mpracticable, and aristocratic;' while Dr. McVickar justly remarks that
the first thing that strikes us in contemplating his life is 'the
unbroken continuity, the ceaseless succession of honorable confidences,
throughout a period of twenty-eight years, reposed in Jay by his
countrymen.'

But instead of dwelling upon such abortive disparagement, the only
importance of which arises from its being annexed to and associated with
a standard political text-book, let us refresh our memories, our
patriotism, our best sympathies of mind and heart, by tracing once more
the services and delineating the character of this illustrious man,
whose benign image seems to invoke his countrymen, at this momentous
climax of our national life, to recur to those principles and that faith
which founded and should now save the republic.

Among the French Protestants who were obliged to seek a foreign home
when the Edict of Nantes was revoked, was Pierre Jay, a prosperous
merchant of Rochelle, who took up his abode in England. This statement
alone is no inadequate illustration of the character of John Jay's
paternal grandfather; sagacity, enterprise, and application, are
qualities we may justly infer from commercial success; and when the
fruits thereof were, in no small degree, sacrificed by adherence to a
proscribed religion, no ordinary degree of moral courage and pure
integrity must have been united to prudential industry. Those who
believe in that aristocracy of nature whereby normal instincts are
transmitted, will find even in this brief allusion to the Huguenot
merchant traits identical with those which insured the public usefulness
and endear the personal memory of his grandson. The latter's father,
Augustus Jay, was one of three sons. He, with many others of the second
generation of exiled French Protestants, found in America a more
auspicious refuge than even the more free states of Europe afforded. A
family who had previously emigrated to New York, under similar
circumstances, naturally welcomed the new _emigre_; and the daughter of
Bathezan Bayard became his wife. Their children consisted of three
daughters and one son, who was named Peter for his grandfather. One of
the prominent names of the original Dutch colonists of New York is Van
Cortland; and Peter Jay married, in 1728, Mary, a daughter of this race,
by whom he had ten children, of which John, the subject of this sketch,
was the eighth. Genealogists, who reckon lineage accord