Our impressions as to this fact being different, I shall
be glad to have mine corrected, if wrong. Jay, you know, had been in
constant opposition to our laboring majority. Our estimate at the time
was, that he, Dickinson, and Johnson of Maryland, by their ingenuity,
perseverance, and partiality to our English connection, had constantly
kept us a year behind where we ought to have been, in our preparations
and proceedings. From about the date of the Virginia instructions of May
the 15th, 1776, to declare Independence, Mr. Jay absented himself from
Congress, and never came there again until December, 1778. Of course,
he had no part in the discussions or decision of that question. The
instructions to their Delegates by the convention of New York, then
sitting, to sign the Declaration, were presented to Congress on the 15th
of July only, and on that day the journals show the absence of Mr. Jay,
by a letter received from him, as they had done as early as the 29th
of May, by another letter. And I think he had been omitted by the
convention on a new election of Delegates, when they changed their
instructions. Of this last fact, however, having no evidence but an
ancient impression, I shall not affirm it. But whether so or not, no
agency of accident appears in the case. This error of fact, however,
whether yours or mine, is of little consequence to the public. But
truth being as cheap as error, it is as well to rectify it for our own
satisfaction.
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