In 1697 Augustus Jay married Ann Maria Bayard, the daughter of a distinguished Dutch family, who assisted him into business, and greatly promoted his fortunes. The only son of this marriage was Peter Jay, who, in his turn, married Mary Van Cortlandt, the child of another of the leading Dutch families of the city. This Peter Jay had ten children of whom John, the subject of this article, was the eighth, born in New York in 1745. In him were therefore united the vivacious blood of France with the solid qualities of the Dutch; and, accordingly, we find in him something of the liveliness of the French along with a great deal of Dutch prudence and caution. After graduating from King's College, [Footnote: Now Columbia] John Jay became a law student in the city of New York, in the office of Benjamin Kissam--still a well-known New York name. An anecdote related of this period reveals the French side of his character. He asked his father to allow him to keep a saddle horse in the city, a request with which the prudent father hesitated to comply. "Horses," said he, "are not very good companions for a young man; and John, why do you want a horse?" "That I may have the means, sir," adroitly replied the son, "of visiting you frequently." The father was vanquished, gave him a horse, and was rewarded by receiving a visit from his son at his country house in Rye, twenty-five miles from the city, every other week. Another anecdote betrays the Frenchman. Soon after his admission to the bar, being opposed in a suit to Mr. Kissam, his preceptor, he somewhat puzzled and embarrassed that gentleman in the course of his argument. Alluding to this, Mr. Kissam pleasantly said: "I see, your honor, that I have brought up a bird to pick out my own eyes." "Oh, no," instantly replied Mr. Jay; "not to pick out, but to open your eyes." Inheriting a large estate, and being allied either by marriage or by blood with most of the powerful families of the province, and being himself a man of good talents and most respectable character, he made rapid advance in his profession, and gained a high place in the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens; so that when the first Congress met at Philadelphia, in 1774, John Jay was one of those who represented in it the colony of New York. He was then twenty-nine years of age, and was, perhaps, the youngest member of the body, every individual of which he outlived. Some of the best written papers of that session were of his composition. It was he who wrote that memorable address to the people of Great Britain, in which the wrongs of the colonists were expressed with so much eloquence, conciseness, and power. He left his lodgings in Philadelphia, it is said, and shut himself up in a room in a tavern to secure himself from interruption, and there penned the address which was the foundation of his political fortunes.