But no statesman of that time had, on the whole, less reason to complain of popular ingratitude than Jay; before he reached his native shore, a large majority of the people of New-York had expressed their approbation of his conduct by electing him to the office of Governor. While in this office, the appropriate close of his public career, besides suggesting many useful measures in regard to education and internal improvements, the benefits of which are experienced to this day, he had the happiness of promoting and witnessing the passage by the Legislature of the act for the gradual abolition of slavery in his native State. Of this measure he was one of the earliest advocates, having served as the first President of the Society of Manumission, which had been organized in 1786 by a number of the most respectable gentlemen in New-York, and to whose disinterested exertions the success of the anti-slavery cause was mainly due. On accepting the seat tendered to him in the Supreme Court, Jay, fearing that the presidency of the society might prove an embarrassment in the decision of some questions which might come before him, resigned the office and was succeeded by Hamilton, who continued to discharge its duties till the year 1793. At the expiration of his second gubernatorial term in 1801, Jay, contrary to the importunities of his friends, retired from public life, having, for twenty-seven years, faithfully served his country in every department of legislative, diplomatic, and judicial trust. Declining the office of Chief Justice, which was again pressed by the President upon his acceptance, he prepared to enjoy that congenial seclusion under the shade of his patrimonial trees, which, through all the varied and agitating scenes of political life, had been the object of his most ardent desires. In accordance with this design, he had built a substantial house at Bedford, about forty-four miles from New-York, on an estate embracing some eight hundred acres, which had come to him by inheritance. Here, in one of the most delightful localities in the fertile county of Westchester, in the care of his family and estates, in the society of his friends and his books, in the discharge of the duties of neighborly benevolence, and in the preparation for those immortal scenes which he had reason to suppose would soon open upon him, he passed the tranquil remainder of his days. But his enjoyments were not destined to exempt him from those bitter but universal visitations, which, at times, overthrow the happiness and frustrate the most pleasing anticipations of our race. In less than twelve months after his retirement, the partner of his joys and sorrows, who, by her accomplishments, her unobtrusive virtues and solicitous affection, had been at once his delight and support, was taken from him. At the final hour, Jay, as the biographer tells us, stood by the bedside "calm and collected," and when the spirit had taken its departure, led his