which he pronounced them not inferior to the finest productions of the master minds of the world."

In the interim between the close of the first, and the opening in May 1775 of the second Congress, Jay was incessantly engaged in the service of his country; and when the delegates had reassembled, his pen was again employed in the preparation of the two addresses to the inhabitants of Jamaica and of Ireland. Some reluctance being shown on the part of wealthy and influential citizens to serve in a military capacity, he, without hesitation, sought and accepted a commission as colonel of a regiment of the new militia; but his legislative ability and eloquence were too highly valued to allow of his absence from Congress, and he never actually joined his company. A second address of Congress to the king having been treated with insult, and all hope of accommodation being abandoned, he became one of the foremost advocates of warlike measures; and, while on a committee for that purpose, devised a series of plans for crippling the resources of England, which were adopted by Congress in March 1776, nearly three months previous to the formal act of severance in the Declaration of Independence. At the adoption of this measure, in consequence of his election to the Provincial Congress of New-York in April of that year, Jay was unable to affix his signature to that instrument, but, as chairman of the committee to whom the subject had been referred, he reported a resolution, pledging that State to its support. Shortly after came the most gloomy period of the revolutionary cause in New-York; a hostile army was invading the State from the north, inspired by the defeat of the American forces on Long Island, the city was in possession of the enemy, and what was worse, treachery and despair existed among the people themselves. A committee of public safety was appointed by the Provincial Congress, clothed with dictatorial powers, of which Jay acted as chairman. At this juncture also, Mr. Jay, by appointment, put forth the thrilling address of the convention to their constituents, an appeal written in the most exalted strain of patriotic eloquence, in which he rebukes the defection and stimulates the flagging hopes of the people with the zeal and indignant energy of an ancient prophet.

In 1777, Jay, from a committee appointed the year before, drafted a State Constitution, which received the sanction of the legislature. There were certain provisions which he desired to introduce in that instrument, and which he thought more likely to be adopted when proposed in the form of amendments than if they should be incorporated into the first draft; but a summons to the side of his dying mother prevented the realization of his wishes. One of the amendments which he intended to urge, was a provision for the gradual abolition of slavery within the limits of the State. Under the new constitution, having been appointed to the office of Chief Justice, he was ineligible by that instrument to any other post, except on a "special occasion," but, in consequence of a difficulty arising between his own, and the neighboring State of Vermont, the legislature took advantage of the exception, and elected him delegate to Congress. Without vacating, therefore, his judicial seat, he complied with their appointment, and soon after his entrance in Congress became its presiding officer. The impossibility, however, of doing full justice to both his judicial and legislative duties, induced him to resign his seat on the bench. Congress now employed his pen in writing the circular letter to the States, urging them to furnish additional funds for the war. This statesmanlike exposition of the government's financial condition closes with a noble appeal to the national honor.

"Rouse, therefore, strive who shall do most for his country; rekindle that flame of patriotism, which, at the mention of disgrace and slavery, blazed throughout America and animated all her citizens. Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent, or that her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith, in the very hour when all the nations of the earth were admiring and almost adoring the splendor of her rising."

In 1779, accompanied by his wife, he sailed for Spain, as minister plenipotentiary, in order to secure the concurrence of that kingdom in the treaty with France, recognizing the independence of the United States; and though his diplomatic negotiations were conducted in the most honorable spirit, and with consummate prudence and ability, the object of his mission was finally frustrated by the selfish policy of the Spanish government, in requiring America to surrender the right of navigating on the Mississippi. It was during his residence at the Spanish court, that the desperate financial embarrassments of Congress prompted a measure equally unjust to their representative abroad and hazardous to the national credit. Presuming upon the success of his mission, they had empowered their treasurer to draw on Mr. Jay bills payable at six months, for half a million of dollars. As these bills came in, the minister was placed in a situation of extreme perplexity, but his regard for his country's reputation overcame all private considerations; he adopted the patriotic but desperate expedient of making himself personally responsible for their payment, and his acceptances had exceeded one hundred thousand dollars before any relief came to hand. Mr. Jay's residence in Spain also subjected him to other trials, only less severe than the one just mentioned; the vexatious obstacles placed in way of his negotiations by the Spanish government; the insufficiency of his salary at the most expensive court in Europe; the frequent removal of the court from place to place, at the royal pleasure, involving the absence of his wife, whom, for pecuniary reasons, he was unable to take with him; the death of his young child, and his anxiety for the family whom he had left at home, exposed to the dangers of war, and from whom, for more than a year, not a line had been received, might well have harassed a less sensitive nature than his. The fortitude with which he sustained these annoyances may be seen in a letter written by him about this time to his friend, Egbert Benson, of New-York. It commences thus:

