was likely to incur the risks of carrying a cause to Whitehall, to say nothing 
of the substantial financial outlays, unless the record which came before the 
reviewing body was one on which some decisive action could be taken. For 
this reason the overwhelming majority of cases appealed from jurisdictions 
that adhered to common law practice were cases of special verdicts. This fact, 
presumably, led at least one investigator to make the cryptic and ignorant 
statement that the "home government refused to permit the use of general 
verdicts." lx The evidence does not support such a sweeping conclusion. What 
it does show is that some appeals on general verdicts were allowed and furthermore 
that means were sought to escape from the dilemma which faced the 
Privy Council when it desired a case settled in a certain way, but because 
of the nature of the record before it could not itself make final determination. 

Although there are some early instances of appeals from judgments on 
general verdicts, the question did not arise as a serious problem until the case 
of Franklin v. Buraston, where a judgment given in the Leeward Islands was 
ordered reversed and set aside on appeal to the King in Council in May, 1720, 
and appellant ordered restored to any part of a plantation lost by the judgment 
12 Later, in August, 1723, it was complained that despite the restorative 
conciliar order respondent had commenced a new action in the islands for 
the premises in question and that a verdict had been found for respondent 
therein. Setting forth that "as the same is generall no appeale can lye therefrom 
to His Majesty," appellant prayed enforcement of the former order. 13 
Upon this state of matters, it was then ordered that a copy of the petition be 
sent to respondent to answer and show cause why the former Order in Council 
had not been obeyed. A copy was also to be sent to the judges who had heard 
the cause to certify to the King in Council the state of the facts complained of 
and what appeared to them upon the trial. 14 But apparently no attention was 
paid to this Order in Council, for relief was finally obtained on an appeal from 
a chancery decree in the cause. 15 
This case is significant, not only because it shows that in the Leeward Islands 
counsel conceived an appeal was not obtainable on a general verdict, but also 
because it appears to be the first instance in which the Council sought through 
certification to secure from the judges a statement of the facts on trial. 
The belief that no appeal was possible where a general verdict had been 
rendered was probably fairly general among the colonists at this time. In any 
11 Washburne, Imperial Control of Administra- ment of the Court of King's Bench and Comtion 
of Justice, 74. mon Pleas (PC 2/86/142, 195, 405, 412). 
12 An appeal from a February 1, 1716/7, 13 PC 2/88/298. 
judgment of the Governor and Council as a 14 PC 2/88/319, 331. 
Court of Errors affirming a June 2, 1713, judg- 15 2 APC, Col., #1295.