selected for their legal experience and ability, it should not be expected that 
procedural niceties were preserved in their operations or that distinctions of a 
formal nature were closely observed. For instance, no distinction might be 
made between a "petition and appeal" and a "petition for leave to appeal." 380 
Likewise, the lines between a complaint and an appeal might be blurred. 361 
This procedural laxity also appears when the Lords in a proceeding by petition, 
not denominated an appeal, voided a judgment of the Tangier Mayor's 
Court as coram non judice. 862 
Of the nearly sixty appeals which came before the Committee and the 
Council, in only twenty-six were conciliar orders of affirmance or reversal 
issued. 383 Of this group, equally divided between affirmances 364 and reversals, 
360 s ee Witham v. Rex, where the appeal of 
Witham was denied below, but his petition 
relating the circumstances of the proceedings 
below was treated as a "petition and appeal." 
There was no specific mention made of granting 
an appeal (CSP, Col., 1685-88, #94, 95, 
97, 113). Contrariwise, in the appeals of 
Brenton against Lawson and Wilkinson, appeals 
were granted below (see supra, n. 187), 
and security given, but the Council Board 
rather redundantly allowed of appeals in the 
two seizures (2 APC, Col., #480). 
381 In Richier v. Goddard, the respondent, arriving 
in Bermuda as governor in August, 
1693, demanded of the appellant as acting 
governor as half the profits of the 
government since appellant had received his 
commission. Upon the refusal of this demand, 
Richier was arrested and confined for a period 
before release on parole, and his goods were 
seized. Richier petitioned that his property be 
restored on giving security to answer any 
action in England and that evidence be allowed 
to be collected in his defense. The petition was 
granted by the Council, and execution thereof 
was referred to the Committee (CSP, Col., 
1653-96, #911). The Committee treated this 
petition as an appeal; Governor Goddard was 
ordered to permit Richier to come to England 
to prosecute his appeal on giving security, and 
no obstructions were to be made to the examination 
of witnesses and the taking of depositions 
in the island (Ibid., #924; PC 2/ 
75/377). For a fuller account of the prosecution 
complained of by Richier see CSP, Col., 
i6g6-gj, #733. In addition to the seizure 
of property by Goddard without process of 
law, Nicholas Trott at the instigation of Goddard 
had obtained two judgments against 
Richier at the December, 1693, Assizes. These 
judgments were declared null and void in 
December, 1699, upon a hearing by the Committee 
for Hearing Appeals (PC 2/77/444). 
The appeal appears to have been dropped as 
far as the complaints against Goddard are concerned. 
However, this "appeal" was instrumental 
in effecting the recall of Goddard as 
governor of Bermuda (CSP, Col., 1696-o.y, 
#1028). 
382 The £$0 judgment voided was recovered 
against Sir John Mordaunt for defamation, but 
it appeared that the defamatory words were 
spoken out of the jurisdiction of the Tangier 
court. The Lords Committee was motivated by 
a petition of Edward Hughs that the Tangier 
court be ordered to pay petitioner the £50 
deposited there. The Committee also consulted 
an answer of Mordaunt and a report of the 
crown law officers in the matter (CO 391/4/ 
336-37)- Attorney General Sawyer had advised 
earlier that an appeal would lie from proceedings 
of the court of Tangier to the King 
in Council (CSP, Dom., 1684-85, 76-77). 
For the Tangier court system see Routh, 
Tangier, 1661-1684 (1912), 118-20. 
363 Four appeals entered before 1696 were 
heard by the Committee for Hearing Appeals 
after the Committee of Trade and Plantations 
had been dissolved. These appeals were Holder 
v. Coates (PC 2/76/241, 573); Richier v. 
Trott (PC 2/75/365, 377; PC 2/76/241; PC 
2/77/12, 368, 393, 396, 444); Brenton v. 
Lawson (2 APC, Col., #480); Brenton v. 
Wilkinson (ibid.). 
364 In Scott v. Dyer, although the judgment 
below was affirmed and the appeal dismissed, 
respondent was ordered to repay to appellant 
a certain sum which respondent confessed he 
had received in excess of his just demands by 
the judgment of the Barbados Court of Common 
Pleas (PC 2/71/556).