of the
Continental Congress, the constitution-maker of New York, the
negotiator of the peace treaty, and dictator under the Confederation,
and he came very near being all that such designations imply. In a
word, it may be said that what George Washington was in the field, in
council, and as President, John Jay was in legislative halls, in
diplomatic circles, and as a jurist.

The crowning act of his life was undoubtedly the peace treaty of 1783.
But great as was this diplomatic triumph he lived long enough to
realise that the failure to include Canada within the young Republic's
domain was ground for just criticism. In his note to Richard Oswald,
preliminary to any negotiations, Franklin suggested the cession of
Canada in token "of a durable peace and a sweet reconciliation,"
having in mind England's desire that loyalists in America be restored
to their rights. This was one of the three essentials to peace, and to
meet it Franklin's note proposed that compensation be paid these
loyalists out of the sale of Canada's public lands. Subsequent
revelations made it fairly certain that had such cession, with its
concessions to the loyalists, been firmly pressed, Canada would have
become American territory. Why it was not urged remains a secret.
There is no evidence that Franklin ever brought his suggestion to
Oswald to the attention of Jay,[118] but it is a source of deep regret
that Jay's profound sagacity did not include a country whose existence
as a foreign colony on our northern border has given rise to continued
embarrassment. The feeling involuntarily possesses one that he, who
owned the nerve to stop all negotiations until Englishman and American
met on equal terms as the representatives of equal nations, and dared
to break the specific instructions of Congress when he believed France
favoured confining the United States between the Atlantic and the
Alleghanies, would have had the temerity to take Canada, had the great
foresight been his to discern the irritating annoyances to which its
independence would subject us.

[Footnote 118: "Mr. Oswald returned to Paris on the fourth of May
(1782), having been absent sixteen days; during which Dr. Franklin
informed each of his colleagues of what had occurred--Mr. Jay, at
Madrid, Mr. Adams, in Holland--Mr. Laurens, on parole, in
London."--James Parton, _Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin_, Vol. 2,
p. 461. Franklin wrote to Adams and Laurens on April 20, suggesting
that he h