Vice-Admiralty Court sentences were dismissed by the Council Board. In one 
case the dismissal was without prejudice to the petitioner prosecuting his appeal 
in the High Court of Admiralty; 305 in the other case there was a similar 
dismissal, but without prejudice to the prosecution of an appeal at common 
law or otherwise. 308 From these two cases it appears that the Council Board 
voluntarily limited its jurisdiction to cases under the Navigation Acts, declining 
jurisdiction in instance and prize cases. 
From this welter of conflicting opinions it would appear that the true view 
was that appeals in Navigation Acts cases lay both to the King in Council and 
to the High Court of Admiralty. This was definitely asserted to be the case 
by the Board of Trade in 1723. 307 But this view of concurrent jurisdiction apparently 
did not receive circulation in the colonies. In 1724 Lieutenant-Gov- 
the plantations were always made to the High 
Court of Admiralty, the authority of the 
Lords Commissioners for Prize Appeals being 
confined to cases adjudged in the Court of 
Admiralty of England; that in 1708 the 
form of the commission was varied and appeal 
was given directly from the plantation 
vice-admiralty courts to the Queen in her 
Privy Council by a clause in the Act for the 
Encouragement of the Trade to America (6 
Anne, c. 37, s. 8). However, it was maintained 
that the intent of the statute was not 
to vary the judicature by which appeals were 
ultimately to be determined, but only to take 
away the intermediate appeal to the High 
Court of Admiralty. This reply would seem 
to indicate that the appeal taken in the Vice- 
Admiralty Court to the King in his Privy 
Council was in fact an appeal to the Lords 
Commissioners for Prize Appeals in the terms 
of the statute, not an appeal to the "King 
in Council" as commonly used. See Appellants' 
Case in 1 Lee Prize Appeals Cases 
(N.Y.P.L.), 105-6; a manuscript version is 
in PC 1/58/B-83. Note also the letter of 
Dudley Woodbridge, Barbados Vice-Admiralty 
Court judge, concerning "an appeal from my 
judgement here to Her Majesty in Privy 
Council, which I granted in pursuance to the 
Act for the encouragement of the trade to 
America" (CSP, Col., 1711-12, #145). 
303 PC 2/88/279, 303. On November 11, 
1721, one Captain John Owen had presented a 
petition to be heard on an appeal from two 
admiralty court sentences of July 18 and 
December 1, 1720. Given upon an information 
by one Captain Smart, they decreed that 
petitioner pay Smart for the freight for some 
negroes, not allowing out of said freight full 
crew wages or provisions for the negroes (PC 
2/87/360). 
306 PC 2/88/303. On November n, 1721, 
James Littleton et al., owners of the ship Pearl, 
in a petition to the Council Board, set forth 
the condemnation of said ship as lawful capture 
by a May 6, 1720, vice-admiralty court 
decree on an information brought by Captain 
Smart; petitioners prayed to be let in to prove 
their interest in the ship and that thereupon 
sentence be reversed and respondent ordered 
to restore the ship or the value thereof (PC 
2/87/360). On March 22, 1722/3, when the 
Committee considered the appeal, counsel for 
respondent objected to proceeding to hear 
the cause on the merits. Consideration of the 
objection was deferred until July 12, 1723, 
when counsel were heard thereon and dismissal 
advised (PC 2/88/280). 
307 In May, 1723, Isaac Miranda and Fernando 
da Costa petitioned the King in Council for 
satisfaction for some 52 casks of indigo seized 
and condemned in the Jamaica Vice-Admiralty 
Court in March, 1717/18, on the ground that 
the indigo was French (CSP, Col., 1722-23, 
#545). On December 22, 1725, the Board, 
enclosing a transcript of the Admiralty Court 
proceedings (ibid., 1724-2;, #565 i), stated 
to the Council Board that it would not take it 
upon itself to enter into the legality of the 
sentence or the nature of the circumstances that 
attended the seizure or condemnation of the 
petitioner's effects, "these matters being cognizable 
only by appeal either to His Majesty in 
Council or to His High Court of Admiralty 
here." But it was advised that since indigo was 
a necessary material in many manufactures, all 
possible encouragement should be given to the 
importation thereof into Great Britain (ibid.,