From John Jay to Peter Jay Munro, 21 January 1797
To Peter Jay Munro
Albany 21 Jany. 1797—
Dear Peter
I was Yesterday favored with your’s of the 14th. of this month.1 I congratulate you and Mrs. Munro on the Addition lately made to your Family, and am happy to learn that her Health is re-establishing so fast.2
The Demeanour of a certain Person3 was probably assumed for the Purposes you allude to— He sometimes calculates with more Reliance on Probabilities than they warrant.
Affairs here go on smoothly— Albany deserves Credit for attentions to the Legislature— they are in general well accommodated & well satisfied— our new penal Code does not appear to me to be popular in this part of the Country, whatever it may be in others.4 I begin to apprehend that appropriations competent to the finishing of the State Prisons this Year, will not be made at present: for the State of our Treasury presents objections to it—5 When you see or write to our Friends at Rye, remember me to them— I am Dear Peter, your affte. uncle,
John Jay
Peter Jay Munro Esqr
ALS, NNMus (EJ: 00447).
2. Frances Munro (1797–1869) was born on 9 Jan. 1797, the fourth child and third daughter of Peter Jay and Margaret White Munro.
3. Samuel Lyon.
4. The public responses to New York’s revised penal code are discussed in the editorial note “Crime and Punishment in Federalist New York,” above.
5. For more on the establishment of the state penitentiary in New York, see Benjamin Rush to JJ, 9 July 1796, above; Proclamation on the Completion of the State Prison, 25 Nov. 1797, below; and the editorial note “Crime and Punishment in Federalist New York,” above.