John Jay’s hopes for reconciliation did not prevent him from preparing the draft “Address to the People of Great Britain,” printed below. Adopted by Congress on 21 October 1774, it was notable both for the republican rhetoric that it voiced and for the constitutional theories that it espoused. The “Address,” despite Jay’s known moderation, propelled him into the front line of Whig propagandists. Charging the British government with establishing “a system of slavery” at the restoration of peace in 1763, Jay reminded his fellow Englishmen that the colonists also claimed the rights of Englishmen. He branded as “heresies” the assertions that Parliament could bind the colonists “in all cases without exception” and dispose of their property without their consent. “No power on earth has the right to take our property from us without our consent,” Jay insisted, and he coupled this right with the right to trial by jury and a fair trial, which guaranteed to the accused the right of adequate defense. Embracing both procedural and substantive due process as rights so fundamental as to go beyond government control, Jay anticipated a constitutional line that first emerged, in a guarded way, in the United States Supreme Court after he had vacated the chief justiceship, was more forcefully enunciated on the eve of the Civil War, and emerged in full dress in the post-Civil War era.1

Jay attacked what Americans called the “Intolerable Acts” of 1774, including the Quebec Act. Questioning whether the dumping of tea in Boston harbor, a “trespass committed on some merchandise,” was a proper ground on which to suspend the charter and change the constitution of Massachusetts Bay, Jay combined an appeal to the “justice” and “public spirit” of the British nation with a warning: “We will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world.” Strong words indeed from John Jay, but his appeal was a plea for the restoration of harmony and friendship, not a call to war, a conciliatory stand that Jay was to maintain through still more trying times.

The address was widely circulated in a pamphlet first published in Philadelphia by William and Thomas Bradford on 24 October 1774 entitled Extracts from the votes and proceedings of the American Continental Congress, held at Philadelphia on the 5th of September 1774. Containing An Association, an Address to the People of Great-Britain, and a Memorial to the Inhabitants of the British American Colonies. Published by order of the Congress, and in the expanded version printed on 27 October containing “the bill of rights, a list of grievances, occasional resolves, the Association, an address to the people of Great-Britain, and a memorial to the inhabitants of the British American colonies” and reprinted in numerous editions throughout the colonies.2 The preface to the original pamphlet asserted that “As the Congress is not yet dissolved, and their whole Proceedings cannot be published for some time. It was thought advisable forthwith to communicate as much thereof to the Public, as concerned the Restrictions on Commerce, and the reasons for such Restrictions.”

The question of the authorship of the address had a long and controversial history. On 11 October, Congress appointed John Jay, Richard Henry Lee, and William Livingston a committee to draft both a memorial to the people of British America and an address to the people of Great Britain.3 The committee submitted a draft address to the people of Great Britain on 18 October. It was debated by paragraphs, amended and recommitted on 19 October, and read and approved as amended on 21 October.4 Although no draft text of the final version has been found, Jay later affirmed that he was the author of the address, while Lee composed the memorial to the people of British America.

However, sometime after William Wirt queried Thomas Jefferson in July 1805 regarding the authorship of the address in the course of his research on the life of Patrick Henry, Jefferson, though not present in Congress at the time the address was adopted, reported a version of events surrounding its preparation that became ensconced in the historiography of the First Continental Congress:

mr. Lee was charged with the Address to the people of England. . . . on reading it, every countenance fell & a dead silence ensued for many minutes. at length it was laid on the table for perusal & consideration till the next day, when first one member & then another rose, & paying some faint compliments to the composition, observed that there were still certain considerations, not expressed in it, which should properly find a place in it. at length Mr. Livingston (the Governor of New Jersey) a member of the Committee rose & observed that a friend of his had been sketching what he had thought might be proper for such an address, from which he thought some paragraphs might be advantageously introduced into the draught proposed; and he read an Address which mr Jay had prepared de bene esse as it were. there was but one sentiment of admiration. the Address was recommitted for amendment, and mr. Jay’s draught reported & adopted with scarce an alteration. these facts were stated to me by mr. Pendleton & Colo. Harrison of our delegation, except that Colo. Harrison ascribed the draught to Govr. Livingston, & were afterwards confirmed to me by Govr. Lvingston, and I will presently mention an anecdote confirmative of them from mr. Jay & R. H. Lee themselves.

