Before leaving John Jay and his wife Sarah just after the result of the gubernatorial election of 1792 was known, I thought it would informative to present a letter from John to Sarah regarding his feelings about his loss.
About an hour ago I arrived here from Newport, which place I left on Friday last. The last letters which I have received from you are dated the 2d and 4th of this month. The expectations they intimate have not, it seems, been realized. A Hartford paper, which I have just read, mentions the result of the canvass; after hearing how the Otsego votes were circumstanced, I perceived clearly what the event would be. The reflection that the majority of the Electors were for me is a pleasing one; that injustice has taken place does not surprise me, and I hope will not affect you very sensibly. The intelligence found me perfectly prepared for it. Having nothing to reproach myself with in relation to this event, it shall neither discompose my temper, nor postpone my sleep. A few years more will put us all in the dust; and it will then be of more importance to me to have governed myself than to have governed the State.
I cannot believe that Jay was quite so sanguine about his loss as he said he was. President Washington in 1794 designated Jay to negotiate a treaty with Britain at a time when many provisions of the Treaty of Paris were not being carried out and another war seemed imminent. Although the Jay Treaty was not popular because it was deemed to be too generous to the British it did postpone a war until a time when the United States was slightly better prepared—1812. It barely squeaked by the Senate and probably destroyed any chance that Jay might have had to be president of the United States. Upon Jay’s return to New York in 1795 he found that he had been elected governor of New York.