"Dear Benson:

"When shall we again, by a cheerful fire, or under a shady tree, recapitulate our juvenile pursuits or pleasures, or look back on the extensive field of politics we once have trodden? Our plans of life have, within these few years past, been strangely changed. Our country, I hope, will be the better for the alterations. How far we individually may be benefited is more questionable. Personal considerations, however, must give way to public ones, and the consciousness of having done our duty to our country and posterity, must recompense us for all the evils we experience in their cause."

From Spain, by order of Congress, Jay proceeded to Paris to arrange, in conjunction with Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Laurens, the Definitive Treaty of Peace with England, – the most important diplomatic act of the eighteenth century; and we have the testimony of Mr. Fitzherbert, then the English minister resident in Paris, that "it was not only chiefly but solely through his means that the negotiations of that period between England and the United States were brought to a successful conclusion." Mr. Oswald had arrived in Paris with a commission, in which the United States were mentioned under the designation of "colonies," but Jay, although his associates did not participate in his scruples, refused to begin negotiations without a preliminary recognition on the part of England of the Independence of the United States; and owing to his firmness a new commission was obtained from the king, in which that most essential point (as the sequel proved) was gained. Declining the appointment now tendered him by Congress of commissioner to negotiate a commercial treaty with England, Jay returned to his country. On arriving at New-York he was welcomed by a most enthusiastic public reception, and was presented by the corporation of New-York with the freedom of the city in a gold box. The office of Secretary for foreign affairs, which, for the want of a suitable incumbent, had been vacant for two years, was at this time urged by Congress upon his acceptance, and he did not feel at liberty to refuse his services. He was now virtually at the head of public affairs. The whole foreign correspondence of the government, the proposal of plans of treaties, instructions to ministers abroad, and the submission of reports on all matters to which Congress might call his attention, came within the scope of his new duties.

Mr. Jay was among the first of our statesmen to perceive the defects of the confederation, and to urge the necessity of a new and more efficient system of government. Besides his contributions to the Federalist, he wrote an address to the people of New-York, then the very citadel of the opposition to the proposed Constitution, which had no unimportant effect in securing its adoption. In the State Convention, which had assembled with only eleven out of fifty-seven members in its favor, Jay took a most influential part, and mainly owing to his exertions was it finally ratified. At the commencement of the administration of Washington, he was invited by that great man to select his own post in the newly-formed government. He was accordingly appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and well did he justify, in his new capacity, the glowing eulogium of Webster, that "when the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay it touched nothing less spotless than itself." In the performance of his duties as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, much was accomplished by him in organizing the business of the court, expounding the principles of its decisions, and in commending them to a confederacy of sovereign States, already sufficiently jealous of its extensive but beneficent jurisdiction. His decision in the novel case of a suit instituted against the State of Georgia by a citizen of another State, is a memorable instance of his firmness and judicial ability.

