Jay, JOHN

Jay, JOHN, an American statesman and jurist, and first chief-justice of the supreme court of the United States, was born in New York city, December 12, 1745. He graduated at King's (now Columbia) College in 1764, and was admitted to the bar in 1768. Elected to the first Continental congress in 1774, and re-elected in 1775, he prepared addresses to the people of Great Britain and Canada, and to his own countrymen; drafted the constitution of New York state in 1777, and was appointed chief-justice of the state; was returned to congress in 1778 and elected its president, and in the following year was sent as minister to Spain. In 1782 he was added by congress to the peace commissioners, and it was mainly by his efforts that the treaty was brought to a conclusion on terms so satisfactory to the United States. In 1784-89 he was secretary for foreign affairs; on the adoption of the national constitution in 1789 he wrote in its favour in the Federalist (see HAMILTON); and after the organisation of the Federal government, Washington having offered him his choice of the offices in his gift, he selected that of chief-justice of the supreme court. In 1794 he concluded with Lord Grenville the convention familiarly known as 'Jay's treaty,' which provided for the recovery by British subjects of pre-revolutionary debts and by Americans of losses incurred by illegal capture by British cruisers, and the determination of the eastern frontier of what is now the state of Maine; the British were to surrender the western posts held by them in 1786, and there was to be reciprocity of inland trade between the United States and British North America. The treaty, though favourable to the United States, was passionately denounced by the Democrats as a surrender of American rights and a betrayal of France; but it was ratified by Washington in August 1795. Jay was governor of New York from 1795 to 1801. Then, though offered his former post of chief-justice, he retired from public life, and passed the remainder of his days at his estate of Bedford, in Westchester county, New York. There he died, May 17, 1829. There is a good Life (1833) by his son, William Jay (1789-1858), who was a notable leader in the anti-slavery movement, and whose writings in favour of arbitration in national disputes exerted a considerable influence. See also the Life by William Whitlock (New York, 1887), and by Pellew, in 'American Statesmen' series (1890).