William Dickinson asks the court to set aside an 1831 judgment for damages in favor of three men who hired two slaves from him. He admits that he failed to deliver the slaves because one of them, Ralph, ran away, but charges the hirees with evading the truth surrounding Ralph's elopement. When the men brought suit against him, the seventy-two-year-old Dickinson lived forty miles from the courthouse and could not attend the proceedings because of illness and old age. He now avers that he can produce a witness who will describe how the men's agent "rode up into your orator's yard intoxicated, & in a noisy, boisterous manner, went round to the negro quarters, rushing into some or all of them, cursing the negroes for having (as he said) harboured Ralph, terrifying them, & threatening them violently if they did not produce him." Dickinson requests a new trial and the "opportunity to adduce the rebutting testimony" that will absolve him of any negligence.
Result: Partially granted; injunction dissolved; denied.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
