a smaller collection of acts disallowed for other varied instructional violations. Contained therein are acts from Barbados, 425 the Carolinas, 420 Jamaica, 427 Maryland, 428 and Massachusetts. 429 In no instance is any evidence found of a contention that such acts were null and void ab initio for instructional violation 430 On the contrary, it was strongly asserted to save a 1739 Jamaica act from disallowance that failure to insert a suspending clause under the instructions did not even in itself constitute a ground for disallowance. 431 Strong language, however, was used by the Committee and the Board of Trade in several instances of instructional violation. Reporting on several private acts of Virginia in May, 1760, the Committee stated that the instructions governing passage of private acts had been disregarded. It was further added that these regulations so essential to the security not only of the right and property of your Majestys subjects but also the just rights of your Majesty are coeval with the constitution of the British colonies, and being founded upon that Principal of equity and justice which has invariably taken place and been observed in all of them of allowing appeals to your Majesty in Council in all cases affecting private property, they do form an essential part of that constitution and cannot be sett aside without subverting a fundimental principle of it wisely framed for the security and protection of your Majesty's subjects in whatever may affect their private rights and interests. 425 j ibid., #394. 426 4 ibid., #213, 281, p. 807; 5 Col. Rec. No. Car., 106-7. 427 3 APC, Col, #68, 125, 244. 428 2 APC, Col, p. 838. 429 4 ibid., p. 805; 4 Acts and Res. Prov. Mass. Bay, 5. 430 Cf. the language in a January, 1762, Board of Trade representation upon a 1756 Jamaica act that duties granted by a 1728 confirmed act "could not have been regularly and constitutionally rescinded by a temporary act made to take place" before the royal assent could be known. But the act was merely disallowed (4 APC, Col, #468). 431 The act was "An Act to dissolve the marriage of Edward Manning, Esq. with Elizabeth Moore and to enable him to marry again" (Copy in Lib. of Cong., Law Div.). Solicitor John Sharpe argued that this was an instruction only between the crown and the governor and did not at all affect or interfere with the power of the Jamaican legislature. It was left to the discretion of the governor to be exercised in cases where he should judge it proper. The noninsertion of such clause would not in any respect vitiate the law, provided it was in other respects proper and reasonable to pass. The governor had judged that this was a case where it was not proper that such suspending clause should interpose. If the crown were of the opinion that this was a proper act to pass, that would show the governor's judgment to have been right. But if the crown was of the opinion that the act was not a proper act, the noninsertion of the clause would be no reason against rejecting it. The reason for the instruction was plainly to prevent acts from being passed on a year to year basis laying unequal duties and impositions on British traders. If the instruction was to be considered as having the extensive application contended for by its opponents, the governor was prevented from assenting to any law that had anything new in it —a construction never to be supported or insisted upon as it would put a total stagnation to all plantation government (MS Proceedings and Argument of John Sharpe, L.C., Law Div.). But the Committee advised that a suspending clause "ought indispensably to have been inserted" in the act which was accordingly disallowed (3 APC, Col, #502). Cf. the first reason of Thomas Pownall in declining the government of Pennsylvania in 1758 (13 Pa. Mag. Hist, and Biog., 441-42).