might obtain review by the Governor and Council. From any judgment, sentence, 
or decree of the Governor and Council, in either law or equity, where 
the real value in dispute exceeded sterling an appeal lay to the King in 
Council following the commission and instructions to Governor Nicholson. 86 
This law was short-lived, being repealed by an October, 1695, enactment. 
The latter statute altered the minimum for appeals from both the Provincial 
and the Chancery Courts to the Governor and Council to sterling or 
10,000 pounds of tobacco. In case of affirmance of a Provincial Court judgment, 
no further appeal to the King in Council was allowed, unless the determination 
exceeded or 60,000 pounds of tobacco according to the commission 
and instructions to Governor Nicholson. Appeal to the King in Council in 
chancery causes was also provided for where the original debt or damages 
exceeded the above minimum. 87 
In addition to the various commissions and instructions for individual colonies 
the Privy Council might make a general order applicable to appeals from 
any colonial source. Such an order was issued in January, 1683/4, directing that 
in the future no appeals should be admitted at the Council Board from any 
of the plantations unless sufficient security were first given by appellants, as 
well at the Board as in the respective plantations, to prosecute the appeal effectually 
and to stand the award of the King in Council. 88 
From this survey of the regulations imposed upon colonial appeals by commissions 
and instructions, it is apparent that several features of the existing 
Channel Islands regulations were adopted. Certain categories of subject matter, 
viz., criminal causes, were totally excluded by implication or limited to fines 
imposed for misdemeanors above specified minimums. Appealable minimums 
were likewise set up for civil causes. The same period of fourteen days in 
which to take an appeal was adopted. Provision was also made for security by 
appellant effectually to prosecute and to answer the condemnation and award 
of costs. Of course, certain of these provisions may have been adopted directly 
from the civil law, i. e., the limit on the period in which to take an appeal. 
However, from the opinion of Attorney General Sawyer mentioned above, 89 
it seems more likely that these colonial regulations were based upon Jersey 
and Guernsey precedents. 
The royal commissions and instructions issued during this period were 
primarily concerned with the establishment of judicial hierarchies in the 
86 38 Md. Archives, 6. At first it was proposed 
that common law appeals to the Governor and 
Council have a £ 100 sterling or 40,000 
pounds tobacco minimum pursuant to the 
royal instruction, but the lower house was of 
the opinion that the lower minimum would 
be o£ service to the country (19 ibid., 83). 
87 38 Md. Archives, 59. This temporary act 
was continued by several later acts; see ibid., 
78, 84. 
SB PC 2/70/108; CSP, Col., 1681-85, #1518. 
89 See supra, pp. 60—61,