During his senior year, the young student had occasion to display that decision and firmness which at a later period shone so conspicuously in affairs of greater moment. Certain mischief-making classmates, perhaps to avenge themselves on the steward, undertook to break the table in the college hall. The noise produced by this operation reaching the ears of Dr. Cooper, the President, that arbitrary personage suddenly pounced upon them without leaving them a chance of escape. The young men were at once formed in a line and two questions--"Did you break the table? Do you know who did?"--were each answered by an emphatic "No," until they were put to Jay, the last but one in the line, who had indeed been present at the disturbance but took no part in it; to the first question he replied in the negative, to the second his answer was "Yes, sir," and to the further inquiry--"Who was it?"--he promptly said, "I do not choose to tell you, sir." The remaining student followed Jay's example. The two young men, after resisting the expostulations of the President, were summoned before the Faculty for trial, where Jay appeared for the defence. To the allegation that they had been guilty of violating their written promise, on their admission, of obedience to the college statutes, Jay responded that they were not required by those statutes to inform against their companions, and that therefore his refusal to do so was not an act of disobedience. Reasonable as this defence might appear, it, of course, failed to satisfy judges, clothed with executive powers, and anxious to punish the least disregard of their own authority, and the two delinquents were at once rusticated. At the termination of his sentence Jay returned to college, where his reception by the instructors proved that he had suffered no loss of their esteem. On the 15th of May, 1764, he was graduated with the highest collegiate honors.