In 18G7 he was appointed by Governor Fenton a commissioner to represent the State at the establishment of the National Cemetery on the battle-field of Antietam, and true to his nature, he was prompt to sustain the view that liberality and magnanimity alike required that the Confederate dead should also receive honoralJle burial. In April, 1869, he was nominated by President Grant to the important position of minister to Austria, a nomination which was unanimously confirmed by the Senate ; and at a meeting of the Union League, an address was delivered to their retiring president by Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, in response to which Mr. Jay expressed the belief that the honor was intended as a compliment to the club, and as a recognition of the efficient aid it had furnished to the government in its struggle for existence. While minister at Vienna he was empowered to negotiate a treaty which should determine the status of Austrian subjects who had become naturalized as American citizens, and it was finally ratified by the Austro- Hungarian government, after much opposition from successive war ministers, who naturally regarded it as an effort to aid Austrian subjects to evade the military service of the Empire. Another convention was concluded by Mr. Jay in 1871, with Count Andrassy, affording to each country a mutual protection in trade marks, a matter of great importance to our manufacturers, and this treaty is remarkable as being the highest recognition that the Kingdom of Hungary had received in four hundred years.