Calm repose and the sweets of undisturbed retirement appear more
distant than a peace with Britain.
It gives me pleasure, however, to reflect that the period is
approaching when we shall be citizens of a better ordered State,
and the spending of a few troublesome years of our eternity in
doing good to this and future generations is not to be avoided
nor regretted. Things will come right, and these States will yet
be great and flourishing.
--Letter to Washington
[Illustration: JOHN JAY]
America should feel especially charitable towards Louis the Great, called
by Carlyle, Louis the Little, for banishing the Huguenots from France.
What France lost America gained. Tyranny and intolerance always drive from
their homes the best: those who have ability to think, courage to act, and
a pride that can not be coerced.
The merits possessed by the Huguenots are exactly those which every man
and nation needs. And these are simple virtues, too, whose cultivation
stands within the reach of all. These are the virtues of the farmers and
peasants and plain people who do the work of the world, and give good
government its bone and sinew. To a great degree, so-called society is
made up of parasites who fasten and feed upon the industrious and
methodical.
If you have read history you know that the men who go quietly about their
business have been cajoled, threatened, driven, and often, when they have
been guilty of doing a little independent thinking on their own account,
banished. And further than this, when you read the story of nations dead
and gone you will see that their decline began when the parasites got too
numerous and flauntingly asserted their supposed power. That contempt for
the farmer, and indifference to the rights of the man with tin pail and
overalls, which one often sees in America, are portents that mark
disintegrating social bacilli. If the Republic of the United States ever
becomes but a memory, like Carthage, Athens and Rome, drifting off into
senile decay like Italy and Spain or France, where a man may yet be tried
and sentenced without the right of counsel or defense, it will be because
we forgot--we forgot!
In moral fiber and general characteristics the Huguenots and the Puritans
were one. The Huguenots had, however, the added virtue of a dash of the
Frenchman's love of beauty. By their excellent habits and loyalty to
truth, as they saw it, they added a vast share to the prosperity and
culture of the United States.
Of seven men who acted as presiding officer over the deliberations of
Congress during the Revolutionary Period, three were of Huguenot
parentage: Laurens, Boudinot and Jay. John Jay was a typical Huguenot,
just as Samuel Adams was a typical Puritan. In his life there was no
glamour of romance. Stern, studious and inflexibly honest, he made his way
straight to the highest positions of trust and honor. Good men who are
capable are always needed. The world wants them now more than ever. We
have an overplus of clever individuals; but for the faithful men who are
loyal to a trust there is a crying demand.
The life of Jay quite disproves the oft-found myth that a dash of Mephisto
in a young man is a valuable adjunct. John Jay was neither precocious nor
bad. It is further a refreshing fact to find that he was no prig, simply a
good, healthy youngster who took to his books kindly and gained
ground--made head upon the whole by grubbing.
His father was a hard-headed, prosperous merchant, who did business in New
York, and moved his big family up to the little village of Rye because
life in the country was simple and cheap. Thus did Peter Jay prove his
commonsense.
Peter Jay copied every letter he wrote, and we now have these copy-books,
revealing what sort of man he was. Religious he was, and scrupulously
exact in all things. We see that he ordered Bibles from England, "and also
six groce of Church Wardens," which I am told is a long clay pipe, "that
hath a goodly flavor and doth not bite the tongue." He also at one time
ordered a chest of tea, and then countermanded the order, having taken the
resolve to "use no tea in my family while that rascally Tax is on--having
a spring of good, pure water near my house." Which shows that a man can be
very much in earnest and still joke.
John was the baby, scarcely a year old, when the Jay family moved up to
Rye. He was the eighth child, and as he grew up he was taught by the older
ones. He took part in all the fun and hardships of farm life--going to
school in Winter, working in Summer, and on Sundays hearing long sermons
at church.
We find by Peter Jay's letter-book that: "Johnny is about our brightest
child. We have great hopes of him, and believe it will be wise to educate
him for a preacher." In order to educate boys then, they were sent to live
in the family of some man of learning. And so we find "Johnny" at twelve
years of age installed in the parsonage at New Rochelle, the Huguenot
settlement. The pastor was a Huguenot, and as only French was spoken in
the household, the boy acquired the language, which afterwards stood him
in good stead.
