ral persons, it is not surprising to find the same complaint made as to Ordinary 
proceedings. 85 But such behavior never became oppressive or eventuated in 
an attempt at conciliar correction. Isolated instances of this condemned practice 
are found in other colonies. 88 
As various plantations became royal provinces or became settled and developed, 
the territorial scope of the royal instructions was, of course, extended 
87 Eventually, in 1753, it was represented to the colonial administrators 
that the method prescribed by the instructions relative to appeals from colonial 
courts in cases of error had by subsequent periodic conciliar regulations become 
defective and improper. 88 To meet this condition it was ordered by circular 
instructions that in all civil causes the governors, upon application, allow 
appeals from any courts of common law of the province to the Governor and 
Council, issuing for that purpose a writ in the accustomed manner returnable 
to the Governor and Council, who were to hear and determine the appeal. 
85 Stout v. Stout (Case of Appellant [L.C., 
Law Div.]; cf. Case of Respondent on this 
allegation [L.C., Law Div.]); Burn v. Cole 
(Case of Appellant, Add. MS, 36,218/144). 
83 Smith v. Mathews (Antigua, PC 2/93/459); 
Rickards v. Hudson (Virginia, PC 2/109/ 
288); Kirwan v. Alexander (Antigua, Case 
of Appellant [L.C., Law Div.]); Dunbar v. 
Webb (Antigua, Case of Appellant [L.C., 
Law Div.]). The Committee appears even to 
have condemned execution of a decree where 
security was given by respondent. See Rickards 
v. Hudson (supra, p. 490), where respondent 
contended in vain that colonial decrees were 
not usually stayed where the party in whose 
favor the decree was made gave security to 
refund in case of reversal and that such stay 
would be attended with many ill consequences 
(Add. MS, 36,218/205). 
87 Instructions were sent to South Carolina 
in 1720, the Bahamas in 1729, North Carolina 
in 1730, Nova Scotia in 1749 (1 Labaree, 
Royal Instructions, #449)- From 1718 to 
1729 the Bahamas governor had been directed 
to follow a copy of the Jamaica instructions 
"as near as the circumstances of the place 
will admit" (ibid., #135)- The Nova Scotia 
governors from 1719 to 1749 similarly were 
guided by a copy of the Virginia instructions 
(ibid., #136). For a 1733 refusal of an appeal 
from the Governor and Council on the 
basis of the Virginia instructions see Original 
Minutes of His Majesty's Council at Annapolis 
Royal, 1720-39, 3 Nova Scotia Archives (ed. 
A. M. MacMechan, 1908), 282-83. In 1728 
the instructions to New Hampshire were 
altered; the most important change was the 
allowance of appeals to the Governor and 
Council in causes exceeding sterling. The 
minimum for appeals to the King in Council 
was also raised from to .£2OO (2 
Laws of N.H., 431). 
88 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #453. The 
change evolved in the course of preparing instructions 
for Governor Thomas of the Leeward 
Islands. John Sharpe, solicitor before the 
Board of Trade, made observations to Thomas 
Pownall of that body upon the instructions 
relative to appeals given to William Matthew, 
former governor of those islands. The instructions 
with Sharpe's observations thereon were 
ordered sent by the Board of Trade to the 
crown law officers for their opinions (JCTP, 
1749/50-53, 406). Upon the return of the 
crown law officers' report, a representation was 
made proposing an additional instruction for 
all governors for the better regulation of appeals 
to the King in Council from colonial 
courts in cases of error (ibid., 414, 426, 447, 
448). By a July 26, 1753, Order in Council 
the Board was ordered to prepare drafts for 
all governors of such instructions as had been 
given to the governors of the Leeward Islands 
and of New York relating to appeals in cases 
of error (ibid., 454-55). It was later (1765) 
stated by the Board of Trade that the alteration 
was solely intended to avoid an ambiguity 
in expression that might have admitted a 
doubt whether liberty of appeal did not extend 
to criminal cases (7 Doc. Rel. Col. Hist. 
N.Y., 762). See supra, n. 59, for cases in which 
this error was made.