CHAPTEE IV 

 JOHN JAY, STATESMAN AND JUEIST 



THE most eminent of the Huguenot descendants 

 in our early history as a nation was John Jay, 

 who, as one of his biographers says, by reason of 

 his character, "conscientious, upright, just and wise, like 

 Washington, survives in the popular imagination as an 

 abstract type of propriety." He was exceptional in 

 character as in statesmanship. 



John Jay was the eighth child and sixth son of Peter 

 Jay and Mary, daughter of Jacobus Van Cortlaudt, and 

 thus united the French and Dutch blood and two dis- 

 tinguished New York families, to which a third, the Liv- 

 ingstons, was to be added. John was born December 12, 

 1745. His father was a rich merchant. His great-grand- 

 father, Pierre Jay, was a Huguenot merchant of Rochelle, 

 who left France on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 

 when the greater part of his property was confiscated. 

 In the Life of John Jay, by his son, some account is given 

 of the fortunes of this ancestor. 



" Pursuant to an order passed in January, 1685," says 

 this account, "the Protestant Church at Eochelle was 

 demolished. The ensuing summer a number of troops 

 were marched into the city and quartered on the Protes- 

 tant inhabitants, and these troops were soon followed by 

 four companies of dragoons. The attempt made to con- 

 vert or intimidate Mr. Pierre Jay proving fruitless, some 

 of these dragoons were sent to his house to live and act 

 at their discretion." There is no evidence that they of- 

 fered personal violence to Mr. Jay or his family, but in 



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