judicially could not be impeached in conciliar complaint proceedings. 400 An element of the limitation of conciliar jurisdiction to appeals is also to be found in the insistence upon definitive judgments below. In 1711 the Antigua Vice-Admiralty Court endeavored to refer a difficult case to the Queen in Council, but it was ordered that the court below proceed to judgment with liberty to either party to appeal. 401 In a 1718 Rhode Island cause an appeal was admitted, although no judgment had been entered upon two verdicts in the cause. The Committee deferred hearing until judgment should be entered upon the verdicts and transmitted under seal. 402 In Crump v. Martin the Antigua Court of Chancery was evenly divided on hearing the cause in February, 1721/2, so that no decree could issue. Both parties desiring an appeal, it was allowed of and a petition for a short day for a hearing was presented at the Council Board by the parties. 403 The Committee advised dismissal of the petition and a direction to the Court of Chancery to give judgment in the cause. 404 On the other hand in the New Hampshire-Massachusetts boundary appeal, as we shall see, when the commissioners gave no judgment, but made a return in the nature of a special verdict, there was no declination of jurisdiction 405 In several Channel Islands causes appeals were dismissed because the sentences appealed from were not definitive. 406 Such dismissal, however, might include leave to appeal from the forthcoming definitive sentence. 407 Inevitably insistence upon a definitive sentence below presented a loophole for deliberate prevention of appellate review. 408 Some attempts were made to confer original 2/83/22, 45). In Davis v. Warner it was recommended that the Deputy Collector of the Customs at St. John's, Antigua, be removed from office for his extraordinary conduct (PC 2/106/191, 222). See also Bradley v. Bontein, in which the Commissioners for Victualling the Navy sought to influence conciliar judgment on an appeal concerning seized supplies destined for royal navy consumption (PC 2/97/355; PC 2/99/66). i«o pc 2/83/332. 401 Rcgina v. Chester (PC 2/83/287, 295). 402 Carr v. Holmes (PC 2/86/174, 194). See also Flint v. Willett, a 1718 Rhode Island petition for leave to appeal, where the Committee declared that "the proceedings as well on the part of the petitioner as of the said Willet are erroneous, and without form, and no judgement regularly given," so that an appeal would not afford relief (PC 2/86/154, 164, 170). At common law no writ of error lay unless there was a judgment or an award in the nature of a judgment (Coke, First Institute, 288b). 403 PC 2/88/221. 404 PC 2/88/280, 302. 405 See infra, p. 448. 406 See du Heaume v. de Carteret (PC 2/79/ 274, 280); le Sbirell v. Messervy (PC 2/80/ 57, 66); Dupuy v. Brock (PC 2/80/381, 389). In Pipon v. Dumaresq the Committee strongly adverted to this conciliar regulation (PC 2/92/86-87). Cf. supra, pp. 13-14. 407 See Durell v. Robin (PC 2/81/386, 392): Chevallier v. du Heaume (ibid.); de Carteret v. Pipon (PC 2/82/176, r79); Durell v. Pipon (PC 2/83/121, 130). 408 In 1714 it was complained that in Jersey the Royal Court was stopping all suits concerning tenders made in currency at rates newly fixed by oral ordinances of the Estates. The Committee directed the Royal Court forthwith to give definitive sentences in writing in causes in which such points were in question, so that the parties could be admitted to appeal (PC 2/84/363, 370). In the much later appeal of In re Muir (3 Moore P.C. 150) an application was made to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for