effort to secure impartial administration of justice. 488 A further objectionable 
practice was the sitting of councilors as judges both originally and upon appeal; 
Governor Crowe of Barbados was cautioned in 1707 against this practice. 489 
As seen above, the Board also made efforts to enforce the act of Parliament 
preventing slave factors from acting as councilor-judges in the plantations. 490 
To the Board was delegated settlement of the claim of the Virginia council 
board to be solely eligible for appointment to commissions of oyer and terminer 
in cases of life and limb. 491 
We have previously discussed several phases of the conciliar appellate function 
in which the Board of Trade participated. These included the establishment 
of appellate jurisdiction over the chartered colonies, resolution of the 
jurisdictional confusion in vice-admiralty court appeals, and compilation of 
charter colony abuses for parliamentary consumption. 432 In the drafting of 
instruments important to the appellate process, such as charters, gubernatorial 
commissions and instructions, and commissions in intercolonial boundary 
disputes, the Board occupied a commanding position. 493 Here also resided the 
power of nomination to colonial councils; 494 and it may be remarked that in 
exercising this power the Board in some instances failed to consider sufficiently 
the judicial function of these councilors. 495 Upon the Board thus rested the 
burden of maintaining a quorum of councilors available for the hearing of 
appeals in those colonies in which the Governor and Council constituted the 
appellate tribunal. 496 
The part played by the Board of Trade in disallowance of colonial acts prohibiting 
or restricting appeal to the King in Council has been adverted to 
above. But in advising disallowance of certain colonial acts, the Board might 
act quasi-judicially in cases in which legislative action was taken confirming 
is!i lbid., 1708-9, #651, 664, 681. 
iB9 lbid., 1706-8, #1099; cf. ibid., #1300. 
490 See supra, p. 228. 
in lbid., 1717-18, #59, 213, 275, 342, 410. 
See also The Controversy between ht.-Gov. 
Spotswood and His Council and the House of 
Burgesses, on the Appointment of Judges on 
Commissions of Oyer and Terminer, 1718; 
Virginia Tracts, #11 (ed. by W. C. Ford, 
1891), passim. 
492 See supra, Chap. 111. 
493 See supra, p. 216 et seq.; infra, Chap. VII. 
494 Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 
1696-176;, 146. The Board was reluctant to 
relinquish this recommendatory function to an 
aggressive principal Secretary of State (CSP, 
Col., #469). 
495 In July, 1762, Lieutenant-Governor Fau- 
quier of Virginia criticized the appointment 
of one Burwell to the council. Fauquier 
pointed out that the council was the supreme 
court of judicature from whose decisions there 
lay no appeal but to the King in Council. If 
the councilor-judges were not properly qualified 
to give judgment, the business of the 
King in Council would be increased enormously 
(CO 5/1330/Y 67). Another factor 
in appointment was whether contemplated appointees 
were engaged in litigation pending 
before the council; see CSP, Col., 1708—9, 
#616; ibid., 1716-17, #238. 
490 Ibid., 1720—21, #463. Upon hearing a 
Jamaica appeal, the Committee sought from 
the Board the names of the Jamaica council 
members and their whereabouts (ibid., 1708-9, 
#413-14).