Jacques-Donatien Ray

Jacques-Donatien Ray (1726 – 1803) are French Père of the American Révolution , which will be later adverse with the French revolution. His/her son of the same name, is also known in America like James Ray , become thereafter American citizen installed with New York – New Jersey.

Origin

Born in the port city from Nantes in Loire-Atlantique in 1726, Jacques-Donatien Ray became one of the richest aristocrats and most powerful in all the France. He made fortune in the trade and, in 1750, he acquired castle of Chaumont where he established a factory of glass and a factory of ground pottery. In 1772, Ray signed a contract with the famous Italian sculptor Jean-Baptiste Nini to supervise his factories and to establish the production of medallions of portrait: a sculpture in miniature made in Terracotta.

War of independence of the United States

Jacques-Donatien Ray is used the king Louis XVI at the Court of Versailles as governor of the Invalides to Paris and like large Master of the National Forestry Commission as Blois. After the declaration of independence of the American colonies of the Great Britain the July 4th 1776, emissary are sent in France by the new US government to obtain the assistance of the French king. Although impatient to see the Great Britain weakened, Louis XVI is on a tended political line. He understood that the support of the rebellion in America was in contradiction of the colonial policy of France and could generate revolts in a great number of the colonies Frenchwoman. As such, the American delegation could not be officially recognized at the French court.

Sympathizer of the American cause for independence, Jacques Donatien Ray employs his position to act as an intermediary between the American king and representatives. But, Ray made much more than to support the existence of talks and to exert its influence. In addition to implying the king and the important administrators of the French government, Ray provided, free, a manor with all its personnel for the Americans in the Parisian suburbs of Passy.

In December 1776, Benjamin Franklin is sent to Paris with the principal goal to obtain the French assistance for the United States. It quickly develops a close connection with Ray and its family and lived with the field of Ray with Passy during several years. On several occasions, Franklin spent time to the luxurious castle of Ray to Chaumont in the Loire Valley. Because of their friendship, Jacques-Donatien Ray obtained from the king Louis XVI the support of the American cause with money and French armed forces.

With Benjamin Franklin, Jacques-Donatien Ray works with John Adams, Silas Deane, the marquis of Fayette and the count of Vergennes to help the Guerre of independence of the United States. For an aristocrat at that time and of his age, which Ray did for the Americans was astonishing. In conscience, he believed in the equality of all the men and supported this belief by massively financing with his personal money the purchase of weapons, of the provisioning and clothing for the incipient American armed forces. Ray was invited by the US government to deal with the combined equipment and the management of the French and American naval fleet. Working narrowly with the admiral Charles Henri d' Estaing, the commander of the French fleet. The support of Ray for the American cause will go until converting in its shipyards a trading vessel into a man-of-war given to the United States under the name of USS Bonhomme Richard for the captain John Paul Jones.

Once the war finished with the treated of 1783 signed with Paris, Jacques-Donatien Ray made make a medallion with the portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Jean-Baptiste Nini. It is today, the profile more identified the Franklin one. And, when Franklin was recalled in America in 1785, Ray honoured it with a portrait painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis hung from now on in the National Portrait Gallery with the Smithsonian Institution with Washington.

The son of Jacques-Donatien Ray, bearing the same name (1760-1840) went to America in 1785. There, it acquired a property in the county of Otsego, in the State of New York where it built the first sawmill. Known in America like James , the translation in English for Jacques, Ray wire also made great purchases of grounds in America and, in 1789, he married Grace Coxe de Burlington originating in the New Jersey and became American citizen. He was the first president and cofounder of the Room of agriculture of the State of New York. The towns of Ray and Chaumont, both in the State of New York are baptized of its name.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, the political ideals that Jacques-Donatien Ray cherished returned to haunt it. Enormous financial aid that it had obtained from the king Louis XVI for the war of American independence has to create massive debts which put in bankruptcy the government of France. After one period of dryness which caused a great famine in 1788, there was no more no money available so that the French Treasury, for as in the past, subsidizes the flour and allows that the cheap bread prevents a famine of mass. Because of the generosity of France and love of Jacques-Donatien Ray for America, it involuntarily helped to prepare the ground for the French revolution of 1789, revolution which had an enormous impact on its own finances, since that the new revolutionary government will seize its fortune of which the castle of Chaumont-sur-Loire.

Without the assistance of Jacques-Donatien Ray and France, the United States of America would probably not have gained their independence. When the British in 1812 invade the United States, Jacques-Donatien Ray wire and the government of France have to help America again during the Guerre of 1812.

Sources

L.H. Everts, Jefferson County History (1878).
Thomas J. Schaeper, The Life off Jacques-Donatien Leray of Chaumont , 1995.

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