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[REVOLUTIONARY WAR.] JAY, George. Autograph letter signed (“Geo. Jay”), to Governor William Greene, Newport, 6 December 1782. 4 pages, folio.
ABANDONED BY HIS LOYALIST FATHER IN 1776, A YOUNG PATRIOT SEEKS THE PROTECTION OF WASHINGTON
Jay, a young man whose father fled Boston with the British in 1776, tries to clear his own name from suspicion for traveling to British-occupied New York City in the closing days of the war. Jay tells Rhode Island governor Greene he is “very sorry to find that any exceptions should be taken to my conduct” in returning to New York, “which I understand was the case by some Members of the General Assembly in this State….When in New York & in hopes of an Evacuation I made Mr. [James] Lovell (Financier of Mass. State) acquainted with my intentions to remain at that place; I was thoroughly known to him, he having been a prisoner a long time…He promised to recommend me to General Washington therefor, at the same time, it was recommended to me to get to Boston in a Cartel…” He further explains that he had business in Boston relating to reimbursement for funds he expended in New York to aid American POWs who, “by the cruel caprice of the naval commander” in the City, was packing the prisoners off to England. Jay had previously “supplied many prisoners with small sums of money” but as they face deportation to England for an unknown length of time “I advanced them out of my own purse several hundreds of pounds.”
In a 9 September 1782 letter from Lovell to Washington, Lovell asked Washington to extend his protection to Jay, who, he noted, “is now barely of the age of 21 years, and has been uniformly as serviceable to many other Prisoners as he was to me and my companions at Halifax in 1776. I know him to be a sincere American Whig in principle, and to have been repeatedly in danger of the Provost on that account.” Jay’s father “was one of four excellent Townsmen who in a state of infatuation followed the Enemy when they fled before you in March 76.” Evidently a young man of means, one picks up from this letter a hint that Jay may also have been a source of intelligence on events in New York, always a subject of keen interest to Washington. Jay pleads with Greene to keep this letter “in the highest confidence,” as its disclosure to the British authorities in New York “would prove my utter ruin.”
ABANDONED BY HIS LOYALIST FATHER IN 1776, A YOUNG PATRIOT SEEKS THE PROTECTION OF WASHINGTON
Jay, a young man whose father fled Boston with the British in 1776, tries to clear his own name from suspicion for traveling to British-occupied New York City in the closing days of the war. Jay tells Rhode Island governor Greene he is “very sorry to find that any exceptions should be taken to my conduct” in returning to New York, “which I understand was the case by some Members of the General Assembly in this State….When in New York & in hopes of an Evacuation I made Mr. [James] Lovell (Financier of Mass. State) acquainted with my intentions to remain at that place; I was thoroughly known to him, he having been a prisoner a long time…He promised to recommend me to General Washington therefor, at the same time, it was recommended to me to get to Boston in a Cartel…” He further explains that he had business in Boston relating to reimbursement for funds he expended in New York to aid American POWs who, “by the cruel caprice of the naval commander” in the City, was packing the prisoners off to England. Jay had previously “supplied many prisoners with small sums of money” but as they face deportation to England for an unknown length of time “I advanced them out of my own purse several hundreds of pounds.”
In a 9 September 1782 letter from Lovell to Washington, Lovell asked Washington to extend his protection to Jay, who, he noted, “is now barely of the age of 21 years, and has been uniformly as serviceable to many other Prisoners as he was to me and my companions at Halifax in 1776. I know him to be a sincere American Whig in principle, and to have been repeatedly in danger of the Provost on that account.” Jay’s father “was one of four excellent Townsmen who in a state of infatuation followed the Enemy when they fled before you in March 76.” Evidently a young man of means, one picks up from this letter a hint that Jay may also have been a source of intelligence on events in New York, always a subject of keen interest to Washington. Jay pleads with Greene to keep this letter “in the highest confidence,” as its disclosure to the British authorities in New York “would prove my utter ruin.”