| Summary: | Action for the slander that the plaintiff had broken into the defendant's home with a gun or had ordered his slave to do it. The defendant's counsel argued that before the slander there had been a general opinion in the neighbourhood that Nelson had ordered his slave to conduct the break-in. The judge accepted this as evidence to mitigate damages. Witnesses gave the general opinion that the plaintiff had procured the gun so as to prevent the defendant killing him with it and the defendant offered to prove that the plaintiff's slave had been tried and convicted for stealing the gun. This was rejected by the judge. The court found for the plaintiff and the defendant, having been denied a new trial on the grounds of error in the judge, appealed. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict, discussing the admissibility of evidence against white people from non-whites.
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