of the world.” While he was attending congress
at Philadelphia, Jay's presence was requested by
the New York convention, which required his counsel.
This convention met at White Plains, 9 July,
1776, and on Jay's motion unanimously approved
the Declaration of Independence, which on that
day was received from congress. The passage of a
part of Lord Howe's fleet up the Hudson induced
the appointment by the convention of a secret
committee vested with extraordinary powers, of
which Jay was made chairman, as also of a
further committee for defeating conspiracies in the
state against the liberties of America. The
resolutions relating to this committee were drawn by
him; and its minutes, many of which are in his
hand, show the energy with which it exercised its
powers by arrests, imprisonments, and banishments,
and the vigorous system demanded by the
critical condition of the American cause. The
successes of the British in New York, and the retreat
and needs of Washington's army, had induced a
feeling of despondency, and Jay was the author of
an earnest appeal to his countrymen, which by
order of congress was translated into German and
widely circulated.
Jay drafted the state constitution adopted by the convention of New York, which met successively at Harlem, Kingsbridge, Philip's Manor, White Plains, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston. He was appointed chief justice of the state, holding his first term at Kingston on 9 Sept., 1777, and acting also in the council of safety, which directed the military occupation of the state and wielded an absolute sovereignty. He was visited at Fishkill, in the autumn of 1778, by Gen. Washington for a confidential conversation on the invasion of Canada by the French and American forces, which they concurred in disapproving, chiefly on the probability that if conquered it would be retained by France. Chief-Justice Jay was again sent to congress on a special occasion, the withdrawal of Vermont from the jurisdiction of New York, and three days after taking his seat he was, 1 Dec., 1778, elected its president. The next September he wrote his letter, in the name of congress, on currency and finance. On 27 Sept., 1778, he was appointed minister to Spain, and later one of the commissioners to negotiate a peace. He sailed with Mrs. Jay, on 20 Oct., in the American frigate “Confederacy,” which, disabled by a storm, put into Martinico, whence they proceeded in the French frigate “Aurora,” which brought them to Cadiz, 22 Jan., 1780. Jay, while received with personal courtesy, found no disposition to recognize American independence, and congress added to the embarrassing position of the minister at a reluctant court by drawing bills upon him for half a million of dollars, on the assumption that he would have obtained a subsidy from Spain before they should have become due. Jay accepted the bills, some of which were afterward protested, the Spanish court advancing money for only a few of them, and the rest were afterward paid with money borrowed by Franklin from France.
While in Spain Jay was added by congress to the peace commissioners, headed by John Adams, and at the request of Franklin, on 23 June, 1782, he went to Paris, where Franklin was alone. The position of the two commissioners was complicated by the fact that congress, under the persistent urgency of Luzerne, the French minister at Philadelphia, had materially modified the instructions originally given to Mr. Adams, and on 15 June, 1781, had instructed its commissioners “to make the most candid and confidential communications upon all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the king of France; to undertake nothing in their negotiations for peace and truce without their knowledge and concurrence, and ultimately to govern yourselves by their advice and opinion.” Two arguments were used in support of this instruction: First, that the king was explicitly pledged by his minister to support the United States “in all points relating to their prosperity”; and next, that “nothing would be yielded by Great Britain which was not extorted by the address of France.” An interesting memoir in the French archives, among the papers under the head of “Angleterre,” shows that the interests of France required that the ambition of the American colonies “should be checked and held down to fixed limits through the union of the three nations,” England, France, and Spain. Before the arrival of Jay, Franklin had had an informal conversation, first with Grenville, and then with Mr. Oswald, who had been sent by the cabinet of Rockingham. On 6 Aug. Oswald presented to Jay and Franklin a commission prescribing the terms of the enabling act, and authorizing him “to treat with the colonies and with any or either of them, and any part of them, and with any description of men in them, and with any person whatsoever, of and concerning peace.” etc. This document led to a new complication in the American commission by developing a material difference of opinion between Jay and Franklin. When the commission was submitted to Vergennes, that minister held that it was sufficient, and advised Fitzherbert to that effect. Franklin believed it “would do.” But Jay declined to treat under the description of “colonies” or on any other than an equal footing. Oswald adopted Jay's view, but the British cabinet did not, and Jay's refusal to proceed soon stayed the peace negotiations of the other powers, which Vergennes had arranged should proceed together, each nation negotiating for itself.
During Jay's residence in Spain he had learned much of the aims and methods of the Bourbon policy, and a memoir submitted to him by Rayneval, as his “personal views” against our right to the boundaries, an intercepted letter of Marbois, secretary of legation at Philadelphia, against our claim to the fisheries, and the departure for England with precautions for secrecy of Rayneval himself, the most skilful and trusted agent of Vergennes, convinced him that one object of Rayneval's mission was to prejudice Shelburne against the American claims. As a prudent counter-move to this secret mission, Jay promptly despatched Benjamin Vaughan, an intimate friend and agent of Shelburne, to counteract Rayneval's adverse influence to the American interests. This was done without consultation with Franklin, who did not concur with Jay in regard to Rayneval's journey, and who retained his confidence in the French court and was embarrassed and constrained by his instructions. It appears from “Shelburne's Life” that Rayneval, in his interview with Shelburne and Grantham, after discussing other questions, proceeded to speak about America; and “here Rayneval played into the hands of the English ministers, expressing a strong opinion against the American claims to the fisheries and the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio”; and that Vaughan arrived almost simultaneously, bringing the “considerations” prepared by Jay, which enforced these points: 1. That, as Britain could not conquer the United States, it was for her interest to conciliate them; 2. That the United States would not treat except on an equal footing; 3. That it was the in-
