judgment for a mere £1,198/10/6 in New Hampshire bills of credit new tenor. Both upon appeal to the Superior Court of Judicature and subsequent review in this court, the judgment was affirmed. 149 An appeal taken to the Privy Council from the judgment on the writ of review was entered in September, 1758. 150 At the ex parte hearing of the appeal in March, 1762, it was contended by appellant that in 1749 the rate of exchange between Massachusetts bills of credit old tenor and sterling was ten to one, or as appeared in Bering v. Pac\er, that the price of silver was at sixty shillings per ounce, which was equivalent to a ten to one ratio, taking silver at six shillings an ounce. Appellant prayed that the rule in that cause might govern in the instant appeal, pointing out the great loss that would otherwise be forced upon a British creditor. 151 In reversing the judgment below, the Committee advised that respondent pay £479/9/6 sterling, which was equal to £4,794/17/9% in Massachusetts bills of credit old tenor, the rate of exchange being fixed at 5 shillings sterling to one ounce of silver, or 50 shillings Massachusetts bills. This was the rate that Massachusetts bills of credit old tenor bore to silver in 1750, when redeemed by legislative enactment 152 In both these cases, therefore, the Privy Council set up a hard-money standard that the parties probably never contemplated, but met the realities of the situation by taking a rate of exchange that bore some relation to local practice. THE INTERPRETATION OF COLONIAL STATUTES Our consideration of the Privy Council's policy with respect to the application and interpretation of statutes would not be complete without some reference to cases where the Lords Committee was faced with the task of expounding colonial enactments. This was a situation not without its humor—the worldlings of Whitehall, some of them with an acquaintance of the law no greater than that acquired as justices of the peace, settling the meaning of acts constructed by the squires, theologians, and hard-bitten attorneys of the American frontier. Many of the difficulties arose from unskillful drafting, a vice from which numerous early provincial acts suffered, and we think that most of these might well have been forestalled had some effort been spent upon technical defects of draftsmanship in the course of administrative scrutiny of statutes submitted for royal approbation. But this was not the way of the eighteenth century, which saw large sums lavished upon conveyancers for 149 Case of Appellant, Add. MS, 36,218/151- 53. For the proceedings on the writ of review see MS N.H. Sup. Ct. ]ud. Judgment Book,, '755-59, 249-50. For New Hampshire bills of credit new tenor, see Bullock, op. cit., 234 et seq.; 1 Davis, op. cit., 326-27. 150 PC 2/106/243. 151 Case of Appellant, Add. MS, 36,218/151-53. 152 PC 2/109/123, 169; 4 APC, Col., #362.