general an abstract of all proceedings in the courts within the respective governments 
461 Governor Handasyd o£ Jamaica immediately questioned the 
value of such transmission. To send all the process and pleadings in every cause 
would be too expensive for the court officers; to send the names of the parties 
and the nature of the action would be of little use. 462 Other governors were 
more co-operative. 463 Between 1703 and 1713 instructions were dispatched to 
eight colonies to transmit periodically to the Board of Trade accounts of the 
causes determined and pending in the respective colonies. 464 Massachusetts 
received the instruction in 1728, 465 but by that date the instruction was regarded 
as obsolete. 466 Therefore, in the 1730 instructions to Governor Belcher 
the article was omitted as having achieved no compliance, as being a great 
expense, and as of little or no use. 467 
Measures were then taken to exact more specific information concerning 
appeals to the King in Council. In the decade following 1730 virtually all the 
royal colonies were instructed in varying language to transmit to the Board of 
Trade authentic copies of all proceedings in causes in which appeals were 
taken to the King in Council. 488 It is doubtful whether this instruction ever 
received the obedience due it. Lieutenant-Governor Clarke of New York submitted 
whether the instruction should stand, since a copy of the record had 
to be transmitted and laid before the King in Council where the appeal was 
determined. 469 Commenting upon the instruction in 1752, Governor Grenville 
of Barbados stated that copies of all proceedings in such appeals were taken 
out by both parties, certified by clerks of the respective courts in which the 
appeals were lodged, and authenticated by the governor under the Great Seal 
to the end that they might be produced before the King in Council at the appeal 
hearing. Grenville could not learn that any governor had followed the 
instructions, but as no mischief was known to have ensued from the disobedience, 
it was submitted whether instructional continuation was necessary. 470 
Complaints as to judicial oppression and maladministration as opposed to 
judicial error fell within the province of the Board of Trade. 471 During the 
incumbency of Governor Grey of Barbados numerous complaints were made 
as to undue proceedings and great delay in the administration of justice. 472 
i6l lbid., 1702-3, #578. 
462 ibid., #874. 
463 See CO 28/7/#6 4 i, ii; CO 28/i3/#io4 
ix, x; JCTP, 1708/9-1714/5, 96, 102, 189, 
447, 455; ibid., 1714/5-1718, 206, 281, 293; 
ibid., 1718-1722, in, 178; ibid., 1722/3- 
1728, 35. 53- 
464 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #423, 435. 
465 Ibid., #423. 
466 Lieutenant-Governor Mathew of the Leeward 
Islands wrote that Secretary Smith stated 
that "the Clerks o£ the Offices at home told 
him, that instruction was obsolete, and more 
for forme sake than for any use they can be 
of at home" {CSP, Col., 1728-29, #318). 
i6 Ubid., 1730, #128. 
468 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #423. 
469 CO 5/1059/GG 57. 
*™CO 28/30/DD 21. 
471 See the commission provision in 4 Doc. 
Rel. Col. Hist. N.Y., 145. 
472 CSP, Col., 1700, #843, 975, 993, 1030