In 1757, he was appointed Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Queens County, but left the office the next year.
[2] Opinion in the colony was sharply divided in 1775 when Massachusetts rebelled against British rule, and Judge Jones came down squarely on the side of loyalty to Crown authority.
On October 23, 1779, the New York State Legislature passed an Act of Attainder which included ex-Judge Jones's name.
There he wrote a History of New York During the Revolutionary War and of the Leading Events in the Other Colonies at That Period.
Jones singled out for particular attention the evacuation of the village of Hempstead, the recovery of escaped slaves by their Rebel owners, and the abandonment of Britain's Iroquois allies in northern New York.