John Jay vs. Myles Cooper, 1764

     The document printed below relates to one of the few incidents which blemished JJ’s reputation as “a youth remarkably sedate.” According to Jay family tradition, “a few weeks before he was to take his degree” in the spring of 1764, JJ was present in the college hall at King’s when some of his fellow students “either through a silly spirit of mischief, or in revenge for some fault imputed to the steward, began to break the table.” Myles Cooper (1737-85), Samuel Johnson’s successor as President of King’s, came to investigate. Cooper lined up the students and interrogated each in turn. None admitted any knowledge of the identity of the vandals until Cooper came to JJ. When asked who the culprits were, JJ replied: “I do not choose to tell you, sir.” Cooper, the story went, “expostulated and threatened, but in vain.”

     When the students were called before a faculty committee, JJ presented their defense. Like all other students, JJ had been required to sign a promise of obedience to the college statutes, but he contended that his refusal to identify the students who had destroyed the table did not violate that oath “and that the president had no right to exact from him any thing not required by the statutes.” The faculty disagreed, and JJ and his companions were “suspended and rusticated.”

     JJ was allowed to return to King’s in time to receive his degree on 22 May 1764. Cooper, JJ’s son recorded, “by the kindness of his reception, suffered him to perceive that he had not by his conduct forfeited any part of his good opinion.” William Jay pointed out, with even greater satisfaction, that JJ had “retained among his papers to the day of his death a copy of the statutes, from which it appears that the conduct for which he was suspended was not even indirectly forbidden by them.” JJ’s copy of those regulations, signed by him and Myles Cooper, bears out that interpretation. 

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