The Channel Islands regulations are significant chiefly in that they embodied 
the framework of a workable policy which was extensible to America. 
There were, however, certain additional adjustments necessary in royal 
plantations, for while the local judicial machinery in the Channel Islands and 
its course of proceeding was as ancient and well settled as that of the realm 
itself, the judicature in the new world was undeveloped, and the process of 
review within a particular jurisdiction had to be fixed as a preliminary for 
subsequent review by the crown. As a result, the commissions and instructions 
to the governors, which were a most important factor in creating and defining 
conciliar jurisdiction, dealt with two distinct phases of the appeal problem— 
the appellate system within the colony itself and the arrangements for appeal 
from the province to the crown. The former phase being the foundation of 
the conciliar judicial hierarchy, we shall examine its regulation first. 
In this category we find that royal commissions and instructions were utilized 
both to establish and to delimit the appellate powers of the governors 
and councils and to prohibit the exercise of the same powers by colonial assemblies. 
The earliest instructions as to appeals, issued to Jamaica in 1678 and 
to Virginia in 1679, ordered that appeals be allowed in cases of error from the 
colony courts to the Governor and Council. 37 By the 1681 instructions to 
Jamaica, appeals were to be permitted in cases of error from the island courts 
to the Governor and Council, provided the sum appealed for exceeded ,£lOO 
sterling and that security be first given by appellant to answer such charges 
as should be awarded in case of affirmance. 38 The same provisions were contained 
in the 1686 Leeward Islands and the 1689 Barbados instructions, with 
the exception that the minimum amount was raised to 39 In the similar 
1690 Bermuda instructions was fixed as a minimum. 40 In the 1692 Jamaica 
instructions, substantially the same as earlier except for a minimum, 
provision was made that such of the council as were judges of the court from 
which the appeal was made should not be allowed to vote on such appeal, but 
might be present at the hearing to give their reasons for the judgment below. 41 
In most continental colonies the governor's commission was the instrument 
et couttirnes de Vlsle de Jersey, 233; 2 Hoskins, 
Charles the Second in the Channel Islands, 
397-98. 
37 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions to British 
Colonial Governors, 1670—iyy6 (1935), #442. 
38 Ibid., #445. At the hearing of these appeals 
any three or more of the judges of the Supreme 
Court were to be present to inform and assist 
the court. This provision was peculiar to the 
Jamaica instructions. The instruction maintained 
until 1692, although in 1685 the minimum 
amount was altered to X3OO sterling. 
The instruction issued upon the petition of 
Jamaican merchants and planters {CO 391/3/ 
241). 
39 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #445. Both 
instructions continued until 1702. 
40 Ibid., $445. Note that the clause "in cases 
of error" was omitted. For the later significance 
of this omission see the discussion of Cunningham 
v. Forsey, infra, p. 390 et seq. 
41 Ibid., #448. This addition was the result of 
a proposal by Governor Beeston; see CSP, Col., 
i6Bg-g2, #2400, 2407.