 Hello, from the National Archives Public Programs and Education staff. My name is Sarah Lyons Davis and I'm an education specialist at the National Archives. Welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive, Young Learners Program. Today we meet John Jay, portrayed by storyteller Phil Webster. John Jay was one of our nation's founding fathers, a delegate of the First Continental Congress and later a member of the Provincial Congress. He eventually became president of the Continental Congress. Jay was responsible for writing New York's first constitution. He served as a diplomat during the Revolutionary War and then authored five essays in the Federalist Papers in support of the U.S. Constitution. Many of his papers are searchable in the National Archives website Founders Online. Jay was appointed First Chief Justice and served from 1789 to 1795. He negotiated the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the American Revolution and it provided an agreement whereas the British officially recognized U.S. independence and identified the boundaries that would allow for American, Western expansion. The National Archives has many records related to John Jay. They can be found in the National Archives online catalog and in our education specific resource docsteach at docsteach.org. This slide shows the first and last page of the Treaty of Paris, which has 15 pages in total. This treaty, signed on September 3, 1783, between the American colonies in Great Britain, ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. The treaty is named for the city in which it was negotiated and signed. The last page bears the signatures of David Hartley, who represented Great Britain, and the three American negotiators who signed their names in alphabetical order. And in this activity in docsteach, you can see a letter from Chief Justice John Jay to President George Washington. In this letter, John Jay and fellow Justices of the Supreme Court advised the President on the separation of powers of the government and the Justices were responding to questions sent to them from the President. Our programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team and the National Archives Foundation. You can find information for teacher and student programs on the National Archives website archives.gov, under Archives News, upcoming events, and if you follow the National Archives on social media. And now, let us give a warm welcome to John Jay. Thank you, Sarah. Pleasure to be here. I'm not your usual founding father. I'm not English. I'm not Irish. I'm not Scottish. I'm French Huguenot. And my family came here to escape religious persecution in France. The my grandfather, Auguste Jay, came on a ship across from Rochelle, France, to eventually wound up in New Rochelle, New York. And my father was Peter and my mother Mary Van Cortland Jay, and they lived in New York and that's where I was born in December 12th, 1745. My parents moved away from there because I had two, I had a brother and a sister that were both blinded by the smallpox. And so my parents didn't want to, they lived on Pearl Street. And with all that traffic with horses and carts and whatnot, people, they moved out of the country to Ryan, New York. At age nine, I was taught by Reverend Peter Stoop. And then at age 11, I was educated back at home with Reverend John Murray. And then age 14, I entered King's College in New York City, and that's age 14. And that was 1760. And I finished there in 1764. I started a law clerk under Benjamin Kissam and 64 to 68. And then 68 to 70 worked in a partnership with Robert Livingston, Jr. And in 1770, I went independent as a lawyer and did that successfully. Met my wife, Sarah, at Francis Tavern on Pearl Street. So you can say I met a pearl on Pearl, the 1772. And during that time courtship, I met my, well, I was going over to the Livingston household and they had a lodger there named Alexander Hamilton, who you might have heard of. So Hamilton and I were friends from very soon in the game. I, Sally and I married the same week as the New York Tea Party in April of 1774. We got married and that September. I was able to go to the First Continental Congress with my new father, the William Livingston, it's quite a providential turn of events there. On the in 1774, I was asked by Congress to write in 1775. Also asked to write on behalf of Congress for to the people of Great Britain to Ireland and to Canada. And also wrote a draft for the olive branch proposal. The final draft was done by John Dickinson. The I was against the first going into war against Great Britain because they had so much strength against us. They had 270 ships and we had none. So you can see the great power that the British Empire had. So I was cautioning against it. But the events of 1775 with Lexington and Concord, they impacted my thoughts as well as what was going on in New York City. 1776, Sally gave birth to our first child, Peter. So we have a son born at the birth of the nation. He was born January 24th, 1776. During that time period, I also as Colonel John Jay of the