Sir James Jay (October 16, 1732 – 1815) was an American physician and politician. He was brother of John Jay, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. While initially a supporter of American independence, he later changed his views becoming a Loyalist and went into exile in London after the Treaty of Paris recognised independence. Early life The Jays were a prominent merchant family in New York City, descended from Huguenots who had come to New York to escape religious persecution in France. In 1685 the Edict of Nantes had been revoked, thereby abolishing the rights of Protestants and confiscating their property. Among those affected was Jay's paternal grandfather, Augustus Jay. He moved from France to New York, where he built a successful merchant empire. Jay's father, Peter Jay, born in New York City in 1704, became a wealthy trader in furs, wheat, timber, and other commodities. James Jay was born in New York City; later the family moved to Rye, New York, when Peter Jay retired from business following a smallpox epidemic that had blinded two of his children. James' mother was Mary Van Cortlandt, who had married Peter Jay in 1728, in the Dutch Church. They had ten children together, seven of whom survived into adulthood. Mary's father, Jacobus Van Cortlandt, had been born in New Amsterdam in 1658. Cortlandt served on the New York General Assembly, was twice mayor of New York City, and also held a variety of judicial and military offices. Two of his children (the other one being his son Frederick) married into the Jay family. Career James Jay studied medicine in Edinburgh, and became a practicing physician. Along with William Smith, he was instrumental in obtaining the endowments for Benjamin Franklin's projected college in Philadelphia (now known as the University of Pennsylvania) in 1755, and King's College in New York (now Columbia University). For the purpose of soliciting contributions for the latter college, he visited England in 1762, where he was knighted by King George III in 1763. His writings include two pamphlets relating to the collections made for the colleges in America (1771 and 1774) and Reflections and Observations on the Gout (1772). Politics On October 7, 1778, Sir James was appointed by the New York State Assembly as one of the representatives from the Southern District in the New York State Senate, to fill the vacancy caused by the