we find the authorities of this province favoring limitation of juries to special 
verdicts to prevent their passing on questions of law. 80 
THE NEW ENGLAND RECORD 
We have been discussing colonies in which the record corresponded with 
orthodox English procedure, but in New England, where evidence was taken 
down and made part of the record, opportunity to frustrate conciliar jurisdiction 
was more limited. It should further be observed that it is very probable 
that the practice in those parts, owing to the number and importance of 
the cases brought before the Council, undoubtedly colored the conceptions of 
the councilors as to the characteristics in general of colonial usage. Indeed, we 
have direct evidence that the home authorities were by no means clear respecting 
the attributes of the two procedures and their geographic distribution, for 
in 1751 Solicitor General Murray questioned whether it were not true that 
upon ejectment, etc., in New Jersey the whole evidence was reduced into 
writing and transmitted and that general verdicts were not allowed. To this 
solicitor Ferdinand John Paris replied that the usage of reducing evidence to 
writing upon ejectments was very common only in the charter governments, 
where the courts exercised mixed jurisdiction of law and equity. In no colony 
where the jurisdictions were distinct was the evidence upon ejectments taken 
down in writing and annexed so as to answer to a special verdict. On the contrary, 
Paris had known many general verdicts in ejectments from such colonies 
without any evidence annexed. 61 
This bit of instruction was apparently not digested, for in 1755 Murray 
answered in the affirmative a query from the Kennebec Company whether 
appeals were allowed in ejectment actions in New England, but added that 
the difficulty was "to avoid having general verdicts below, which prevents the 
Council here to examine the matter of fact." 62 Partridge, the company agent, 
commented on this that it was the practice in New England to return all the 
be blended together in general issues, and to 
determine only the latter leaving the former 
to the court, and for that purpose to find 
special verdicts in such cases, and more especially 
when the judge exhorts them to do 
so, as was the case in that trial" (Maseres to 
Fowler Walker, November 19, 1767 [Add. 
MS, 35,915/249; Maseres Letters, 1766-68, 3 
Univ. Toronto Studies, Hist, and Econ., No. 2, 
56]). See also Maseres to Charles Yorke, 
August n, 1768 (Add. MS, 35,915/280). Cf. 
Coffin, The Province of Quebec and the Early 
American Revolution (1896), 313-14. 
60 1 Doc. Rel. Const. Hist. Canada, 358-59- 
For the part played by refusal to give special 
verdicts in passage of the Quebec Act see 17 
Parliamentary History of England, 1397. 
61 Paris MSS, X 113. 
62 The question was asked in the interest of 
the Kennebec Company, which contemplated 
litigation concerning some disputed land titles 
(Add. MS., 15,488/100). Cf. the comment by 
Richard Partridge: "The charter mentioning 
nodiing of appeals in real actions the people 
in the Massachusetts insist an appeal will not 
lye to the crown in any real action or wherein 
title of land is concerned" (ibid.),