FOREWORD 
In this study an attempt has been made to describe and evaluate at length 
the Privy Council of England as a judicial body exercising appellate jurisdiction 
over the courts of the various American plantations during the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries. Prior to this volume no attempt had been 
made to utilize even a small part of all the available material, largely manuscript, 
bearing on this subject. Some writers of the local history school confined 
their attention to certain notable causes, such as Winthrop v. Lechmere, 
Leighton v. Frost or the Parsons' Cause. Other writers, concerned with particular 
colonies or public figures, discussed in passing such cases as Cunningham 
v. Forsey. Another group, in writing on the Privy Council's jurisdiction 
in a general manner, relied solely upon printed materials, principally the Acts 
of the Privy Council, Colonial. Treatises and case books on the constitutional 
law of the United States have invariably treated the doctrine of judicial review 
during the American colonial period in a superficial manner. No real effort 
was made by any of these writers to integrate the various records in the archives 
on this side of the Atlantic with the Privy Council records in London. 
Professor Julius Goebel, Jr., was the first to perceive the value to students 
of Anglo-American legal history of a thorough study of the appellate jurisdiction 
of the King in Council over the American colonies. The instant project 
has been carried out under his supervision and guidance. I am deeply indebted 
to him for the many demands I have made upon his extensive knowledge of 
English and colonial law and history. 
Considerable space has been devoted in this book to discussion of the Council's 
jurisdiction over the Channel Islands, as this constituted the core of all 
conciliar appellate jurisdiction and is a prerequisite for any consideration of 
plantation appeals. The insular colonies of the Caribbean have been treated 
at some length, since in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries these islands 
were economically and strategically more important than were the mainland 
colonies and were regarded as such in English administrative circles. Although 
it is sometimes exposed to political maneuvering, appellate jurisdiction 
is a matter of law, not of politics. Consequently, it has been necessary to 
employ technical language, much of it concerned with problems of procedural, 
rather than substantive, law. Such usage, while it renders more difficult 
the task of the lay reader, recognizes that the legal problems incident to historical