1“Between Hawk and Buzzard”: Disclaiming Independence While Edging toward Continentalism Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
During the months between the adoption of the Olive Branch Petition and his draft of “Proofs that the Colonies Do Not Aim at Independence,” John Jay, like the Continental Congress itself, was in an increasingly ambivalent position, suspended, as John Adams impatiently described it, “between hawk and buzzard.” By temperament an activist, a believer that government must be infused with energy,...