December 1781. We meet with him next at Paris, on 30th November 1782, signing the treaty with Great Britain, along with the other three commissioners, Adams, Franklin, and Jay. His son, Lieut.-Colonel John Laurens (born in 1755). had been killed in action on 27th August 1782. He himself died in South Carolina on 1st December 1792. His daughter Martha was the wife of Dr. Ramsay, author of a “History of South Carolina,” and of “Memoirs of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay,” 1811.
(2.) Jay. Pierre Jay, a merchant and shipowner of La Rochelle, sent his family to England at the beginning of the dragonnades. For this offence he was imprisoned, but escaped. One of his own ships, homeward-bound, hove in sight, and a pilot’s boat conveyed him on board, and himself as well as the ship’s cargo was conveyed to England. Messieurs Haag give the names of two sons, Auguste and Isaac, by his wife, Judith Francois, and state that Isaac was an officer, killed at the battle of the Boyne. In the naturalisations I find, on 31st January 1690, Peter Jay, and his sons Gabriel, John, and David (see List XVII.), and “Augustus Jay,” on 6th September 1698 (see List XXIII.). These, however, may be members of families related by consanguinity. So we shall proceed under the guidance of Haag.
Auguste Jay (born 1665, son of Pierre and Judith), having been sent to England in his boyhood in 1681, received a good commercial education. Returning to France in 1685, he heard that the Edict of Nantes had just been revoked by Louis XIV., whereupon he emigrated to Charlestown, and ultimately settled in New York as a trader. In one of his voyages, in 1692, he was taken by a St Malo privateer, and was imprisoned in France; but, escaping to La Rochelle, he, by the help of his Aunt Monchard, was landed on the isle of Rhé; thence he sailed to Denmark, and passing through Holland and England, he returned to America, where he died in 1751. aged eighty-six. He in 1697 married Anne Marie Bayard. Their son was Peter Jay, who, by his wife, Mary van Courtland, had ten children, of whom the eighth was John.
John Jay (born 1st December 1745) became B.A. of the Royal College, Columbia, 15th May 1764. He was by profession a barrister-at-law. He was Governor of New York from 1775 to 1781, and President of Congress in 1779-80. He was Ambassador at Paris 1782, Chief-Justice of the United States from 178) to 1801; on 27th April 1792 he received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh. On 28th April 1794, he arrived in London as minister plenipotentiary from the United States of America. He retired from public life in 1801, and spent twenty-eight years as an agriculturist. He died on 17th May 1829. (William Jay, son of John Jay and Sara Livingston, was born in 1789; he was a barrister, and rose to be a judge; he published his father’s life in 1833, and died in 1858.)
(3). Boudinot. Elias Boudinot, and his children Peter, Elias, John, and Mary were naturalised at Westminster 20th March 1686 (see List XII.) On the following 7th November Elias Boudinot, a widower, married Susanne Papin, a widow, in London, within the French Church in the Savoy. His second son, Elias (named above), founded a family which settled in America. This second Elias was the grandfather of Elias Boudinot the fourth, who was the son of Elias Boudinot the third, by Catharine Williams, his wife, a lady of Welsh descent. Elias the fourth, born in Philadelphia on 2d May 1740, was an eminent lawyer, and received the degree of LL.D. He became a Member of Congress in 1777, and was elected President in November 1782. He thus was officially pre-eminent in bidding farewell to British rule, under which my greatgrandfather, Andrew Elliot, had been Lieutenant Governor of the Province of New York. To him he addressed the following courteous letter:—
“Princeton, 29th. Oct. 1783. — Sir, — Being lately informed, with some degree of certainty, that you mean to leave the City of New York for Europe with the British troops, and not knowing whether it was matter of choice or from any apprehension of your remaining being disagreeable to the State, permit me, sir, to offer you any services in my power, and to assure you that, as far as I can judge, your stay will be both agreeable and pleasant to any State where you may think proper to reside, and to promise that I will undertake to obtain the most ample acknowledgment of this temper from the government of either of the States you may think proper for this purpose, if you should require it. Having been fully convinced of the rectitude of your conduct throughout the late disagreeable contest, and having experienced the happy effects of your liberality and beneficence to multitudes of our unhappy citizens who have suffered captivity by the fortune of war, I could not withhold my testimony to your goodness, and contribute my mite in giving you your election as to your residence in this country, as far as was in my power. I have the honour to be, with great respect and esteem, sir, your most obedient and very humble servant,
“Elias Boudinot.”
