But he had determined to renounce public life, and though nominated again in 1800, to the ofiice of chief justice of the United States, declined the honor, and retired to his paternal estate, at Bedford ; a property -- part of the Van Cortlandt estate -- which his father had acquired by marriage with Mary, a daughter of Jacobus Van Cortlandt. There he lived tor twenty-eight years a peaceful and honored life. In 1827 he was seized with severe illness, and after two years of weakness and suflering, was

' ■" Writings of Washington," by .Tared Sparks. Vol. IX., [ip. SC-i*!i.

Struck with palsy, May 14, 1829, and died three days after. He was buried in the family cemetery at Rye. His public reputation as a patriot and statesman of the Revolution was second only to that of Washington, and his private character as a man and a Christian is singularly free from stain or blemish.^

Peter Augustus, eldest son of John Jay, was born January 24, 177t). He graduated from Columbia College in 1794 and studied law under Peter J. Monroe. He married Mary Rutherford, daughter of General Matthew Clarkson, and became prominent in the legal profession and public affairs. He was a member of the State Assembly in 1816 ; recorder of New York in 1818; a member of the convention which framed the constitution of the State in 1821, and for many years president of the New York Historical Society, trustee of Columbia College, etc. He received the degree ofLL.D. in 1831, from Harvard, and in 1835 from Columbia. He died February 20, 1843.