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Jay was importuned by Washington to take the position of Secretary of Foreign Affairs, one of the most important offices to be filled.

He accepted, and discharged the exacting duties of the place for five years.

Then came the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the election of Washington as President of the United States.

Washington wrote to Jay: “There must be a Court, perpetual and Supreme, to which all questions of internal dispute between States or people be referred. This Court must be greater than the Executive, greater than any individual State, separated and apart from any political party. You must be the first official head of the Executive.”

And Jay, as every schoolboy knows, was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. By his sagacity, his dignity, his knowledge of men, and love of order and uprightness, he gave it that high place which it yet holds, and which it must hold; for when the decisions of the Supreme Court are questioned by a State or people, the fabric of our government is but a spider’s web through which anarchy and unreason will stalk.

In Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four, came serious complications with Great Britain, growing out of the construction of terms of peace made in Paris eleven years before.

Some one must go to Great Britain and make a new treaty in order to preserve our honor and save us from another war.

Franklin was dead; Adams as Vice-President could not be spared; Hamilton’s fiery temper was dangerous–no one could accomplish the delicate mission so well as Jay.

Jay, self-centered and calm, said little; but in compliance with Washington’s wish resigned his office, and set sail with full powers to use his own judgment in everything, and the assurance that any treaty he made would be ratified.

Arriving in England, he at once opened negotiations with Lord Grenville, and in five months the new treaty was signed.

It provided for the payment to American citizens for losses of private shipping during the war; and over ten million dollars were paid to citizens of the United States under this agreement.

It fixed the boundary-line between the State of Maine and Canada; provided for the surrender of British posts in the Far West; that neither nation was to allow enlistments within its territory by a third nation at war with another; arranged for the surrender of fugitives charged with murder or forgery; and made definite terms as to various minor, but none the less important, questions.

A storm of opposition greeted the treaty when its terms were made known in America. Jay was accused of bartering away the rights of America, and indignation meetings were held, because Jay had not insisted on apologies, and set sums of indemnity on this, that and the other.

Nevertheless, Washington ratified the treaty; and when Jay arrived in America there was a greeting fully as cordial and generous as that on the occasion of his other homecoming.

In fact, while he was absent, his friends had put him in nomination as Governor of New York. His election to that office occurred just two days before he arrived, and when he landed his senses were mystified by hearing loud hurrahs for “Governor Jay.”

When his term of office expired he was re-elected, so he served as Governor, in all, six years. The most important measure carried out during that time was the abolition of slavery in the State of New York, an act he had strenuously insisted on for twenty years, but which was not made possible until he had the power of Governor, and crowded the measure upon the Legislature.

Over a quarter of a century had passed since John Adams and John Jay had met on horseback out there on the New Jersey turnpike. Their intimacy had been continuous and their labors as important as ever engrossed the minds of men, but in it all there was neither jealousy nor bickering. They were friends.