stay until the last two years of the reign, with Masters of the Rolls materially 
aiding in the early and later portions of the period. Of the three Chief Justices 
of King's Bench, Lee, Ryder, and Mansfield, none were particularly faithful. 
In the earlier portion of the reign regular attendants among the lay councilors 
were Wager, Fitzwalter, Horace Walpole, Abercorn, and Monson; in the 
later, Berkeley of Stratton, Cholmondeley, Sandys, and Dodington. For the 
first decade of George 111, Mansfield regularly contributed his services to the 
Committee; after that time Wilmot and Parker, even after relinquishing their 
respective positions as Chief Justice of Common Pleas and Chief Baron of the 
Exchequer, often sat. Frequent lay attendants were Falmouth, Berkeley of 
Stratton, Queensberry, and Marchmont. 331 
Despite the increased number of privy councilors during the eighteenth 
century, it was sometimes difficult to obtain a quorum for a Committee hearing. 
Indifference to the obligations of conciliar office 332 combined with the 
absorption of privy councilors in nonconciliar matters 333 to retard the appellate 
process. In some cases there is evident a desire to have the Committee 
afforced by the presence of a judicial figure at an appeal hearing. 334 But the 
mere presence of a law lord on the Committee did not insure that his opinion 
would prevail. Since each councilor present was entitled to vote on an appeal, 
it was usually possible for the lay councilors to outvote the one or two attendant 
law lords. 335 
331 These attendances are compiled from the 
Privy Council registers, in which each committee 
meeting was headed by a list of those 
present. These lists are generally accurate, but 
for exact attendance on a specified date the 
register entry should be supplemented by unofficial 
sources, such as the attendances endorsed 
on the conciliar "cases" of Sir George 
Lee in the Library of Congress (Law Div.). 
Dean Roscoe Pound has stated that "the Privy 
Council was not a court, as it has come to 
be. It sometimes asked for the opinion of the 
Attorney General. But for the most part the 
noblemen and gentlemen who attended felt 
competent ... to review the judgments of 
colonial courts by the light of nature without 
having exercise of their discretion hampered 
by technicalities of law." (What of Stare 
Decisis?, 10 Fordham L.R., 4-5). Apparently 
this writer has never seen a Privy Council 
register or an appeal "case" or notes of a 
Committee hearing. 
332 William Samuel Johnson, Connecticut 
agent, after trying without success to prevail 
upon Speaker Fletcher Norton to come up to 
town for hearings in Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut, 
lamented: "Such is the hard fate 
of those who depend for the despatch of 
affairs, on the caprice of these men in power 
who think they are appointed to offices and 
employments solely for their own benefit, and 
are under no sort of obligation to do the 
business of their offices, if it at all interferes 
with their own convenience and amusements" 
(Trumbull Papers, 9 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 
[sth ser.], 475). 
333 Richard Jackson wrote on Feb. 5, 1770> 
that "it is incredible with what difficulty a 
number of Privy Councillors who are to hear 
and a number of counsel who are to argue 
this cause [Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut] 
can fix on any time when they can spare many 
days" (3 Trumbull MSS, sb, 17c [Conn. 
State. Lib.]). 
334 See PC 2/82/418-19 (waited for Holt, 
C. J.); PC 2/97/261 (for Lee, C. J.); PC 
2/116/340 (for the Master of the Rolls and 
Sir Fletcher Norton). Cf. 1 MS Penn Letter 
Boo\s, 1729-42, 220-21, 223. 
335 Endorsed upon the back of the Case of 
Appellant in Nicoll v. Blake, the appeal from 
the condemnadon of the Cole and Bean in