Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

SAVANNAH, May 13.

Federal Circuit Court.

WILLIAM J. HOBBY,

VS.

DAY & HELEY.

This was an action brought in the fifth circuit court of the United States, by the Plaintiff, William J. Hobby, late post master at Augusta, against the defendants Ambrose Day and James Heley, for a false and malicious libel, published in a paper edited and printed by them, entitled Louisville Gazette, and Republican Trumpet; wherein the plaintiff, then post master, was charged in substance with being in the habit of committing alarming abuses in his office, with detaining and sometimes suppressing letters: with sending newspapers of a republican complexion by wrong routes, destroying or detaining them till they became useless; with REFUSING to deliver the papers of the defendants to their subscribers in Augusta, and other abuses which the publication insinuated, had increased to such a degree as to occasion numerous complaints and to become of public notoriety.

On charges of this high and criminal nature, which if true, would necessarily involve the guilt of perjury, as they could not be committed without a violation of his oath of office. the plaintiff thought proper to afford the defendants an opportunity of producing their proofs in a court of justice, and on Tuesday last the cause came on for trial in this city, when numerous as it was pretended had been the abuses, as generally as they were alledged to be known, not a single witness was produced to establish any one of the allegations, nor was the minutest evidence offered of a COMPLAINT against the office having ever existed. but the whole publication appeared to be totally without foundation, and to have originated in diabolical wickedness and deliberate malice.

After a short argument by Mr. Bulloch for the defendants, and Mr. Walker for the plaintiff, the cause was committed to a jury of upright, impartial and honest men, many of whom, though not agreeing in POLITICAL sentiments with the plaintiff, rightly considered and justly estimated the sacred right of individual reputation, felt themselves bound by eternal principles of justice, and who after retiring for a few moments, returned a verdict for the plaintiff, damages two thousand dollars.