Jefferson then added that after his arrival in Congress, he had urged William Livingston to draft the declaration for taking up arms in July 1775, explaining he did so because he had been informed that Livingston had written the “Address to the People of Great Britain,” and “I think it the first composition in the English language.” (In describing the same scene later in his autobiography, Jefferson instead stated he called the address “a production certainly of the finest pen in America.”) Livingston told him he was misinformed. “A few days after,” Jefferson went on,

being in conversation with R.H. Lee in Congress hall, a little before the meeting of the house, mr. Jay observing us, came up, & taking R. H. Lee by the button of the coat, said to him pretty sternly, “I understand, Sir, that you informed this gentleman that the Address to the people of Great Britain, presented to the Committee by me, was drawn by Governor Livingston.” the fact was that the Committee having consisted only of Lee, Livingston . . ., & Jay himself, & Lee’s draught having been rejected, & Jay’s approved so unequivocally, his suspicions naturally fell on Lee, as author of the report; & rather as they had daily much sparring in Congress, Lee being firm in the revolutionary measures, & Jay hanging heavily on their rear. I immediately stopped mr Jay, and assured him that tho’ I had indeed been so informed, it was not by mr. Lee, whom I had never heard utter a word on the subject.

With minor variations, Jefferson’s narrative was placed in Wirt’s published biography of Patrick Henry and in Jefferson’s 1821 autobiography.5 Publication of Wirt’s book prompted John Adams to write John Jay for confirmation of the authorship of the Address to the People of Great Britain and the other pieces mentioned.6 According to Adams, the question of who was the draftsman of the address “certainly excited a Sensation a fermentation and the Schism in Congress at the time, and Serious Consequences afterwards. . . . I fear, but do not know that this Animosity was occasioned by indiscretions of R. H. Lee Mr. Samuel Adams and Some others of the Virginia Delegates by whom Adams was lead into Error. I never had a doubt that you were the Author of that manly and noble Address.” In his response, Jay agreed that Lee had been assigned to write the memorial, but not the address. He stated that Livingston had been requested to write the address but had declined and urged Jay to undertake it. Jay challenged Wirt’s statement that Lee had prepared a draft that was rejected by Congress. He implied it was his draft that was originally submitted to Congress, that it was debated on 19 October and sundry amendments made, and that it was then recommitted on Lee’s motion for the purpose of incorporating those amendments. On 21 October it was brought before Congress as amended and approved. Jay questioned the probability of Congress setting aside one draft (Lee’s) and adopting a new one (Jay’s), especially within such a short time frame. “How could they have rendered such a Procedure reconcileable to the Feelings of the writer of that Draught, or compatible with their recent approbation of it, or consistent with the Design and object of the Re-commitment? Could any of the Members have been so negligent of Delicacy and Propriety, as to propose to concur in such a Measure.”7

Although Jay denied the story that Lee had submitted a draft that was rejected by Congress and replaced by one of Jay’s composition, an undated Lee draft address, adapted from an earlier draft memorial he had prepared “To the Gentlemen Merchants and Manufacturers of G. Britain Trading with North America,” is extant. One paragraph of Lee’s text was incorporated, possibly by amendment, into the final version of the text adopted by Congress. Whether Lee’s draft was in fact ever formally submitted to Congress or the committee cannot be confirmed by the evidence available.8

With regard to the story that the address was mistakenly attributed to Livingston, Jay told Adams, “I was informed, and I believe correctly, that one Person in particular of those you specify, had endeavoured by oblique Intimations to insinuate a Suspicion, that the address to the People of Great Britain was not written by me but by Gov. Livingston. That Gentleman repelled the Insinuation; he knew and felt what was due to Truth, and explicitly declared it. Those Persons are dead and gone. Their design did not succeed, and I have no desire that the Memory of it should survive them.” In 1818 Jay apparently still considered Lee ultimately responsible for challenges to his authorship, despite Jefferson’s contention that he informed Jay in 1775 that Benjamin Harrison, not Lee, was his informant regarding Livingston’s alleged role.