ernor Hope, of Bermuda, brought to the attention of the Board of Trade the 
conflict between the terms of his commission as vice-admiral and a confirmed 
Bermuda act directing all appeals to the King in Council. 308 In 1731, in North 
Carolina, one William Little, in a complaint to the Governor and Council, 
stated that appeals in all cases involving the Acts of Trade from the plantation 
admiralty courts were to the King in Council. This was on the ground 
that these Acts gave no jurisdiction to the High Court of Admiralty, although 
making violations triable in the plantation admiralty courts. 309 In a 1735/6 
draft of an Act of Parliament it was provided that in actions brought in the 
Massachusetts Vice-Admiralty Court for cutting woods reserved for royal 
naval use appeals were to lie to the King in Council. 310 However, in an addition 
to a draft of an Act for the Preservation of the Woods in America, made 
by Surveyor of the Woods Dunbar (1742/3), appeals were to be allowed from 
that Massachusetts court to the High Court of Admiralty. 311 In 1742 Governor 
Gooch of Virginia, answering queries of the Board of Trade, declared that the 
Vice-Admiralty Court was held by a commission of the High Court of 
Admiralty and that an appeal therefrom lay to the King in Council. 312 
In the same year, 1742, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty drafted 
a bill for obviating doubts touching the authority and jurisdiction of the admiralty 
courts in the American plantations. As originally drafted this bill 
$814). This view of concurrent jurisdiction is 
also alleged to be supported by the New York 
Vice-Admiralty Court records; see Hough, op. 
cit., xvii. But the only case set forth therein in 
which an appeal was taken to the King in 
Council, Norris v. Four Casks, etc., of Snuff 
{ibid., 8), was an appeal to the Lords Commissioners 
for Prize Appeals. See supra, n. 304. 
Compare Place v. Lading of the Elizabeth 
where the King in Council was mentioned and 
rejected as a hypothetical appellate body from 
a sentence denying lawful prize {ibid., 78). 
This use of misleading statutory terminology 
may explain the cases cited by Andrews in the 
introduction to Rec. Vice-Adm. Ct. R. 1., 1716- 
52 (ed. D. S. Towle, 1936), 21. The King in 
Council was regarded in some circles as less 
likely to uphold condemnations. Lieutenant- 
Governor Hope (Bermuda) to R. Noden; Oct. 
7, 1724 {Rawlinson MS, A 484/141-42). 
308 Writing concerning the condemnation of 
the ship Salamander in the Vice-Admiralty 
Court for illegal trade, Hope stated that: "The 
Governour's Commission as Vice Admiral does 
direct that in all causes tryed in any of the 
Courts of Admiralty here the party who is 
cast is to be allowed ane appeal to the High 
Court of Admiralty in England, and here is 
an Act of Assembly confirm'd at home directing 
all appeals to be made to the King in 
Council; which very Act I am order'd to have 
a particular regard to by my instructions in 
the cases of fines and penalties impos'd here 
for misdemeanours which with humble submission 
I do imagine does not comprehend 
the tryal in question. But so it is that the 
Judges have granted ane appeal with [out?] 
distintion to whom: or in what manner. I 
found it wou'd have been to no purpose for 
me to have interpos'd my authority by directing 
the appeal into its proper channel." In 
any case, the appellant would have complained 
to the King in Council {CSP, Col, 1724-2s, 
#407). 
309 3 Col. Rec. No. Car. 229. At a slightly 
earlier date agents Yonge and Lloyd of South 
Carolina were instructed inter alia "to inform 
yourselves of the method of appealing from 
the Court of Admiralty and other the Courts 
of Judicature in this province" {CSP, Col., 
1722-23, #130). 
siojcTP, 1734/5-1741, 85-86. 
311 CO 5/883/EE 78. 
312 CO 5/1325/ V 32.