l once quietly said to John Adams, "That man Jay is
young in years, but he has an old head."

Jay was the youngest man of the Convention, save one.

When the Second Congress met, Jay was again a delegate. He served on
several important committees, and drew up a statement that was addressed
to the people of England; but he was recalled to New York before the
supreme issue was reached, and thus, through accident, the Declaration of
Independence does not contain the signature of John Jay.

* * * * *

In Seventeen Hundred Seventy-eight, Jay was chosen president of the
Continental Congress to succeed that other patriotic Huguenot, Laurens.
The following year he was selected as the man to go to Spain, to secure
from that country certain friendly favors.

His reception there was exceedingly frosty, and the mention of his two
years on the ragged edge of court life at Madrid, in later years brought
to his face a grim smile.

Spain's diplomatic policy was smooth hypocrisy and rank untruth, and all
her promises, it seems, were made but to be broken. Jay's negotiations
were only partially successful, but he came to know the language, the
country and the people in a way that made his knowledge very valuable to
America.

By Seventeen Hundred Eighty-one, England had begun to see that to compel
the absolute submission of the Colonies was more of a job than she had
anticipated. News of victories was duly sent to the "mother country" at
regular intervals, but with these glad tidings were requests for more
troops, and requisitions for ships and arms.

The American army was a very hard thing to find. It would fight one day,
to retreat the next, and had a way of making midnight attacks and flank
movements that, to say the least, were very confusing. Then it would
separate, to come together--Lord knows where! This made Lord Cornwallis
once write to the Home Secretary: "I could easily defeat the enemy, if I
could find him and engage him in a fair fight." He seemed to think it was
"no fair," forgetting the old proverb which has something to say about
love and war.

Finally, Cornwallis got the thing his soul desired--a fair fight. He was
then acting on the defensive. The fight was short and sharp; and Colonel
Alexander Hamilton, who led the charge, in ten minutes planted the Stars
and Stripes on his ramparts.

That night Cornwallis was the "guest" of Washington, and the next day a
dinner was given in h