The pastor reported favorably, and when fifteen, young Jay was sent to
King's College, which is now Columbia University, kings not being popular
in America.
Doctor Samuel Johnson, who nowise resembled Ursa Major, was the president
of the College at that time. He was also the faculty, for there were just
thirty students and he did all the teaching himself. Doctor Johnson, true
to his name, dearly loved a good book, and when teaching mathematics would
often forget the topic and recite Ossian by the page, instead. Jay caught
it, for the book craze is contagious and not sporadic. We take it by being
exposed.
And thus it was while under the tutelage of Doctor Johnson that Jay began
to acquire the ability to turn a terse sentence; and this gained him
admittance into the world of New York letters, whose special guardians
were Dickinson and William Livingston.
Livingston invited the boy to his house, and very soon we find the young
man calling without special invitation, for Livingston had a beautiful
daughter about John's age, who was fond of Ossian, too, or said she was.
And as this is not a serial love-story, there is no need of keeping the
gentle reader in suspense, so I will explain that some years later John
married the girl, and the mating was a very happy one.
After John had been to King's College two years we find in the faded and
yellow old letter-book an item written by the father to the effect that:
"Our Johnny is doing well at College. He seems sedate and intent on
gaining knowledge; but rather inclines to Law instead of the Ministry."
Doctor Johnson was succeeded by Doctor Myles Cooper, a Fellow of Oxford,
who used to wear his mortarboard cap and scholar's gown up Broadway. In
young Jay's veins there was not a drop of British blood. Of his eight
great-grandparents, five were French and three Dutch, a fact he once
intimated in the Oxonian's presence. And then it was explained to the
youth that if such were the truth it would be as well to conceal it.
Alexander Hamilton got along very well with Doctor Cooper, but John Jay
found himself rusticated shortly before graduation. Some years after this
Doctor Cooper hastily climbed the back fence, leaving a sample of his gown
on a picket, while Alexander Hamilton held the Whig mob at bay at the
front door.
Cooper sailed very soon for England, anathematizing "the blarsted country"
in classic Latin as the ship passed out of the Narrows.
"England is a good place for him," said the laconic John Jay.
So John Jay was to be a lawyer. And the only way to be a lawyer in those
days was to work in a lawyer's office. A goodly source of income to all
established lawyers was the sums they derived for taking embryo
Blackstones into their keeping. The greater a man's reputation as a
lawyer, the higher he placed his fee for taking a boy in.
In those days there were no printed blanks, and a simple lease was often a
day's work to write out; so it was not difficult to keep the boys busy.
Besides that, they took care of the great man's horse, blacked his boots,
swept the office, and ran errands. During the third year of
apprenticeship, if all went well, the young man was duly admitted to the
Bar. A stiff examination kept out the rank outsiders, but the nomination
by a reputable attorney was equivalent to admittance, for all members knew
that if you opposed an attorney today, tomorrow he might oppose you.
To such an extent was this system of taking students carried that, in
Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, we find New York lawyers alarmed "by the
awful influx of young Barristers upon this Province." So steps were taken
to make all attorneys agree not to have more than two apprentices in their
office at one time. About the same time the Boston newspaper, called the
"Centinel," shows there was a similar state of overproduction in Boston.
Only the trouble there was principally with the doctors, for doctors were
then turned loose in the same way, carrying a diploma from the old
physician with whom they had matriculated and duly graduated.
Law schools and medical colleges, be it known, are comparatively modern
institutions--not quite so new, however, as business colleges, but pretty
nearly so. And now in Chicago there is a "Barbers' University," which
issues diplomas to men who can manipulate a razor and shears, whereas,
until yesterday, boys learned to be barbers by working in a barber's shop.
The good old way was to pass a profession along from man to man.
And it is so yet in a degree, for no man is allowed to practise either
medicine or law until he has spent some time in the office of a
practitioner in good standing.
