parties, 281 that is to say, it was matter dehors the record, and for the parties the record was the Order in Council. Finally, care had to be taken that the Committee report was properly settled, 282 i.e., correct in form and substance. An Order in Council lacking specificity, might necessitate another appeal upon case, it was doubtfull, whether the dated and signed paper or the undated and unsigned paper was the last wrote, and the posteriority of the one or the other could not be determined with any certainty, and the pleading and propounding both and leaving it to the court to find out which was the last, was irregular and improper, for it is the business of the party and not of the court to determine which he will abide by and prove. These papers contain real as well as personal estates, and they can't operate as to the former. The frequent declarations that his affairs were unsettled, and his desire on his death bed to make a will, as well as the subsequent birth of a child left unprovided for, and the uncertainty which was last wrote, are all strong evidences to induce a court to believe the deceased did not intend either of these papers should operate as his will and therefore the Lords unanimously reversed the sentence given at St. Christophers for the validity of the paper dated 5 Nov. 1743 and pronounced the deceased to have dyed intestate." Cf. the notes taken by Charles Yorke (Add. MS, 36,217/ 104). In Williams v. Beecher (Jamaica, 1757) we find endorsed upon appellant's case in the Library of Congress (Law Div.) the following: "N B the Master of the Rolls declared that interest was not due on annuities, but only on legacys, and that a legacy might be sued for at any distance of time, but if there was no contrary proof, length of time from the testator's death, would create a presumption of payment." See also Chester v. Painter (2 Peere Williams, 335). 28i "xhe Lord President had, I thought, explained himself more satisfactorily at the hearing, in the exposition he gave of the real and unequivocal meaning of the law as established by the royal commissioners under Queen Elizabeth; but his Lordship's opinion not standing on record can avail nothing." W. C. Lempriere to Geo. Hardinge, July 23, 1786 (Fiott MSS, Soc. Jer. Lib.). Cf. the statement of solicitor William Sharpe that "the Committee of Council never giving reasons in their reports for their opinion you will not meet with any in their report made upon this occassion." Sharpe to Sir George Lee, Nov. 26, 1753 (Lee MSS, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich). Endorsed by Charles Yorke on appellant's case in Le Vesconte v. Pinel (Add. MS, 36,218/49) is a statement that no reasons were set forth in the Order in Council "tho I prest it for the sake of preserving the usage of Jersey." 282 See Murray v. Davies (Gibraltar) where an Order in Council was altered upon respondent's petition (PC 2/116/61, 120; PC 2/117/106-10, 125). In Mackaskell v. Robinson (PC 2/82/276, 287) respondent petitioned that the Committee report be explained so as to allow petitioner to bring a new ejectment action (PC 1/47). In Lempriere v. Le Montais appellant prayed conciliar explanation of the dismissing Order in Council of December 15, 1709, but without result (PC 2/83/8). The 1736 Jamaica appeal, Lewis v. Smith, affords an excellent example of the settlement process; see Add. MS, 36,216/94-100; PC 2/94/5, 15- The Order in Council in the Guernsey appeal of Stephens v. Dobree and Le Marchant (1736) was said to have been "a very careful and precise determination, and drawn up in very exact terms by the present Earl of Hardwicke" (The Case of the Town Parish versus the Nine County Parishes Respecting a Change in the Rates and Representation, 1759 [1843], 52). A February 20, 1627/8, Order in Council regulating conciliar proceedings provided that: "When any order is agreed upon the Clerk of the Council attending shall take notice thereof in writing and punctually read, openly, how he hath conceived the sense of the Board, that if anything be mistaken it may then be reformed; and afterwards, when the said Clerk shall have drawn the said order at large, in any cause of importance, before he enter the same into the Council book, or deliver it to any person whom it may concern, he is to shew the draught to the Lord President, or, in his absence, to one of the Secretaries of State, to be allowed and signed under one of their hands, before the entry or delivery thereof." The Order is set forth in Selborne (Roundell Palmer), Judicial Procedure in the Privy Council