John Jay was one of the four members present on 21 December 1776 when the Committee for Detecting Conspiracies ordered the local authorities in Albany to examine four men presumed to be disloyal. Participating in this first action taken against Peter Van Schaack because of his political beliefs was an unhappy duty for Jay, for the two had been close friends since they studied together at King’s College and then became rising young New York City lawyers. Although his public responsibilities forced Jay to play an important role in the series of proceedings that led eventually to Van Schaack’s banishment to England, their friendship survived the crisis of the war years. Much later, after Van Schaack had been allowed to come home and had regained his citizenship, he gave strong support to Jay’s campaign for the governorship.1

Some men feigned neutrality to mask pro-British inclinations, but Van Schaack was so genuinely impartial that he was utterly immobilized. “Although he decidedly condemned the conduct of the Home government,” his son reported, “he was yet opposed to taking up arms in opposition to it.” When forced to travel from Kinderhook, to which he had moved in 1775, to make his appearance in Albany, his conscience would not permit him to swear allegiance to the state of New York. He suffered thereafter much the same fate as if he had been an aggressive and scheming Tory. He was sent to Boston, where many men found guilty of disloyalty were being held. From there he was called back for a hearing before the provincial convention in Kingston and was then paroled to Kinderhook. He remained there until the Banishing Act of 13 June 1778 forced him to leave the part of New York State that was held by the Patriots. He journeyed to England and did not return to his native land until after the war ended.2

During this difficult period in Peter Van Schaack’s life, he remained in occasional contact with Jay. In 1777 Jay helped him by forwarding a copy of the instructions to return from Boston, the original having gone astray, but he was unable to oblige when Van Schaack sought permission in March 1778 to take his sick wife to New York City. The men were out of touch with one another between 1778, when Van Schaack left the country, and 1782, when the exile wrote a cautious letter to Jay in Paris. Jay’s prompt and warm reply was the beginning of regular correspondence, and they were reunited when Jay made his 1783 visit to London. When Peter Van Schaack returned to the United States in 1785, Jay came aboard his ship in New York harbor to welcome him home.3