Excerpt from The Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society, 1922, Vol. 27 Mr. Huntington proposed to introduce witnesses to prove Mr. Pike's general good character. Mr. Saltonstall objected, because the defendants did not propose to put Mr. Pike's general character in issue, and cited the opinion of Lord Abbott, that in a case of libel, it was not in the power of the plaintiff to go into general character, unless his general character' was impeached by the defendants. The Court inclined to the ground assumed by the defendants, and deemed such proof unnecessary, as the jury, by presumption of law must take the plaintiff's general character to be good, until it was impeached by the defendants. After a Short consultation, the Counsel for the Plaintiff waived the point, and proceeded to call witnesses, as to Mr. Pike's profession, and standing as necessary in order to enable the jury to estimate the damages he must in all probability sustain, if the facts contained in the libel were believed to be true. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.