the elimination of instructional minimums in cases involving real property. 58 
It should be borne in mind in this discussion that instructions as to minimums 
for appeal allowance, although binding on colonial appointees, constituted 
no limitation upon the King in Council. This principle, already recognized 
in conciliar practice, was reiterated by Attorney General Northey in an 
opinion (March, 1714/5) that the King could allow writs of error or appeals 
from complained-of decrees in plantation courts although under the value 
for which the governor was directed to allow appeals. 57 A later opinion 
(December, 1717) was to the same effect. 58 This meant that not only were 
appeals to the King in Council admitted in nonminimum causes but also that 
the Council Board went even further and ordered the allowance of writs of 
error from inferior to superior colonial courts in such cases, with further provision 
for appeal thence to the King in Council. Such allowance was inherent 
in the normal conciliar policy of permitting appeals to the King in Council 
from only the superior courts in the respective plantations. 59 It should be ob- 
= 6 co 5/650/233-34- 
57 This was stated in an opinion upon the petition 
of one Samuel Lillie for the grant of a 
Commission of Enquiry in connection with 
alleged unjust proceedings in the Massachusetts 
courts. Northey advised that by law no 
such commission could issue (PC 2/83/278; 
PC 2/85/201). It should be noticed that the 
instructions were regarded as binding on the 
crown as a litigant (see 5 Journals Assembly 
Jamaica, 500-501), although acts of Parliament 
did not bind the crown unless specially named 
(7 Cok.e Rep. 32a; 11 Coke Rep. 66b Magdalen 
College Case]). 
58 Secretary Addison referred to the Board of 
Trade the petition of William Cockburn for 
relief from a Jamaica chancery decree wherein 
the governor was restrained by his instructions 
from allowing an appeal as under the minimum 
sum (CSP, Col., 17'7-iS. #218). The 
Board of Trade took the opinion of Attorney 
General Northey in the matter (ibid., #232). 
The Attorney General replied that despite the 
obstructing instruction to the governor "it is 
in his Majesty's power, upon a petition, to 
allow an appeal in cases of any value, where 
he shall think fit, and such appeals have 
been often allowed by his Majesty" (2 
Chalmers, Opinions, 177; CSP, Col, 1717-18, 
#266). Thereupon, the Board of Trade represented 
to Secretary Addison that the King 
might by a particular order dispense with 
the instruction objected to and direct the governor 
to allow an appeal (ibid., #320). Cf. 
the 1742 statement that the Committee granted 
appeals as a matter of course where the value 
of the matter in question exceeded £300 (1 
Law Papers, 11 Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., 52). 
59 In Smith v. Rex leave to appeal from a 
May 28, 1734, judgment of the Antigua Court 
of King's Bench and Common Pleas imposing 
a fine for extortion was petitioned for 
(PC 2/93/457). Petitioner alleged that the 
fine being under the sum limited in general 
for the allowance of appeals, he could not be 
admitted to an appeal below. It was further 
alleged that a fee of office was involved of 
considerably greater value than the appealable 
minimum. The Committee advised against 
allowance of an appeal to the King in Council, 
since such appeals should be admitted only 
from the superior courts of the plantations— 
the Court of Errors here. But the Committee, 
observing the fine to amount to only ,£ 10 
and finding that the governor was restrained 
by his 54th instruction from admitting appeals 
to the Court of Errors unless the sum 
exceeded advised that the instruction 
be dispensed with in this particular instance. 
Petitioner was then allowed a writ of error to 
the Court of Errors and an appeal from thence 
to the King in Council (PC 2/93/503, 511). 
This was a patent misreading of the instruction 
which was limited to "civil causes." See 
1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #448. Actually 
there was no provision in the instructions to 
cover this situation of a criminal appeal; the 
provision for appeals in misdemeanor cases