mediums of communication with both the King and the colonies. Information 
and assistance was obtained of administrative bodies such as the Lords 
Commissioners of the Treasury, of the Admiralty, or of the Customs. For 
legal opinions the crown law officers, the chief justices of King's Bench and 
Common Pleas, and the judge of the High Court of Admiralty were available. 
In ecclesiastical matters, the Bishop of London, who exercised ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction over the colonies, afforded a ready consultant. 8 
During the first years of the Lords Committee's career no colonial appeals 
were brought before it. 9 But beginning with the year 1680 appeals were frequently 
heard and determined by it. During the entire period from 1674/5 t0 
1696 almost sixty appeals are to be found before the Privy Council and the 
Committee of Trade and Plantations. 10 Of the continental colonies, appeals 
were brought from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia; 
u of the insular possessions, they came from Barbados, Jamaica, Bermuda, 
and the Leeward Islands. 12 The appeals were both civil and criminal in 
nature and from common law, chancery, and admiralty courts, as well as from 
royal commissioners. l 3 
8 See Bieber, op. cit., 48 et seq. 
9 For a possible exception see the Pawtuxet- 
Warwick controversy, injra, p. 121 et seq. 
10 The total number of appeals is dependent 
upon the statistical method employed in deciding 
what is to be considered as one appeal. 
For instance, the Order in Council of August 
11, 1681 (PC 2/69/343), which ordered respondents 
to appear in appeals made in fourteen 
seizures of Edward Randolph in New 
England, is considered as fourteen separate 
appeals. Criteria include the parties involved, 
the subject matter, the administrative treatment 
by the Committee. Goldringham and 
Lane v. Rex (PC 2/71/174), a case of £50 
fines respectively inflicted upon two individuals 
for the same conduct is regarded as one appeal. 
Knight v. Hallett (PC 2/72/666), an 
appeal from three chancery decrees, is treated 
as one appeal. All appeals entered in the Privy 
Council register are included in arriving at 
this total, regardless of whether they were 
prosecuted. 
11 Massachusetts Bay led with eighteen appeals, 
but fourteen of this total were accounted for 
by those of Edward Randolph, which were 
never prosecuted, and no further mention of 
them is found after the respondents were 
ordered to put in an appearance (PC 2/69/ 
343). New Hampshire furnished six appeals, 
New York four, Virginia two. An "appeal" 
was also taken from the judgment of royal 
commissioners to settle a boundary controversy 
between the proprietors of Warwick and those 
of Pawtuxet in New England. 
12 Sixteen appeals came from Barbados, five 
from Jamaica, three from Bermuda, two from 
the Leeward Islands. 
13 The judicial supervision of the Lords Committee 
also extended into the field of piracy 
trials and courts martial, although such jurisdiction 
is of little importance for our purpose. 
In July, 1676, the Committee considered the 
case of John Dean, tried for piracy by Governor 
Vaughan of Jamaica as Vice-Admiral (CO 
391/1/167-68). After taking the advice of 
Judge Lloyd of the High Court of Admiralty, 
the Lords reported that it did not appear that 
before 27 Henry VIII, c. 4, and 28 Henry VIII, 
c. 15, pirates were de facto tried by the civil 
law; that since these statutes trials were held 
only by commissions of oyer and terminer 
under the Great Seal. Therefore, it was 
ordered in Council that execution of Dean's 
sentence be stopped and that a new trial be 
held under a commission of oyer and terminer 
being dispatched. This method was also to be 
employed in all future cases (1 APC, Col., 
#1089, 1091; CO 391/1/176; CSP, Col., 
1675-76, #993-95. 1001). In October, 1682, 
the Lords Committee considered the acquittal 
of Captain Christopher Billop in court martial 
proceedings for embezzlement of negroes and 
merchandise from the interloper Providence