New York Militia, I recommended Hamilton to a position in the New York Infantry artillery, I'm sorry. During the June of that year, I was. Things were going on in New York with the Royal Governor, William Tryon and the. Mayor of New York, David Matthews were in a plot to kidnap and kill towards Washington. So they made me chairman of a committee to detect conspiracies. And we found out that one of Washington's inner guards, Thomas Hickey was in on that plot and he was hanged June 28th, 1776. The next day, the British fleet arrived off of Brooklyn and Manhattan. So you can see that the the events were starting to really warm up for New York area for the battle. I was. They had the Battle of Brooklyn in August 27th there and the British certainly defeated us. And I must make mention of the Marylanders at that battle. They attacked the British line six times. The rest of the Continental Army could escape. And General Washington gave them a privilege of flying their flag at the same height as the US flag because of that. I took Sally and my parents up to a fish kill to move because of the danger that was in New York at that time. I. Well, we experienced the New Yorkers experience the Battle of Brooklyn and we lost Kipps Bay Harlem Heights. Fort Washington or Fort Lee, and we were on the run down to New Jersey. And the morale was very poor. So I forgot to mention one thing about the evacuation on 27th. The. We were beaten 27th. There was a northeastern storm that came like a hurricane for two days. And the British could have wiped us up during that time period, but they didn't. But on the 29th of that night and the morning of the 30th, Washington evacuated the troops from Brooklyn to go into Manhattan. And John Glover led the marble headers to expertly row. Quietliness of the British didn't hear them, but strong enough to battle the current of the East River there. At least 20 times when the sun came up, a third of the army was still on Brooklyn and the. Oh, there are fog came up and didn't dissipate until Washington left on the last boat. So it was really a providential little victory there. Well, when I mentioned about those different defeats after that, I was asked by Continental, but not Continental, but by the New York Convention to write something to raise the morale of the people of New York. And I wrote the address of the convention of the representatives of the state of New York to their constituents. Feel free to call it the John Jay Address in December 23rd, 1776. And in that address, I mentioned God and having faith in God 33 times. Feel free to read that. I thank God for the victories we got at Trenton on Christmas Day and Princeton. In 1777, I was entrusted with writing the New York Constitution. And well, the convention went from New York to White Plains to Fish Kill and then the Kingston. And I was Supreme Court. Sorry, not Supreme Court, but the New York Chief Justice during that time. 1778, I was asked to. Go back to Continental Congress and three days after doing that, they elected me president of Continental Congress. One of the things I did there was defend. General Washington, there was something called the Conway Cabal when George General Conway, General Gates and General Lee and others went a cabal to try to get rid of General Washington. But I supported General Washington. So not only did I save his life in 1776, but also saved his military career. Then when at the end of my time as president, 1779 and September 28th, I was they saw that if they recognized our independence, they would have to recognize the independence of their own colonies. And they weren't any part of that. We saw and I had a birth of Susan in July of 1780. But we also she also died a month later. So it was it was hard in a lot of ways went on in Spain. We did have another child, Maria. We were there two and a half years. Maria was born in February 20th, 1782. And that was a great joy. But Mr. Franklin, Dr. Franklin, I should say, asked us to come to Paris to help with the general negotiations with with Great Britain. And I said, we'll be glad to come because we were just so unsuccessful in our time in Spain. And when we traveled from Madrid in March, sorry, to May 21st to June 23rd, so it was over a month in traveling the the roads in the wagons, what that carriages. When we got there, we found out that the Europe was in a state of influenza epidemic. The very Prime Minister, Lord North, was removed from office and Rockingham came in his place, but he Rockingham died of the influenza. So you can imagine how all that changes. And not only the Prime Minister, but all his people and all his negotiating people. So we are negotiating change from Granville to Richard Oswald. So it was a lot going on. We were under orders from Continental Congress to be subservient to the French diplomats and everything. And I said, we can't do this because it's it's beneath the dignity of Continental Congress, just to say whatever they said, because the when I was in Spain, I saw what was going on behind my back because the the kings of Spain and France were