fore the court and jury, appellant ought not to be finally concluded by the 
verdict and judgment appealed from. Therefore, it was advised and ordered 
that the verdict and judgment be set aside and appellant be at liberty to proceed 
to another trial on such new evidence as he might produce. 152 
Other examples of this aspect of conciliar action are found in Delap v. 
Lindsey and Ranshin v. Dove, Jamaica chancery appeals. In both these appeals 
appellants had been guilty of laches in failure to attend Masters in Chancery 
to whom the causes had been referred. The Committee reported in June, 
1761, that the Masters' reports objected to upon appeal were "strictly regular" 
as a result of the laches of the appellants, and that the chancery orders appealed 
from were likewise regular. Since it appeared that manifest injustice would 
be done upon the foot of the report as it then stood, the Committee advised 
reversal of the respective chancery orders, payment to respondents of all costs 
incurred since the respective Masters' reports, and reference back to the Masters 
to review their reports. 153 This advice gained conciliar sanction on July 2, 
1761. 154 
We have considered thus far the peripatetic efforts to settle or extend the 
limits of the Council's jurisdiction over the causes before it under what may 
be described as the "common form" of the instructions regarding appeals. 
Owing to a change in these instructions in 1753 that for some time went unchallenged, 
there was an interval during which the Council possibly did not 
regard itself restricted as much as by the earlier and later official mandates. 
Some of the cases just discussed were adjudicated in this interval, but we cannot 
be certain there is any relation between the changed instructions and the 
quickened interest in effecting a judgment on the merits at the Council Board. 
THE INSTRUCTIONS OF 1753 
The change of 1753, as we have seen, consisted in the fateful use of the words 
"allow appeals" without the previously qualifying words "in cases of error." 
The only explanation for the change that we have noticed is one put forward 
twelve years later, to the effect that it was made to resolve doubts respecting 
the inclusion of criminal cases. 155 There is little doubt that such clarification 
was the professed end of the revision, 156 but such end could be achieved by the 
inclusion of the words "in all civil causes"—-the omission of the words "in 
152 p C 2/96/113, 155. 
153 PC 2/108/396-407. . For the conciliar 
"cases" in Delap v. Lindsey see Add. MS, 
36,218/121-28; in Ranshin v. Dove, see ibid., 
105-12. Endorsed on appellant's case in the 
latter appeal is: "Report regularly made on 
default, but opened on payment of all the 
costs to prevent manifest injustice and let the 
appellant in to crave allowances, which seemed 
just." 
™*PC 2/108/425. 
155 See infra, p. 409. 
156 See supra, p. 232.