cases of error" bore no relation to the attempted reform. Since this omission 
is first found in an April 7, 1753, opinion of crown law officers Ryder and 
Murray submitting a draft of revised instructions as to appeals in the case of 
the Leeward Islands, 1 " the question is pertinent whether the omission 
stemmed from experience as crown law officers or as counsel. 
It seems wholly possible that what in fact precipitated the omission was a 
Barbados appeal (Clarke and Gosling v. Smith) that was heard before the 
Committee in March, 1753, in which Ryder and Murray were counsel for respondent. 
In this case one William Jenkins confessed judgment to respondent, 
Richard Smith, by warrant of attorney as security for a debt. But in entering 
up judgment the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas neglected to insert the 
name of the party in whose behalf the attorney confessed judgment. Appellants, 
entering up judgments at a later date, claimed priority because of this 
defect when Jenkins became insolvent. Two applications to the Court of Common 
Pleas for amendment of the judgment were rejected, on the ground that 
the Statute of Jeofails did not mention judgments by confession. Advised that 
the amendment was a matter of course at common law, a writ of error to the 
Governor and Council as a Court of Errors was secured. This appellate body 
upon argument reversed the order of the Court of Common Pleas and ordered 
the amendment as sought. 158 
Upon appeal to the King in Council the appellants argued inter alia that in 
the nature of the case no writ of error lay to a superior court from the Common 
Pleas order—it not being a judicial sentence. 159 To this objection respondent 
counsel Ryder and Murray replied that, 
strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a writ of error in our plantations similar 
to a writ of error in England. For, if there was, it would be a writ of right—whereas 
there is no such writ of right in our plantations; and though, from long habit and 
practice, and by vulgar error, when an appeal of complaint from any of the courts 
there (except the Court of Chancery, which consists of the Governor and Council) 
is made to the Governor and Council it is called a writ of right, yet it is applied for 
by petition to the Governor, and must be allowed by him before it can be brought; 
and the Governor is, by the royal instructions, expressly restrained from granting 
it, where the sum in question is under and what issues by the Governor is 
not strictly a writ of error, but is in the nature of the Governor's precept to the 
Chief Justice to transmit the record before the Governor and Council. And there 
never was in Barbados, or any other of the British Sugar-Islands, such a proceeding 
known as a demurrer to such writ of error; no traverse ever taken; nay, generally 
no errors assigned; which if what is called a writ of error was, in a legal sense and 
157 61 Shelburne MSS, 629-34 (Clements Lib., in the Library of Congress (Law Div.) 
Ann Arbor, Mich.). 158 Case 0 f Appellant (L.C., Law Div.). 
158 See the conciliar "cases" of both parties