y of the wise and conscientious in both hemispheres,
for the people and their enlightened and intrepid representatives.

As correspondent with the other colonies, in all the important
discussions and arrangements, we find John Jay earnest, sagacious, and
indefatigable: chosen a delegate to the New York colonial convention, he
could not be present in Congress to sign the Declaration of
Independence; but he reported the resolutions whereby his State endorsed
that memorable instrument--her first official act toward American
independence.

In 1774, Jay had married the daughter of Governor Livingston, of New
Jersey; and the glimpses which his correspondence affords of his
domestic life, indicate that in this regard he was peculiarly blest, not
only in the sweet and dignified sympathies of a family inspired by
tenderness, loyalty, and faith, but in the freshness and vigor of his
own affections, whereby retirement became far more dear than the
gratification even of patriotic ambition in an official career. His home
was indeed overshadowed by the dark angel, and the loss of a beloved
daughter long and deeply saddened his heart; but there was a daily
beauty in the confidence and sympathy of his conjugal relation--hinted
rather than developed in the freedom of his letters to the home whose
attractions were only increased by absence and distance, in the respect
and love of his sons, and the tender consideration devoted to his blind
brother; while, spreading in beautiful harmony from this sacred centre,
his heart and hand freely and faithfully responded to numerous and
eminent ties of friendship, associations of enterprise and philanthropy,
and the humblest claims of neighborhood and dependants.

His next eminent service was to draft the Constitution of New York;
subsequently amended, it yet attests his patriotism and legal insight;
while his own illustrations sanctioned its judicial workings: one of the
council of safety and appointed chief justice of the supreme court, Jay
maintained, but never abused the high authority with which he was thus
invested; kindness to political opponents, devoid of all bitterness,
inflexibly just, he was often compared to the unyielding and
self-possessed characters of antiquity. When Clinton was preparing to
join Burgoyne, Jay held his first court at Kingston--administering
justice under the authority of an invaded State, and on the very line of
an enemy's advance; under such circumstances, his un