brought. Since the returned writ of error commissioning the -Governor and Council to hear the cause was anterior in time and, being under the provincial great seal, was superior in validity, Smith concluded that it could never have been intended to leave the subject without recourse from Supreme Court judgments in the great majority of cases. 35 After considering the reasons offered, hearing argument, and reading the instruction, the Governor and Council determined to be guided by the instruction. Therefore the writ was ordered quashed, and the record remitted to the Supreme Court. 36 In the course of the agitation in New York caused by the attempted "appeal" in Cunningham v. Forsey, 37 Smith advocated several alterations of the existing instructions. The sterling minimum necessary for an appeal to the Governor and Council should be decreased or even deleted. Since writs of error lay without quantitative restraint in England, the reasons for a similar practice in New York were much stronger, as low judicial salaries resulted in incompetent incumbents. He believed that perhaps the evil might be remedied by adequate salaries from the proceeds of the impending stamp duty. If the crown stood by a minimum, an adequate method should be prescribed for ascertaining the value of the matter in demand. This was especially necessary where title to realty was concerned and where suit was brought for one title out of many similarly circumstanced. Further, distinction should be made between appeals from chancery and from common law courts (presumably to the Governor and Council). Appeals from the former should be more freely allowed, since the governor sat alone as chancellor, and the appeal was both on law and on the facts. 38 A different type of assault was made upon appeal minimums when it was petitioned that minimums be waived in all cases wherein certain parties were concerned. In the first instance of this nature a direction regarding appeals was sent to Governor Hunter of New York, in 1713, as the result of an ecclesiastical struggle in the parish of Jamaica, Long Island. In the course of this struggle the lawfully inducted rector of the parish, Thomas Poyer, was denied possession of the parsonage, glebe, and profits attached to the office by ruling dissenters in the parish; 39 relief at law was not sought, allegedly because in case of a denial of justice no appeal would lie to the Governor and Council or 35 Ibid. 36 23 MS Mins. N.Y. Council, 272; 2 Wm. Smith MSS, 380; NYHR Parch., 228-D-1. Smith later wrote that "the only satisfaction of the counsel for the plaintiff in error . . . arose from a discernment that the whole court was conscious of a timid obsequiousness" (2 Hist. Prov. N.Y., 246-47). 37 See infra, p. 390 et seq. 38 Chalmers MSS, 4 New Yor\, 16. As to the doubts concerning the proper appellate body in chancery appeals, see infra, p. 239. 39 3 Eccl. Rec. N.Y., 1868, 1871, 1879-80; 3 Doc. Hist. N.Y. (ed. E. B. O'Callaghan, 1850), 219-22, 224-33. For the act under which the dissenters were enabled to call a dissenting minister, see 1 Col. Laws N.Y., 328.