cousins and they were a lot of times undercutting what we were doing. Matter of fact, they opened up my mail all the time. And I said that if my Spanish is not correct, I'm sure the post office will correct it. The influenza. We had well, we were asking I went over to see Dr. Franklin, he was sick with kidney stones. So the negotiation fell on my shoulders because Mr. Adams was up in Holland trying to negotiate a loan from them. And Dr. Franklin became sick ill with kidney stones. So it was up to me. And if you look at a map of the Northwest territory, the Mitchell map, you'll see the immense problem that I had to do like this map over here. You see all the different parts like I was staying stating the need to use the Mississippi River as our boundary and France and Spain were not accepting that being there, the cousins and Mr. Franklin asked me says that I told him that the French were just in the war to try to get our support so that they can keep in going to occupy during this time. And Mr. Franklin said, if we can't depend upon France, upon whom can we trust? And I said, we have no rational dependence, except on God and on ourselves. And then he said, would you deliberately break Continental Congress's demands on us? And I said, unless we violate these instructions, the dignity of Congress will be in the dust. And I threw my clay pipe in the fireplace and said, I would break them if it if they come conflicted with the dignity of Continental Congress. And we were able to get that preliminary agreement. Matter of fact, I said that I needed that when they came, they they bought us a they're going to give us a truce with the United Colonies. And I said, you have to take this back and I will not treat with you all until I get something from the King, King George III, or an active parliament saying that they recognize us as an independent nation. And we were able to put in the preamble of the document that they recognized us as the 13 United States of America. So I'm glad that we stood to that. Sally gave birth to Anne on August the 13th, 1783. And September 3rd is when they got the the final draft done. The definitive peace treaty. And after the treaty, Treaty of Paris was agreed on, I went to England and take care of the J family matters. And one something was remarkable is that John Adams, John Quincy Adams and I were able to go to the House of Lords in the gallery and listen to part of that just was amazing that we were able to do that. I got back, we got back in New York in July of 1784. And when I got back, I was notified of my election as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. And I did that from 1784 to 1789. And the previous Secretary of Foreign Affairs was Robert Livingston, Jr. And he and I were best friends. We were law partners. He was a second cousin to Sally, Godfather and my children. But because of my disregard of Continental Congress's rules about being subservient to the French, it cost us our friendship. He was very upset with me. And from that point on, it posed me in many matters. We had to change our Godfather to Egbert Benson. I worked for that Secretary of Foreign Affairs for 1784 to 89. And just imagine the enormity of starting relationship with all the different nations in the world starting from scratch. We had an office for beginning at the upstairs of Francis Tavern. And we had to prepare about 300 different reports on different nations and different issues regarding the new nation. So we had our hands full of that. During that time, 86, 87, Mr. Madison, Mr. Hamilton and I were instrumental in getting Mr. Washington to go to Continental Congress. There was an Atlas Convention in 86, which only had about five states represented. And we wanted to get a national one. And we were able to do that. Continental Congress convened and we're able to pass those that on September 17th, 1787. But we had to go through a ratification process and through the states. And in a lot of states, it went well. But toward the end, especially in New York, the anti-Fedalists were 46 and we were 19. So we had a job to do. Hamilton and I had a strategy of debating every point of the Constitution so that people could see what the whole picture was about. Also had strategy. My wife and I brought people over to dinner and talk to them about the different points. So that was a key point about the being friends and trying to win people over that way. I guess go back to what Sally and Maria did at the Treaty of Paris. I think they really live in the pot. Merritt Maria was the entertainment for both Franklin and Adams and myself, as well as the British delegation. So they helped us to. As Mr. Adams said, we worked together in perfect good humor. That was a very good point. After the I gave the I gave an address to the New York Convention Congress about the modification. And after that, we had a vote and we won 30 to 27. It was a close vote, but we came down from the 49 to 19. We narrowed the gap gap. The we're able to start a new government. And George Washington was president on April 30th, 1789. Put his hand on the Bible