In the Catholic Church, and also in the Episcopal, the novitiate is
expected to serve for a time under an older clergyman; but all the other
denominations have broken away, and now spring the fledgling on the world
straight from the factory.
Several other of his children having sorely disappointed him, Peter Jay
seemed to center his ambitions on his boy John. So we find him paying
Benjamin Kissam, the eminent lawyer, two hundred pounds in good coin of
the Colony to take John Jay as a 'prentice for five years. John went at it
and began copying those endless, wordy documents in which the old-time
attorney used to delight. John sat at one end of a table, and at the other
was seated one Lindley Murray, at the mention of whose name terror used to
seize my soul.
Murray has written some good, presentable English to the effect that young
Jay, even at that time, had the inclination and ability to focus his mind
upon the subject in hand. "He used to work just as steadily when his
employer was away as when he was in the office," a fact which the
grammarian seemed to regard as rather strange.
In a year we find that when Mr. Kissam went away he left the keys of the
safe in John Jay's hands, with orders what to do in case of emergencies.
Thus does responsibility gravitate to him who can shoulder it, and trust
to the man who deserves it.
It was in Kissam's office that Jay acquired that habit of reticence and
serene poise which, becoming fixed in character, made his words carry such
weight in later years. He never gave snapshot opinions, or talked at
random, or voiced any sentiment for which he could not give a reason.
His companions were usually men much older than he. At the "Moot Club" he
took part with James Duane, who was to be New York's first continental
mayor; Gouverneur Morris, who had not at that time acquired the wooden
leg which he once snatched off and brandished with happy effect before a
Paris mob; and Samuel Jones, who was to take as 'prentice and drill that
strong man, De Witt Clinton.
Before his years of apprenticeship were over, John Jay, the quiet, the
modest, the reticent, was known as a safe and competent lawyer--Kissam
having pushed him forward as associate counsel in various difficult cases.
Meantime, certain chests of tea had been dumped into Boston Harbor, and
the example had been followed by the "Mohawks" in New York. British
oppression had made many Tories lukewarm, and then English rapacity had
transformed these Tories into Whigs. Jay was one of these; and in
newspapers and pamphlets, and from the platform, he had pleaded the cause
of the Colonies. Opposition crystallized his reasons, and threats only
served to make him reaffirm the truths he had stated.
So prominent had his utterances made his name, that one fine day he was
nominated to attend the first Congress of the Colonies to be held in
Philadelphia.
In August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, we find him leaving his office
in New York in charge of a clerk, and riding horseback over to the town of
Elizabeth, there joining his father-in-law, and the two starting for
Philadelphia. On the road they fell in with John Adams, who kept a diary.
That night at the tavern where they stopped, the sharp-eyed Yankee
recorded the fact of meeting these new friends and added, "Mr. Jay is a
young gentleman of the law ... and Mr. Scott says a hard student and a
very good speaker."
And so they journeyed on across the State to Trenton and down the Delaware
River to Philadelphia, visiting, and cautiously discussing great issues as
they went. Samuel Adams, too, was in the party, as reticent as Jay. Jay
was twenty-nine and Samuel Adams fifty-two years old, but they became good
friends, and Samuel once quietly said to John Adams, "That man Jay is
young in years, but he has an old head."
Jay was the youngest man of the Convention, save one.
When the Second Congress met, Jay was again a delegate. He served on
several important committees, and drew up a statement that was addressed
to the people of England; but he was recalled to New York before the
supreme issue was reached, and thus, through accident, the Declaration of
Independence does not contain the signature of John Jay.
* * * * *
In Seventeen Hundred Seventy-eight, Jay was chosen president of the
Continental Congress to succeed that other patriotic Huguenot, Laurens.
The following year he was selected as the man to go to Spain, to secure
from that country certain friendly favors.
His reception there was exceedingly frosty, and the mention of his two
years on the ragged edge of court life at Madrid, in later years brought
to his face a grim smile.
Spain's diplomatic policy was smooth hypocrisy and rank untruth, and all
her promises, it seems, were made but to be broken. Jay's negotiations
were only partially successful, but he came to know the language, the
country and the people in a way that made his knowledge very valuable to
America.
