low opinion of the state of technical achievement in the colonies and may well 
have believed that in an appeal proceeding which was neither flesh nor fowl 
by existing standards at Westminster Hall an added vagary was of no great 
moment. 
We have seen that even long before Mansfield was called to the bar the Privy 
Council had sought to achieve the very end suggested in Dering v. Packer. 
Furthermore, when Mansfield was still Solicitor General a cause came before 
the Council where the court below on its own motion had appended matter to 
the record that was intended to enlarge the same. In Degge v. Kay respondent 
alleged that the amount sued for in the Virginia General Court was under the 
instructional minimum and that therefore no special verdict had been sought. 
Consequently, upon a general verdict with a reserved question of law, the 
court gave respondent judgment for sterling and costs and denied appellant 
an appeal on the basis of the royal instructions. Appellant then petitioned 
the Council and was admitted to an appeal in October, 1751, allegedly 
upon representation that the action concerned a right of freehold. 89 
When the General Court transmitted the proceedings in the cause, it annexed 
a representation designed to overcome the lack of a special verdict. The 
question involved was whether the "reception" of a minister by a vestry under 
a 1727 act, enabled such minister without induction to maintain an action 
for trespass committed on glebe lands by persons acting under vestry order. 
The General Court represented that custom did not require "induction" to 
maintain such suit, despite the express words of a March, 1661/2, statute. 
Furthermore, it was represented that the refusal of an appeal was according 
to royal instruction and that it was thought such instruction was "calculated 
and formed, for the ease and happiness of his Majesty's subjects in the colonies, 
that they might not be harassed, impoverished, and ruined, by potent litigious, 
and unjust adversaries, where the sums might be too trifling or minute for 
his Majesty's consideration." The Court went on to state that it had invariably 
considered the instruction as including all appeals, as well where freehold was 
concerned as personal suits, and that in the former it had been its constant practice 
to appoint proper persons to value the land in dispute where either party 
demanded an appeal. It was hoped that the lack of a special verdict was supplied 
by the court's representation, which was the only method left to inform 
the Privy Council of the facts proved on the trial. 90 Whether this annexed 
89 Case of Respondent (L.C., Law Div.). For 
the conciliar proceedings on the application 
for leave to appeal see PC 2/102/220, 241, 
334, 353- 
90 Case of Respondent (L.C., Law Div.). 
Compare Case of Appellant {ibid.). For the 
two acts in question see 2 Hening, Stat, at 
Large Va., 46; 4 ibid., 204. Four judges (John 
Blair, William Nelson, William Dawson, and 
Thomas Nelson) represented "that notwithstanding 
the Act of General Assembly made 
in the year 1661 entitled, Ministers to be