a constitutional principle the integrity of the judiciary in the governmental scheme. We have seen enough of the workings of imperial administration to realize that so far as constitutional principles were concerned what was sauce for the English goose was not necessarily sauce for the colonial gander. The bitter exchanges over the tenure of colonial judges in the middle of the eighteenth century clearly demonstrated this. At the same time, it should be observed that from the end of the seventeenth century onward the English officials pursued a policy respecting the colonial judiciary that superficially approximated English constitutional notions: that is to say, the courts were to be assured the degree of independence which the tribunals at Westminster had claimed to be essential to the maintenance of the law, but in this design the political safeguards secured by acts of Parliament were not included. The implications of this omission are obvious. The crown, realizing that the colonial courts were the chief instruments for local enforcement of policies, strove for this reason to preserve executive authority over the judiciary that in England had been nicely pared down by statute. As a further essential of this program, it was sought by various means to prevent any interferences with the courts at the hands of the colonial assemblies. It is with this phase of royal policy that we are immediately concerned. The attempts to confine judicial powers to purely judicial bodies through the medium of instructions have already been discussed. These instructions indicate that it was only the lower legislative branches which were to be excluded from appellate jurisdiction and that little effort was made to deprive the respective upper branches of judicial authority, provided it was strictly appellate in character. 578 Possibly the distinction between upper and lower houses was made with reference to the analogy of the House of Commons, 678 The opinion seems to have prevailed in the colonies themselves that the Governors and Councils could act only as a court of errors or appeal, presumably because of the influence of the statute 16 Charles I, c. 10. Thus, it was said of the Jamaica Council in 1683 that "they think themselves limited by the law, like the King's council in England, so meddle not with property, unless it comes by writ of error out of the Grand Court, or appeal out of the Admiralty, judicially before them" (1 Journals Assembly Jamaica, Appen., 45). Governor Fletcher of New York was also said to have declined jurisdiction in matters of property, except on appeal (CSP, Col., 1714-15, #435). Cf. also the 1701 New York Council declination of jurisdiction in "matter of property" (ibid., 1701, #47). When Governor Hutchinson and the Council of Massachusetts ordered that inquiry be made into the Tea Riots, and that the Attorney General lay the discoveries before the Grand Jury, it was alleged that such directions were contrary to 16 Charles I, c. 10 (The Petition of Mr. Bollan, Agent for the Council of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, lately presented to the Two Houses of Parliament [1774], 49). In New Hampshire in May, 1774, George Wentworth petitioned the Governor and Council to order the Superior Court to proceed in a case remitted to it. But the petition was dismissed, it being stated that die matter was not brought before the court by any means by which it could take cognizance; that its only jurisdiction was appellate (MS Court of Appeals and Supreme Probate Records, i 74*-74, 226-27). In Barbados during the second decade of