By Seventeen Hundred Eighty-one, England had begun to see that to compel
the absolute submission of the Colonies was more of a job than she had
anticipated. News of victories was duly sent to the "mother country" at
regular intervals, but with these glad tidings were requests for more
troops, and requisitions for ships and arms.
The American army was a very hard thing to find. It would fight one day,
to retreat the next, and had a way of making midnight attacks and flank
movements that, to say the least, were very confusing. Then it would
separate, to come together--Lord knows where! This made Lord Cornwallis
once write to the Home Secretary: "I could easily defeat the enemy, if I
could find him and engage him in a fair fight." He seemed to think it was
"no fair," forgetting the old proverb which has something to say about
love and war.
Finally, Cornwallis got the thing his soul desired--a fair fight. He was
then acting on the defensive. The fight was short and sharp; and Colonel
Alexander Hamilton, who led the charge, in ten minutes planted the Stars
and Stripes on his ramparts.
That night Cornwallis was the "guest" of Washington, and the next day a
dinner was given in his honor.
He was then obliged to write to the Home Secretary, "We have met the
enemy, and we are theirs"--but of course he did not express it just
exactly that way. Then it was that King George, for the first time, showed
a disposition to negotiate for peace.
As peace commissioners, America named Franklin, John Adams, Laurens, Jay
and Jefferson.
Jefferson refused to leave his wife, who was in delicate health. Adams was
at The Hague, just closing up a very necessary loan. Laurens had been sent
to Holland on a diplomatic mission, and his ship having been overhauled by
a British man-of-war, he was safely in that historic spot, the Tower of
London.
So Jay and Franklin alone met the English commissioners, and Jay stated to
them the conditions of peace.
In a few weeks Adams arrived, still keeping a diary. In that diary is
found this item: "The French call me 'Le Washington de la Negociation': a
very flattering compliment indeed, to which I have no right, but sincerely
think it belongs to Mr. Jay."
Jay quitted Paris in May, Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, having been gone
from his native land eight years. When he reached New York there was a
great demonstration in his honor. Triumphal arches were erected across
Broadway, houses and stores were decorated with bunting, cannons boomed,
and bells rang. The freedom of the city was presented to him in a gold
box, with an exceedingly complimentary address, engrossed on parchment,
and signed by one hundred of the leading citizens.
Jay spent just one day in New York, and then rode on horseback up to the
old farm at Rye, Westchester County, to see his father. That evening there
was a service of thanksgiving at the village church, after which the
citizens repaired to the Jay mansion, one story high and eighty feet long,
where a barrel of cider was tapped, and "a groce of Church Wardens" passed
around, with free tobacco for all.
John Jay stood on the front porch and made a modest speech just five
minutes long, among other things saying he had come home to be a neighbor
to them, having quit public life for good. But he refused to talk about
his own experiences in Europe. His reticence, however, was made up for by
good old Peter Jay, who assured the people that John Jay was America's
foremost citizen; and in this statement he was backed up by the village
preacher, with not a dissenting voice from the assembled citizens.
It is rather curious (or it isn't, I'm not sure which) how most statesmen
have quit public life several times during their careers, like the prima
donnas who make farewell tours. The ingratitude of republics is
proverbial, but to limit ingratitude to republics shows a lack of
experience. The progeny of the men who tired of hearing Aristides called
The Just are very numerous. Of course it is easy to say that he who
expects gratitude does not deserve it; but the fact remains that the men
who know it are yet stung by calumny when it comes their way.
That fine demonstration in Jay's honor was in great part to overwhelm and
stamp out the undertone of growl and snarl that filled the air. Many said
that peace had been gained at awful cost, that Jay had deferred to royalty
and trifled with the wishes of the people in making terms.
And now Jay had got home, back to his family and farm, back to quiet and
rest. The long, hard fight had been won and America was free. For eight
years had he toiled and striven and planned: much had been
accomplished--not all he hoped, but much.
He had done his best for his country, his own affairs were in bad shape,
Congress had paid him meagerly, and now he would turn public life over to
others and live his own life.
