jurisdiction on the Council Board, where the recusancy of jurats prevented 
obtainment of the quorum necessary for insular determination, 409 but the 
problem in Jersey at least was finally settled by conciliar order reducing the 
quorum. 410 Efforts to confer original jurisdiction because of the difficulty or 
importance of causes were also rejected. 411 In a Guernsey murder trial some 
of the jurats were in doubt as to the course of proceedings, since the law of 
evidence was ambiguous; therefore the King in Council was petitioned for 
instructions. Attorney General Yorke declared that the petition was totally 
irregular, since the King could not legally interpose in a case depending in the 
Royal Court and not yet decided. The jurisdiction of the King in Council was 
only to be exercised upon appeals regularly brought from judgments or sentences 
pronounced in the Royal Court. 412 
Other evidence also appears of the limitation of the judicial power of the 
King in Council to the appellate process. When one Lillie petitioned, in 1711, 
for a Commission of Enquiry for relief against some Massachusetts judicial 
proceedings, Attorney General Northey rendered a belated opinion (1715) 
that no such commission could issue. 413 Likewise, when one Cockburn petitioned 
for a direction to rehear a Jamaica Court of Chancery cause, the same 
Attorney General was of the opinion that the King could not by law give 
direction to any court to rehear any cause depending before it. 414 In Broome v. 
Eyles, a chancery appeal from Barbados, the 1741 reversing Order in Council 
permitted retention of respondent's bill for two years, in which time respondent 
was to be at liberty to bring ejectment against appellant. 415 When the two 
years had expired, respondent petitioned that an impartial trial was impossible 
in the precinct_where the mortgaged property lay and prayed direction that 
the trial be held in some other precinct, where an impartial jury could be 
obtained. 416 But the Committee advised dismissal, since "this affaire did not 
an order in the nature of a mandamus to the 
judges of the Court of Common Pleas of 
Tobago to enter up judgment in the cause. 
Baron Parke stated that "search has been made, 
and no precedent has been found for exercising 
such authority by Her Majesty's Privy Council." 
To the same effect, see Justice Bosanquet in 
the case of In re Assignees of Manning {ibid., 
154). 
409 See Hilgrove v. Hamond (PC 2/84/75, 
91); de Beauvoir v. de Lisle (PC 2/86/287, 
293). 
410 In Le Couteur v. Dumaresq the Committee, 
after hearing the Lieutenant-Bailiff and four 
jurats of the Jersey Royal Court, advised an 
order empowering three jurats to determine 
causes then or thereafter depending where the 
usual quorum of seven could not be obtained 
because of recusancy (PC 2/91/397, 402). 
411 See the attempts of Magon et al. relating 
to the seizure of some East Indian goods, the 
cargo of a St. Malo ship (PC 2/89/284, 288, 
292, 316). In this cause transmission of the 
proceedings before sentence passed was regarded 
by the Council as very irregular and 
the Royal Court was commanded not to be 
guilty of the like in juturo. Compare the 
Guernsey tenacity of original jurisdiction in 
a 1778 attempt of a plaintiff suing the bailiff 
to confer original jurisdiction on the Council 
(PC 2/123/82, 91). 
412 Add. MS, 36,142/193-95. 
iIs PC 2/33/201. See also PC 1/58/B-B 1. 
414 2 Chalmers, Opinions, 177. 
iU PC 2/97/26-32, 115-17. 
416 PC 2/98/236-37.