VII 
APPEALS FROM ROYAL 
COMMISSIONS 
Up to this point we have dealt with the regulatory and procedural aspects of 
what may be described as the ordinary appellate jurisdiction of the Privy 
Council as the court of last instance in the judicial hierarchy of the several 
dominions of the crown. There remains to be considered the jurisdiction 
which was exercised exceptionally, in the sense that it depended upon particular 
commission. The exercise of this power was unusual, since it involved 
controversies between units which were politically independent of each other, 
but were in some wise in subjection to the crown. From the point of view of 
the development of public law the situation was peculiarly interesting in that 
none of the litigants possessed attributes of full sovereignty, and although the 
crown, in the case of colonies, continually referred to them as "jurisdictions" 
in official communications, the expression was obviously not used in its common 
law sense, but had implications both factual and legal which ran beyond 
the accepted usage of English courts. The situation was further complicated 
by the circumstance that by the private law tests which governed English 
thinking certain units had a recognizable status as corporations or as feudatories, 
whereas others and notably royal colonies such as New York and Virginia, 
were impossible to fit into existing categories, being more than ancient 
demesne and peculiarly enfranchised, but without the usual muniments 
thereof. In the case of Indian tribes, there was likewise no available precedent. 
The medieval conception that the King was perpetually at war with infidels 
had sufficed to found the crown's right to the soil by conquest, but it was 
otherwise inadequate, since the realities of colonial administration soon disclosed 
it to be prudent to recognize some sort of status in the tribes and that, 
for the safeguard of the crown's own property rights, the original occupants 
had to-be protected. 
There is little evidence that the questions just outlined were subjected to 
considerable pondering or that crown law officers were aware of the fact that 
the colonization of America had created new problems of public law. Furthermore, 
since the King's writ did not run in partibus transmarinis, the courts 
at Westminster rarely had to grapple with this confusing matter. It was accordingly 
left to the fumbling of administrative officials. This meant, of