royal interference, the policy of intervention in litigation was well and consistently 
developed. Every student of American constitutional law is familiar 
with the leading case of Calder v. Bull, 597 where the Supreme Court of the 
United States reluctantly conceded that such interference was not unconstitutional. 
The provincial tradition that underlies this case runs well back into 
the eighteenth century and embraces not merely legislative interventions in 
procedure but likewise the assumption of complete appellate jurisdiction. 598 
Upon these activities the Privy Council put no brakes. An appeal was admitted 
in 1738 from a judgment of the General Assembly, 599 but as it was never 
prosecuted, the opportunity to exercise a censorship was missed. Strangely 
enough, in 1765, when an attempt to appeal from a Connecticut legislative 
resolution was made, the opportunity to act was pavidly waived. Elisha 
Whittlesey had prayed leave to appeal from a resolution of the General Assembly 
of May, 1763, whereby certain bargains and agreements entered into 
between petitioner and Jacob Pierpont for the purchase of each other's lands 
were declared null and void and prohibited from being given in evidence in 
any court within the colony. The legislative action was based on alleged fraud 
and imposition upon a supposedly insane grantor. 600 At a July, 1765, Committee 
hearing leave to appeal was refused. It was stated that an act of assembly 
was not a matter of judicature, but of state, and petitioner was informed that 
he must complain in another form. 601 At a later date counsel Francis Eyre 
informed William Samuel Johnson that Lord Mansfield had said the matter 
was a great and new point which he would not determine in that ex parte 
manner and dismissed the petition. 602 
In a more informative letter of April, 1769, to Thomas Life, Connecticut 
agent, Eyre wrote that: 
The court below had refused us an appeal. Their reason was they were not bound 
to permit appeals under such circumstances as the present. This affair was argued 
by Mr. Forrester of counsell with us, Lord Mansfield sitting as law lord, when 
after an ex parte debate, nothing was done, but declaring it to be a great question 
indeed of too much magnitude to be decided ex parte, and so it rests, without 
prejudice however to us, and if it was to be stirred, a fund must be provided for the 
purpose of carrying it on, in this very unfavourable time especially when the like 
597 3 Dallas, U.S. Rep., 386. 
598 See inter alia 11 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn., 
22-26, 52-55, 71-79, 185-86, 203-6, 388-92, 
446-50, 544-45, 603-5; 12 ibid., 17-20, 90-97, 
224-26, 263-66, 292-93, 389-90, 469-70, 
574-75, 603-4; 13 ibid., 27, 30-31, 33-34, 
408-9, 501. 
699 Wheeler v. Levenworth {PC 2/94/310, 
338, 366). The judgment appealed from was a 
denial of another trial in the cause (7 Pub. Rec. 
Col. Conn., 534). 
wopc 2/111/262;- 12 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn., 
154-56. 
601 WO r/404/58. 
602 iy m _ Samuel Johnson MS Diaries (Conn. 
Hist. Soc), sub Nov. 28, 1769.