icant from this discussion is the absence of any opinion that colonial acts passed 
contrary to royal instructions were null and void without a declaration of such 
nullity by act of Parliament. Obviously these several efforts to obtain parliamentary 
declaration would not have been made if respectable opinion had obtained 
that acts passed contrary to gubernatorial instruction were ipso facto 
null and void, without parliamentary action. 
In the colonies, we have already seen that Chief Justice Whitaker of South 
Carolina distinguished acts contrary to royal instructions from those contrary 
or repugnant to the laws of England. 410 In the 1760 decision of Chief Justice 
Michie of South Carolina in Williams, Administrator de bonis non v. Execu- 
tors of Watson the status of acts passed contrary to gubernatorial instructions 
was also touched upon. While only dictum, in this case the Chief Justice asserted 
that such acts were not void, but only voidable by royal disallowance. 411 
It should be obvious from what has been said that failure to observe royal 
instructions was not confined to isolated instances. Probably the most frequently 
evaded instructions were those requiring suspending clauses in certain 
categories of acts —a suspending clause consisting of a provision that an 
act was not to come into effect until confirmed by the King in Council. This 
instructional requirement applied in the case of temporary and repealing 
acts, 412 private acts affecting private property, 413 acts of an unusual and extraordinary 
nature prejudicial to the royal prerogative or the subject's property 
414 acts affecting British trade or shipping, 415 and as we have already seen, 
acts for issuance of bills of credit in lieu of money. 410 Before the Parsons' 
Cause arose, six acts in' Virginia alone were disallowed as lacking suspending 
clauses. 417 More than thirty additional instances of such disallowance are available 
from Bermuda, 418 the Carolinas, 419 the Leeward Islands, 420 Jamaica, 421 
Massachusetts, 422 New Hampshire, 423 and New Jersey. 424 This group of acts 
disallowed for failure to contain a suspending clause can be supplemented by 
for the issuance of paper money (i Labaree, 
Royal Instructions, #320) Thomas Penn wrote, 
"I do not look upon this instruction as one 
only issuing from the King, it having been 
given on the application of the representative 
body of the nation, I think it gives it an additional 
weight" (Thomas Penn to Richard Peters, 
Nov. 16, 1753 [3 MS Penn Letter Books, 
1750-54, 375] >• 
410 Supra, p. 577. 
411 MS Journal So. Car. Court Common Pleas, 
'754-63, 233, 238. 
412 i Labaree, Royal Instructions, #205. 
#222. 
414 Ibid., #224, 227, 
415 Ibid., #225-27. 
416 Ibid., #324-25; cf. ibid., #320. 
417 3 APC, Col., #59; 4 ibid., #155. 
418 3 ibid., #66. 
419 3 ibid., #48, 286, 396, 559; 4 ibid., #78. 
420 3 ibid., #37, 147, 337, 393, 443; 4 ibid., 
#21, 132. 
421 3 ibid., #45, 502; 4 ibid., #216, 236. 
422 3 ibid., p. 848; 4 ibid., #180. Cf. Russell, 
The Review of American Colonial Legislation 
by King in Council, 214, where an erroneous 
impression is given that Pennsylvania was a 
regular recipient of these instructions. But 
Pennsylvania only received one circular instruction 
concerned with suspending clauses; 
see 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #226. 
423 4 APC, Col, #238. 
424 3 ibid., #242, 329; 4 ibid., #116.