The year 1794 opened with every prospect of a disastrous war between Great Britain and the United States. The Revolution did not terminate without leaving in the minds of Americans a strong and perhaps an unreasonable antipathy to the mother country, which was stimulated by the unwise interference of Genet, the French minister, in our politics, and by the exertions of a large class of British refugees, who had escaped to our country still smarting under the oppressions which they had experienced at home, and who were extremely desirous of plunging the American government into the contest which was then raging between France and England. There were also certain substantial grievances universally admitted by our citizens, which would give some countenance to such a measure on the part of America. Among these were enumerated the detention in violation of the treaty of the posts on our western frontier by British garrisons, thereby excluding the navigation by Americans of the great lakes, the refusal to make compensation for the negroes carried away during the war by the British fleet, the exclusion and capture of American vessels carrying supplies to French ports, and the seizure of our ships in the exercise of the pretended right of search. These, and other outrages, were justified by Great Britain, on the ground of certain equivalent infractions of the treaty by the American nation. Washington however could not be induced to consent to hazard the national interests, by transgressing that neutrality so necessary to a young republic only just recovering from the severe experience of a seven years' war, and he saw no other honorable means of averting the impending danger than the appointment of a special envoy, empowered to adjust the matters in dispute. For this purpose, on his nomination, Mr. Jay was confirmed on the 20th of April, 1794, by the Senate, as Minister to England, at which country he arrived in June of that year. The treaty was signed in November following, and the negotiations of the two ministers, Lord Grenville and Mr. Jay, were greatly facilitated by their mutual esteem and the good understanding existing between them; and their correspondence, which was characterized by signal ability on both sides, affords an instance of diplomatic straightforwardness and candor almost without a parallel in history. It as not consistent with the plan of our sketch to speak of the provisions of the treaty thus secured: it was not, in all respects, what Jay, or the country desired; but in view of the immense advantages to our commerce obtained by it, the complicated and delicate questions adjusted, and the disasters which would have befallen the nation had it been defeated, it will challenge comparison with any subsequent international arrangement to which the United States have been a party. Yet, incredible as would seem, the abuse and scurrility with which both it and its author were loaded, discloses one of the most disgraceful chapters in the records of political fanaticism. By an eminent member of the opposing party, he was declared to have perpetrated "an infamous act," an act "stamped with avarice and corruption." He himself was termed "a damned arch-traitor," "sold to Great Britain," and the treaty burned before his door. Enjoying the confidence of the illustrious Washington, and of the wisest and best men of his country, in his course, and above all, the inward assurance of his unswerving rectitude, Jay might well forgive these ebullitions of party spleen and await the sanction which has been conferred on his actions by the impartial voice of posterity.

But no statesman of that time had, on the whole, less reason to complain of popular ingratitude than Jay; before he reached his native shore, a large majority of the people of New-York had expressed their approbation of his conduct by electing him to the office of Governor. While in this office, the appropriate close of his public career, besides suggesting many useful measures in regard to education and internal improvements, the benefits of which are experienced to this day, he had the happiness of promoting and witnessing the passage by the Legislature of the act for the gradual abolition of slavery in his native State. Of this measure he was one of the earliest advocates, having served as the first President of the Society of Manumission, which had been organized in 1786 by a number of the most respectable gentlemen in New-York, and to whose disinterested exertions the success of the anti-slavery cause was mainly due. On accepting the seat tendered to him in the Supreme Court, Jay, fearing that the presidency of the society might prove an embarrassment in the decision of some questions which might come before him, resigned the office and was succeeded by Hamilton, who continued to discharge its duties till the year 1793.

At the expiration of his second gubernatorial term in 1801, Jay, contrary to the importunities of his friends, retired from public life, having, for twenty-seven years, faithfully served his country in every department of legislative, diplomatic, and judicial trust. Declining the office of Chief Justice, which was again pressed by the President upon his acceptance, he prepared to enjoy that congenial seclusion under the shade of his patrimonial trees, which, through all the varied and agitating scenes of political life, had been the object of his most ardent desires. In accordance with this design, he had built a substantial house at Bedford, about forty-four miles from New-York, on an estate embracing some eight hundred acres, which had come to him by inheritance. Here, in one of the most delightful localities in the fertile county of Westchester, in the care of his family and estates, in the society of his friends and his books, in the discharge of the duties of neighborly benevolence, and in the preparation for those immortal scenes which he had reason to suppose would soon open upon him, he passed the tranquil remainder of his days. But his enjoyments were not destined to exempt him from those bitter but universal visitations, which, at times, overthrow the happiness and frustrate the most pleasing anticipations of our race. In less than twelve months after his retirement, the partner of his joys and sorrows, who, by her accomplishments, her unobtrusive virtues and solicitous affection, had been at once his delight and support, was taken from him. At the final hour, Jay, as the biographer tells us, stood by the bedside "calm and collected," and when the spirit had taken its departure, led his children to an adjoining room, and with "a firm voice but glistening eye" read that inspiring and wonderful chapter in which Paul has discussed the mystery of our future resurrection.