All through life men reach these places where they say, "Here will we
build three tabernacles"; but out of the silence comes the imperative
Voice, "Arise, and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest."
And now the war was over, peace was concluded; but war leaves a country in
chaos. The long, slow work of reconstruction and of binding up a nation's
wounds must follow. America was independent, but she had yet to win from
the civilized world the recognition that she must have in order to endure.
Jay was importuned by Washington to take the position of Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, one of the most important offices to be filled.
He accepted, and discharged the exacting duties of the place for five
years.
Then came the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the election of
Washington as President of the United States.
Washington wrote to Jay: "There must be a Court, perpetual and Supreme, to
which all questions of internal dispute between States or people be
referred. This Court must be greater than the Executive, greater than any
individual State, separated and apart from any political party. You must
be the first official head of the Executive."
And Jay, as every schoolboy knows, was the first Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States. By his sagacity, his dignity, his
knowledge of men, and love of order and uprightness, he gave it that high
place which it yet holds, and which it must hold; for when the decisions
of the Supreme Court are questioned by a State or people, the fabric of
our government is but a spider's web through which anarchy and unreason
will stalk.
In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four, came serious complications with Great
Britain, growing out of the construction of terms of peace made in Paris
eleven years before.
Some one must go to Great Britain and make a new treaty in order to
preserve our honor and save us from another war.
Franklin was dead; Adams as Vice-President could not be spared; Hamilton's
fiery temper was dangerous--no one could accomplish the delicate mission
so well as Jay.
Jay, self-centered and calm, said little; but in compliance with
Washington's wish resigned his office, and set sail with full powers to
use his own judgment in everything, and the assurance that any treaty he
made would be ratified.
Arriving in England, he at once opened negotiations with Lord Grenville,
and in five months the new treaty was signed.
It provided for the payment to American citizens for losses of private
shipping during the war; and over ten million dollars were paid to
citizens of the United States under this agreement.
It fixed the boundary-line between the State of Maine and Canada; provided
for the surrender of British posts in the Far West; that neither nation
was to allow enlistments within its territory by a third nation at war
with another; arranged for the surrender of fugitives charged with murder
or forgery; and made definite terms as to various minor, but none the less
important, questions.
A storm of opposition greeted the treaty when its terms were made known in
America. Jay was accused of bartering away the rights of America, and
indignation meetings were held, because Jay had not insisted on apologies,
and set sums of indemnity on this, that and the other.
Nevertheless, Washington ratified the treaty; and when Jay arrived in
America there was a greeting fully as cordial and generous as that on the
occasion of his other homecoming.
In fact, while he was absent, his friends had put him in nomination as
Governor of New York. His election to that office occurred just two days
before he arrived, and when he landed his senses were mystified by hearing
loud hurrahs for "Governor Jay."
When his term of office expired he was re-elected, so he served as
Governor, in all, six years. The most important measure carried out during
that time was the abolition of slavery in the State of New York, an act
he had strenuously insisted on for twenty years, but which was not made
possible until he had the power of Governor, and crowded the measure upon
the Legislature.
Over a quarter of a century had passed since John Adams and John Jay had
met on horseback out there on the New Jersey turnpike. Their intimacy had
been continuous and their labors as important as ever engrossed the minds
of men, but in it all there was neither jealousy nor bickering. They were
friends.
At the close of Jay's gubernatorial term, President Adams nominated him
for the office of Chief Justice, made vacant by the resignation of Oliver
Ellsworth. The Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination, but Jay
refused to accept the place.
For twenty-eight years he had served his country--served it in its most
trying hours. He was not an old man in years, but the severity and anxiety
of his labors had told on his health, and the elasticity of youth had gone
from his brain forever. He knew this, and feared the danger of continued
exertion. "My best work is done," he said; "if I continue I may undo the
good I have accomplished. I have earned a rest."
He retired to the ancestral farm at Bedford, Westchester County, to enjoy
his vacation. In a year his wife died, and the shock told on his already
shattered nerves.
"The habit of reticence grew upon him," says one writer, "until he could
not be tricked into giving an opinion even about the weather."
