also of counsel for the colony, was alleged to have "peculiar influence with 
Lord Mansfield." 354 But some colonists officially expressed satisfaction that 
"the highest wisdom and impartiality" were exercised on all appeals. 355 
As one should expect from a body not limited to a judicial function, reasons 
of policy sometimes influenced the outcome of appeals. In McSparran v. 
Hazzard from Rhode Island the question was presented whether a grant to 
the "orthodox" ministry was intended to refer to the established church or 
to dissenters. Sir George Lee noted that "the Lords affirmed the decrees appealed 
from principally upon political considerations, because the dissenting 
minister is in possession of the lands and the dissenters are very numerous in 
the Northern colonys and must not be disobliged . . . but otherwise by law 
orthodox implys a minister of the established church." 356 This outcome 
evoked charges from the established church faction that the merits of the 
cause had been misunderstood or overlooked. 357 In like manner the Committee 
allegedly evaded judgment upon the merits in the famous Parsons' 
Cause from Virginia. 358 
THE EXECUTION OF THE ORDER IN COUNCIL 
We now come to the last problem in the appellate process —how were the 
Orders in Council carried out? In most cases this merely entailed presentation 
of the order to the court appealed from; this court then entered the order 
in its records and, if necessary, ordered execution thereof. But in some cases 
enforcement of conciliar orders encountered colonial opposition. Commonly 
regarded as the classic example of colonial recalcitrance to conciliar determinations 
is Leighton v. Frost, a 1735-36 appeal from the Superior Court of Massachusetts 
359 
Under the 1691 Massachusetts charter all trees twenty-four inches and up 
3M Trumbull Papers, 222. 
355 j{ 1729 Grand Jury Address from Barbados 
(CSP, Col., 1 7 30, #141 i). 
356 Endorsed on Case of Respondent, p. 7 
(L.C., Law Div.). 
357 Philip Bearcroft in a May 3, 1752, letter 
to McSparran wrote that the judgment below 
had been affirmed, "for what reasons I cannot 
pretend to say, the merits of the cause 
had it been quite new, seemed confessedly 
with us; but, as according to the common 
maxim possession is eleven points of the law, 
Torrey's being in possession of the 280 acres, 
and his having that possession once before 
confirmed to him appears to me to have gone 
very far in his service" (Fulham Palace MSS, 
N.Y., N.J., N.H., and R.I. Box, #25). In a 
Nov. 10, 1752, letter to the Bishop of London, 
McSparran charged that if the Lords had 
understood the case or attended to the merits, 
a different decree would have been delivered. 
"There is neither local or legal orthodoxy in 
this colony, where the lands lye; for though 
the province of Massachusetts and Connecticut 
colony have presumed to establish their 
churches, Rhode Island has not established 
any religion. No man living, can from the 
face of the case, nor the history of this colony, 
collect, that the major part of the first donors 
were dissenters, but the reverse" (Ibid., #23; 
cf. ibid., #19). 
368 See infra, pp. 623-24. 
359 See A. M. Davis, The Case of Leighton v. 
Frost, 2 AHR 229-40; another version is in 3