Although John Jay had, as noted below, been reassured of the loyalty of Sir James Jay, the two brothers can hardly be said to have reconciled, for James continued to behave in ways that embarrassed John and contravened his policies. Sir James contacted first John Adams, then Benjamin Franklin, notifying them that the British had offered to exchange him for one of two British officers captured at Yorktown, either Banastre Tarleton or Francis Dundas, a well-connected British officer then in London on parole. In November he also wrote Adams acknowledging receipt through him of a letter (not found) from his brother John informing him that “injurious suspicions were entertained of me by some people in America.” He denied all allegations and referred Adams to the duc de Vauguyon, French minister to Holland, who would “satisfy you on those points.”1

After Franklin had arranged his exchange for Dundas, James came to Paris in early December 1782. There, he avoided his brother but approached French officials with various schemes. He attempted to sell his naval invention to the marquis de Castries and used this offer to bolster his credentials as a patriotic American. He then asked the comte de Vergennes to vouch for him in America and sought a meeting to discuss his scheme for a commercial monopoly, exploiting his brother’s prestige to help clinch the deal. Vergennes refused.2

Sir James then contacted Edmond Charles Genêt, premier commis of the Bureau of Interpretation. According to Genêt’s later recollections, James claimed that “John had always been opposed to the Independence of the United States,” and “hated France as much as his ancestors who were Huguenots, and that if he could he would procure a reconciliation between England and her old colonies in America and baffle all the expectations of France by an alliance between the two countries,” amounting virtually to a “reunion,” comments calculated to intensify French suspicions about John Jay’s independent course as a negotiator.3

Sir James became aware that French fear that Americans would return to trading almost exclusively with British merchants, who were able to extend the traditional longterm credits to American businessmen that French merchants could not afford, had led to government plans to subsidize certain French firms so they could compete in America by offering longer-term credits than was customary in France. Sir James began discussing his own trade project with the newly appointed Controller General, Henri François d’Ormesson, in the spring of 1783.4 He proposed that the French government hasten the development of French-American trade connections by similarly supporting a few American commercial houses interested in trading with France, one of which might be a firm of his own (not yet even existing on paper). Such an arrangement, he argued, would make it possible for the French to compete with the formidable Tory-British mercantile connection that was certain to reestablish itself in America. Ormesson sent Vergennes a memorandum about the conversation, but nothing materialized.5

While carrying on these negotiations behind his brother’s back, James was also seeking to persuade Dutch businessmen to establish trade outlets throughout America. He had undoubtedly raised the subject with his friend Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas while at The Hague, and continued to pursue it in correspondence with him from Paris.6 Discouraged by his lack of progress on the Continent, Sir James returned to London by early October 1783, where he continued to avoid his brother during John’s visit to England and complicated some of his efforts to settle a Jay family inheritance there.7