sustained the contentions by affirming the judgment below and dismissing the 
appeal. 143 On the same day that these appeals were heard, July 17, 1765, Lord 
Mansfield made a significant pronouncement of conciliar policy, which fully 
supported the previous contentions of conciliar parties. In discussing Bedford 
v. ]ea\e, a Jamaica appeal, Mansfield declared that 
it was a rule at that Board to pay no regard to questions arising from want of 
form; that if this action of ejectment had been brought in England it had been 
impossible for any one of the pleadings, except the declaration, to have existed, for 
that no council here would have advised either the plea, or replication or any one 
proceeding that followed —That the Lords of Council always took the whole 
record together and tried to find out the merits from it; if that could not be done 
they sent it back for further information; that however fatal the respondent's 
pleadings would be adjudged in Westminster Hall, if such could have appeared 
there, they ought not to be so treated at that Board especially as it was not difficult 
to find out the merits of the case. 144 
In several later cases we find further enunciations of this conciliar liberality. 
In Hall v. Laing, a 1768 Jamaican appeal, it was alleged by appellant that "respondent's 
objection in point of form can have little weight here, it being well 
known that strict forms of proceedings are not to be met with nor expected 
from the plantations, nor can such an objection be countenanced after a full 
and candid disquisition of facts in the place where they arose." 145 The Committee 
overruled the procedural objections in reversing the Court of Errors 
and affirming the Supreme Court judgment. 140 Again, in Levy v. Robertson, 
a 1771 appeal from Quebec, appellant asserted that "objections of mere form, 
it is apprehended, have been hitherto little regarded on appeals from proceedings 
in any of the provinces." The instant appeal was urged as a strong case 
for leniency, being one of the first causes tried in newly established courts. 147 
143 PC 2/111/286, 304. 
144 Add. MS, 36,219/199. Another version 
of Mansfield's statement taken by Robert 
Walpole, Council clerk, reads thus: "There is 
not one step that would have happened in 
England—it is done in Jamaica and encouraged 
here for good purposes. There are 
several demurrers and exceptions to the Evidenc 
—for in the Islands (it is otherwise on 
the Continent) they do not transmit the Evidence. 
They do not open a. general Verdict — 
When the Writ of Error comes over, regard 
here is not paid to Objections in point of 
form —the Constant Rule is to take it altogether 
and find out the Merits as is stated 
upon it —if you cannot you send it back" 
(WO 1/404/56). The "cases" of the parties 
are at Add. MS, 36,219/168, 177. For the 
conciliar course of the appeal see PC 2/110/ 
509; PC 2/111/66, 285, 304. Compare the 
narrow view of Dickerson (op. cit., 278-79) 
that "the committee in considering an appeal 
did not pass upon the merits of the case, but 
only upon the regularity of the procedure in 
the lower courts." 
145 Case of Appellant (Add. MS, 36,220/163). 
Respondent had successfully interposed on a 
writ of error to the Governor and Council that 
the issue had been tried by a Surrey jury 
rather than by one of Middlesex. 
« 6 PC 2/113/233, 248. 
147 Case of Appellant (Add. MS, 15,491/16)