the court or judges gave respondent a recognizance in double the judgment sum to prosecute the writ of error with effect and to satisfy all debts, damages, and costs adjudged in case of affirmance and all costs and damages awarded for delay of execution. Further, in writs of error on any writs of dower or real actions no execution was to be stayed unless plaintiffs were bound in such reasonable sum as the court thought fit, conditioned upon payment of such costs and damages as should be awarded in case of affirmance, discontinuance by default, or nonsuit. 262 This 1744 act was "rendered more effectual" by a 1761 act of the Assembly. The latter act provided that either party dissatisfied with the judgment of the Court of Errors might appeal to the King in Council if the matter in dispute exceeded ,£lOO sterling in value. The party appealing was to give security as provided by the former act, but no executor, administrator, or guardian was to be obligated to give security on a writ of error, except where required by the laws of England, or upon any appeal, unless to the King in Council. A broad proviso was also inserted in the act that nothing in either this or the 1744 act should extend to any writ of error brought by an executor or administrator or to any action popular, or to any action upon a penal law or statute, or to any indictment, presentment, inquisition or information in the Court of General Assize or any other court of record. 253 These acts did not clash with the royal instructions, because the normal instructions as to appeals were not sent to Bermuda after 1721. 254 The general circular instruction of December, 1753, was dispatched to the island, but this cannot be taken as a change in policy, since it appears to have been sent as the result of administrative negligence, for no attempt was made to perpetuate it. 255 It is unnecessary to labor the borrowings of the Bermuda legislature from the English statutes. VIRGINIA LEGISLATION Leaving legislation patently influenced by acts of Parliament, we turn to that colony in which appellate regulation was sui generis —Virginia. Statutory handling of appeals to the King in Council in this colony offers nothing unusual; 280 our interest is in acts regulating appeals to the Governor and Council, the General Court. We have observed that Virginia governors were 252 Bermudiana, Box #8. 253 An Act for rendering more effectual an Act entitled "An Act for constituting and establishing a Court of Errors in these Islands" (Bermudiana, Box #8). 254 See I Labaree, Royal Instructions, #448-49. #453. 256 a 1705 act for establishing the General Court contained no reservation of appeals to the King in Council. 3 Hening, Stat, at Large Va., 287. But by a 1710 explanatory act it was provided that nothing in the former act was to be construed as abridging the power of the crown to receive and determine appeals from the General Court or as preventing litigants from taking such appeals in cases where allowed by the royal instructions [ibid., 489).