And so he lived out his days as a partial recluse, deep in problems of
"raising watermelons, and sheep that would not jump fences." He worked
with his hands, wore blue jeans, voted at every town election, but to a
great degree lived only in the past. The problems of church and village
politics and farm life filled his declining days.
To a great degree his physical health came back, but the problems of
statecraft he left to other heads and hands.
His religious nature manifested itself in various philanthropic schemes,
and the Bible Society he founded endures even unto this day. These things
afforded a healthful exercise for that tireless brain which refused to run
down.
His daughters made his home ideal, their love and gentleness soothing his
declining years.
Death to him was kindly, gathering him as Autumn, the messenger of Winter,
reaps the leaves.
* * * * *
No one has ever made the claim that Jay possessed genius. He had something
which is better, though, for most of the affairs of life, and that is
commonsense. In his intellect there was not the flash of Hamilton, nor the
creative quality possessed by Jefferson, nor the large all-roundness of
Franklin.
He was the average man who has trained and educated and made the best use
of every faculty and every opportunity. He was genuine; he was honest; and
if he never surprised his friends by his brilliancy, he surely never
disappointed them through duplicity.
He made no promises that he could not keep; he held out no vain hopes.
As a diplomat he seems nearly the ideal. We have been taught that the line
of demarcation between diplomacy and untruth is very shadowy. But truth is
very good policy and in the main answers the purpose much better than the
other thing. I am quite willing to leave the matter to those who have
tried both.
We can not say that Jay was "magnetic," for magnetic men win the rabble;
but Jay did better: he won the confidence and admiration of the strong and
discerning. His manner was gentle and pleasing; his words few, and as a
listener he set a pace that all novitiates in the school of diplomacy
would do well to follow.
To talk well is a talent, but to listen is a fine art. If I really wished
to win the love of a man I'd practise the art of listening. Even dull
people often talk well when there is some one near who cultivates the
receptive mood; and to please a man you must give him an opportunity to be
both wise and witty. Men are pleased with their friends when they are
pleased with themselves, and no man is ever so pleased with himself as
when he has expressed himself well.
The sympathetic listener at a lecture or sermon is the only one who gets
his money's worth. If you would get good, lend your sympathy to a speaker,
and if, accidentally, you imbibe heresy, you can easily throw it overboard
when you get home.
John Jay was quiet and undemonstrative in speech, cultivating a fine
reserve. In debate he never fired all his guns, and his best battles were
won with the powder that was never exploded. "You had always better keep a
small balance to your credit," he once advised a young attorney.
When the first Congress met, Jay was not in favor of complete independence
from England. He asked only for simple justice, and said, "The middle
course is best." He listened to John Adams and Patrick Henry and quietly
discussed the matter with Samuel Adams; but it was some time before he saw
that the density of King George was hopeless, and that the work of
complete separation was being forced upon the Colonies by the blindness
and stupidity of the British Parliament.
He then accepted the issue.
During those first days of the Revolution, New York did not stand firm,
as did Boston, for the cause of independence. "The foes at home are the
only ones I really fear," once wrote Hamilton.
First to pacify and placate, then to win and hold those worse than
neutrals, was the work of John Jay. While Washington was in the field,
Jay, with tireless pen, upheld the cause, and by his speech and presence
kept anarchy at bay.
As president of the Committee of Safety he showed he could do something
more than talk and write. When Tories refused to take the oath of
allegiance he quietly wrote the order to imprison or banish; and with
friend, foe or kinsman there was neither dalliance nor turning aside. His
heart was in the cause--his property, his life. The time for argument had
passed.
In the gloom that followed the defeat of Washington at Brooklyn, Jay
issued an address to the people that is a classic in its fine, stern
spirit of hope and strength. Congress had the address reprinted and sent
broadcast, and also translated and printed in German.
His work divides itself by a strange coincidence into three equal parts.
Twenty-eight years were passed in youth and education; twenty-eight years
in continuous public work; and twenty-eight years in retirement and rest.
As one of that immortal ten, mentioned by a great English statesman, who
gave order, dignity, stability and direction to the cause of American
Independence, the name of John Jay is secure.