to help me, God, and went in federal hall and talked about thanking God three times. Then they went to Saint Paul's Chapel and had a service to dedicate this new government to God. And then William was born June 16th, 1789. So I've got one son for the Declaration of Independence and one son for the new government under the Constitution. I was after Mr. Jefferson got got back to the country in March of 1790. I was Secretary of State. But after that, I was able to do Chief Justice and did the I didn't say we had to go to circuits. And I had to turn down people like Governor Hancock. They offered hospitality. I didn't want to show partiality, so I had to stay at Taverns. And let me tell you, I hate fleas. So that's all saying that the things that you had in Taverns as I accepted the as well in that circuit, I accepted New England. Tradition of starting sessions with prayer. And as a matter of fact, with the first Supreme Court session was a four hour communion service. That was we wanted to get things right. We had a heavy responsibility that we will stand before God for the decisions we make. Sarah Louisa was born in March, 1792. And President Washington asked me to. Go to Britain to make a new treaty because the British Seaman were impressing and what I mean by impressing, they were taking our soldiers off ships and making them work with the British Army. So we almost had a war over that. But Mr. Washington sent me over and I was able to get a peace treaty. I didn't get many concessions, but we did get peace because we were $60 million in debt and could not afford another war. I became friends with William Wilberforce, who was a strong person in the abolition movement and came back and I was hung in effigy and just about every state in the in the nation. And they said you could probably travel through the country through the my burning effigies of Mr. Jay. When I returned, I was led to governor of New York and as second governor of New York, I was able to gradually outlaw slavery. Thank you so much, John Jay. That was really interesting. I learned so much from that, as I'm sure did everyone else joining us. I, you know, I have to comment. I'm just left with this idea. What a consequential period of history you witness and we're a part of. Yeah, witnesses at the creation. Yes. So we have a few questions for you about that. That I hope I hope you'll share with us. So when you were talking about the Continental Congress and the treaty. So why did John Jay disregard the instructions from the Continental Congress to be subservient to the French delegation? And negotiating the peace treaty with Great Brand? Well, I highly regarded Continental Congress. I was president of that body. So I highly regarded them. But if you're in a situation where you see that like I saw what was going on behind my back about the French and Spanish. And I said that they would not regard our independence as a top priority. They would they would matter of fact, they were in a sense we heard about they were making deals behind our back that weren't good for us. And we said, how are they going to treat our independence? Are they just in it for to keep their animosity with England? So I saw that we had our nation at stake. And so I said, I have to to put the dignity of our nation before this this is a hard, hard call to make. Yeah, we've we've caused me my friend. Yeah, complex ideas to consider. It sounds like the your path with this. And speaking of that, what events kept you in New York City when the Declaration of Independence was agreed upon on July 2nd, 1776? Well, I was like I said, I saw the the Royal Governor William Tryon and he was living on a ship, a warship. He wasn't in the governor's in New York City. The people of New York were kind of against him. But he was he was in a plot to kidnap and kill. So with David Matthews, the mayor, so you can get your mind around your governor and your your mayor are fighting against you. What? Yeah, just that's hard to grasp. But as chairman of this committee to detect conspiracies, we found out that someone one of the other people that was in jail with Thomas Hickey spilled the beans about what was going on. He said, I will only talk with John Jay. I only trust him. So he entrusted to me about this information about Thomas Hickey. And so I said, we need to deal with this. So you just imagine if George Washington was wiped off to see where we would be. Yeah. And you mentioned also your concern about, you know, waging a war with Great Britain, such a powerful country. What were your thoughts about the prospect of starting a new government, though, were you worried if it would work? Well, and when I was at 1777, starting out the new constitution, I used a little bit of John Adams thoughts on government, but I had my own thoughts as well. But it's it's really an awesome thing to be able to give that had that opportunity to make a new government as and we deliberated upon that. That's what we did in the Constitution. We didn't get every point that we wanted. We're toward a more perfect union. We're not perfect, but