all the men of that busy and brilliant age, no
one advanced more steadily in the general knowledge and favour. When
he wrote the address to the people of Canada, his great ability was
recognised at once; and after he composed the appeal to Ireland and to
Jamaica, the famous circular letter to the Colonies, and the patriotic
address to the people of his own State, his wisdom was more frequently
drawn upon and more widely appreciated than ever; but he may be said
to have leaped into national fame when he drafted the address to the
people of Great Britain. While still ignorant of its authorship,
Jefferson declared it "a production of the finest pen in America."

CHAPTER II

MAKING A STATE CONSTITUTION

1777

It was early spring in 1777 before John Jay, withdrawing to the
country, began the work of drafting a constitution. His retirement
recalls Cowper's sigh for

"... a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumours of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful and successful war,
Might never reach me more."

Too much and too little credit has been given Jay for his part in the
work. One writer says he "entered an almost unexplored field." On the
other hand, John Adams wrote Jefferson that Jay's "model and
foundation" was his own letter to George Wythe of Virginia. Neither is
true. The field was not unexplored, nor did John Adams' letter contain
a suggestion of anything not already in existence, except the election
of a Council of Appointment, with whose consent the governor should
appoint all officers. His plan of letting the people elect a governor
came later. "We have a government to form, you know," wrote Jay, "and
God knows what it will resemble. Our politicians, like some guests at
a feast, are perplexed and undetermined which dish to prefer;"[5] but
Jay evidently preferred the old home dishes, and it is interesting to
note how easily he adapted the laws and customs of the provincial
government to the needs of an independent State.

[Footnote 5: John Jay, _Correspondence and Public Papers_, Vol. 1, p.
68.]

The legislative branch of the government was vested in two separate
and distinct bodies, called the Assembly and the Senate. The first
consisted of seventy members to be elected each year; the second of
twenty-four members, one-fourth to be elected every four years.
Members of the Assembly were proportioned to the fourteen counties
according to