the three other causes it is evident that commission and appeal procedure might 
prove cumbersome, dilatory, 277 and expensive. 27B Interference with successful 
operation by colonial recalcitrance was more difficult to overcome than in 
ordinary appeals from the established courts. But the imperial authorities adhered 
to the commission and appeal as a procedural device, and such procedure 
did meet with some, if not unqualified, success in settling intercolonial boundary 
controversies. 
The solution which the Privy Council hit upon for the settlement of the 
several causes here discussed possessed a significance far beyond the immediate 
circumstances of its use. There can be little doubt but that the method 
evolved for settlement of disputes between states under the Articles of Confederation 
derived from the conciliar employment of the commission for 
intercolonial controversies. The conduct of proceedings in the Connecticut- 
Pennsylvania case (1782) illustrates how the details of the commission procedure 
persisted. More far-reaching even than these effects was the influence 
of colonial experience upon the revival of international arbitration at the instance 
of the United States after 1783. For this John Jay, who had been clerk 
(ibid., K 23). But the party most eager to 
settle the boundary might advance the necessary 
expenses, assuming the risk of later contribution 
(ibid., K 30, 38). 
277 Richard Jackson wrote that die difficulty 
of securing a Committee quorum at the number 
of meetings necessary to hear a commission 
appeal was "a strong objection to this 
mode of proceeding by commission" (3 
Trumbull MSS, 5 b, 17 c). Later he wrote that 
"it is so difficult to get a sufficient number of 
the Lords of the Council to attend so long 
and so intricate a cause," that he despaired 
of an early hearing (ibid., 30 b). In December, 
1773, John Penn, writing to Governor 
Trumbull of Connecticut in re the disputed 
Susquehanna lands, stated: "In the case of 
Commissioners to settle boundaries; they must 
probably be chosen in different colonies, and 
their meeting and attendance would be both 
difficult to obtain, and in itself very expensive; 
and perhaps, after much time spent in bringing 
the matter to a period, the determination 
might not be satisfactory to all parties, and 
only prove the foundation of an appeal to 
His Majesty in Council" (ibid., 162 a). Ferdinand 
John Paris informed James Alexander 
that in the settlement of the New Hampshire- 
Massachusetts line, 54 or 55 hearings by 
counsel took place before the Privy Council, 
Board of Trade, and crown law officers (Paris 
MSS, H 8). 
278 But 'at least one prominent Connecticut 
figure considered the cost of the Mohegan Indians 
litigation low. "The Mohegan or Mason 
Case cost Connecticutt ,£7OOO, L. M. or less 
than one penny on the pound in the Grand 
List" (1 Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, 1769-76 
[ed. by F. B. Dexter, 1901], 439). Expenses 
can be broken down into several components. 
(1) Those incurred in the application leading 
to the conciliar order for issuance of a commission. 
(2) Those involved in issuance of the 
commission. We have seen £ 135/4/6 mentioned 
for this item in the New Hampshire- 
Massachusetts controversy (supra, n. 173). In 
the Rhode Island-Massachusetts dispute the 
commissioners ordered equally shared the 
/191/8/4 paid out by solicitor Paris for 
Rhode Island and the by solicitor 
Sharpe for Massachusetts (MS Proc. R.l.—Mass. 
Boundary Comm., 1741, 250). Cf. mention of 
paid out before this commission was 
delivered to the parties (Paris MSS, H 34). (3) 
The expenses of the commissioners sitting in 
the colonies. (4) The expenses of an appeal to 
the King in Council from the judgment of the 
commissioners. See supra, pp. 321-23.