you know, to keep deliberating, keep fine tuning is it's hard to get this like a machine. You've got to fine tune it to get it to work well. Yeah. And I know you weren't alone in this work. You mentioned some other founding fathers like Hamilton and Livingston and Franklin, your colleagues in this work. But could you tell us, were you friends with any of them as well? Oh, yeah, like I said, with Alexander Hamilton, when I'm courting Sally Livingston of all the places he came from, from St. Croix and Nevis, I came comes up to stay with Elias Boudinot and then William Livingston. So I get to meet him face to face. I recommended him to get into King's College. I recommended him to be the captain of the artillery in the New York Militia as Colonel Jay. So we he was a genius. When you see all the stuff that he did about the government and business, he and Robert Morris were spectacular. Oh, it was certainly a talented group of people creating these documents and debating over these ideals of our country. And I would just say to encourage young people to look at these documents. It's it's electric, as Dr. Franklin would say. It's just they wrote. They didn't have distractions. They wrote. That's what they did. So we have a good record. That's amazing. And, you know, speaking of these documents and of your work, did you ever think about your legacy? Like, what would you want to be best known for? Would it be your work with finalizing the Treaty of Paris or Chief Justice or one of the other incredible roles that you that you took? I'd say the Treaty of Paris was my crowning achievement. Most people don't know it. But in the election of 1789, I came in third. Washington had 69 votes. Adams 34 and I had that nine. I would have had eight more. But the New York delegation didn't turn their votes in in time. But anyway, when I did that, J Treaty, that second treaty, that pretty much killed my political career. Well, thank you. I'm going to ask you our final question for the day. I've so appreciated the time you've given to us. Well, thank you. And what advice do you as John Jay have for young people today? I've got some things here about to have patience and love those who have physical and mental challenges. If you heard, I said that my my brother, Peter and my sister, Anna were blind and had a brother August that had mental challenges and I had two of my two of my siblings died before I was born, but one was died, one died when I was six years old. So I saw the shortness of life with that. So, you know, love those people. And I would also encourage love people of other colors. And that's not totally natural. We all love our own color. But I ask God, that's to love other people and that's our creator. Love the Bible and live by it. Be mindful of your job that the long term welfare of the country comes before your political career. Forgive people that have wronged you and others. Don't be influenced by the promise of utopia. Here's one of the things I had was that all the ultra part of here are the other side. And as a judge, I always always had to do that. And it's one thing to hear the initial claim, but you've got to take you got to sit down, listen to the other claim and weigh the evidence. Another thing is that they do she prefers Perseverandum with God leading we persevere. And when I lost, I didn't mention this, but I lost the governor's race one time. And I actually won it, but it was taken away. Aaron Burr was the person that was leading the argument against me being in present. So I share Mr. Hamilton's a little bit of dislike of Aaron Burr. And how to prepare to meet success without exaltation and defeat without depression. And lastly, how to deal with difficult times. So this relates with my voyage on the ships as they who on the ocean have been unexpectedly involved with tempest or suddenly entangled among rocks and shoals know the value of that serene self-possession and presence of mind to which in such cases they owe their preservation. So people on ships, captains of ships, you've got to keep your cool. You can't be going crazy. And when you're in tough times, you've got to keep a steady head so that all those around you will keep a steady head as well. Well, this is certainly some great advice you shared with us for young people today. And I know some advice I'm going to take from this, too. Your words about our founding documents were inspiring. I've read them before. I'm going to go back and take a closer look and thinking about what you share today. And I hope I hope those who've joined us will do the same. And so now we're just going to take one last look. So thank you so much for your time again. And we'll take one last look at that Docs Teach educational activity related to the Treaty of Paris, 1783. And John Jay helped negotiate as he shared and ended the American Revolution. So again, that's DocsTeach.org. And I hope everyone can join us next month for our next young learners program with Archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen Shogan, thank you for participating in our program today. Thank you.