an appeal was disposed of at one Committee meeting, but in important or 
complex cases hearings might extend over several meetings. 145 This was 
especially true of the boundary commission appeals, in which much evidence 
was read before the Committee. 148 With fluctuating Committee personnel, 
members present to decide might not have been present to hear, but there is 
no evidence that meetings were well attended when the Lords were to "render 
judgment" and sparsely attended to hear evidence and argument. Usually only 
two or three appeals were heard at a hearing, but in the later years of the 
period the number of appeals disposed of at one sitting increased inordinately 
147 Whether this is indicative of reports upon inadequate hearing and 
consideration is conjectural. 
Eminent counsel, such as the crown law officers, were usually employed to 
present appellate arguments before the Committee. In the earlier part of the 
century legal luminaries such as Philip Yorke, Dudley Ryder, Edward 
Northey, John Strange, Charles Talbot, John Willes, and John Comyns argued 
at the Cockpit. Later we find William Murray, Charles Yorke, Charles Pratt, 
Robert Henley, Alexander Wedderburn, Fletcher Norton, William De Grey, 
and John Dunning exercising their argumentative prowess on conciliar appeals. 
Lesser figures found surrounding this constellation of legal talent included 
Alexander Forrester, Alexander Hume-Campbell, Edward Willes, 
Thomas Sewell, Charles Ambler, Richard Perryn, and Richard Jackson. 148 
We have seen no conclusive evidence that any colonial lawyer presented an 
argument in chief before the Committee, 148 for it seems probable that certain 
Pipon (PC 2/81/236); Orby v. Long (PC 
2/83/170). But in 1757 William Bollan observed 
"that in causes depending between 
party and party at the Council Board it is 
necessary, according to the course of judicial 
proceedings, to employ a regular sollicitor" 
(287 MS Mass. Archives [Letters, 1663- 
1760], #160 [922]). Compare the assertion 
of Pound (op. cit., 67) that "it was not required 
that the agents be attorneys or solicitors." 

145 See Estridge v. Tittle (PC 2/97/121-25); 
Le Hardy v. Lempriere (PC 2/98/288, 347, 
408, 443; PC 2/100/165, 247, 336; PC 2/ 
101/119, 130, 254, 268), one counsel for each 
party was allowed to recapitulate the evidence 
and instruct the Committee as to the relief 
desired. 
146 See 1 Correspondence of Colonial Governors 
of Rhode Island, 1723-1775 (ed. G. S. 
Kimball, 1902), 292—93. 
147 See PC 2/109/ sub April 6, 1762; PC 
2/110/ sub Dec. 15, 1763, and July 27, 1764; 
PC 2/111/ sub July x 6 and 17, 1765; PC 
2/112/ sub June 10, 1767. 
148 These names are taken for the most part 
from the conciliar "cases" in the above collections, 
supra, n. 118. 
149 The statement by Warren (History of the 
American Bar [1913], 132) that William 
Samuel Johnson was "one of the first American 
lawyers to argue before the King in Council" 
is erroneous and misleading. His diary kept 
while in England (Conn. Hist. Soc.) reveals 
no such argument. See infra, p. 422 et seq., for 
his part in the Connecticut-Mohegan Indian 
cause. Henry Marchant, prominent Rhode Island 
lawyer present in England, was heard on 
a motion for fixing a date for a hearing in 
Freebody v. Brenton (Henry Marchant MS 
Diary, sub June 26, 1772, in private hands; cf. 
New England Diaries, 1602-1800, comp. by 
H. M. Forbes, 1923, 193). It may be that 
William Nicoll argued for appellant in Jones 
v. Fullerton; see Hatfield, History of Elizabeth, 
New Jersey (1868), 242.