Wilson’s Red Book, 11.[†]
Court of Quarter Sessions of Delaware, Dover County.
December, 1793.
Page 17
At the trial the Negro (who was agreed to have been freed in Maryland 8 years ago) was offered as a witness to prove the assault, there being nobody else to prove the facts for the State. Objected that she was within the meaning of the Act of Assembly, February 3, 1787; that it was the policy of the state to exclude a people at enmity with the whites, without education and void of principle from swearing against white people, and relied upon the case of Collins and Hall in Sussex.
The attorney general urged that ex necessitate rei she ought to be admitted, and mentioned the case of an owner of a note’s being a witness to prove the tearing for the state. — That by the Act of Assembly (1787) Negroes must have liberty to obtain redress etc., which could not be unless they were allowed as witnesses for the state — and that by the common law no color nor profession excluded a person from giving testimony.
BASSETT, C. J.,
said a majority of the Court were for admitting her ex necessitate rei — that she was a good witness by the common law, and not excluded by the Act of Assembly from obtaining redress in that way, but, if the assault had been on a white man, he would not have admitted her.
Another witness proved it was the Negro’s own assault.
Verdict not guilty, and the court refused to certify.