admonished the governor to insure the free issuance of royal writs according to law. 622 The circumstances of this case were not such as to put in issue the propriety of the kind of judicial action which assemblies in Connecticut and Rhode Island were exercising. The assembly of Pennsylvania had assumed on a theory of contempt what amounted to the jurisdiction of King's Bench over a libel, but a question of legislative prerogative was really involved —whether or not the assembly possessed the equivalent of parliamentary privilege. The action of the Council was clear enough on this point, but it did nothing to clarify the problem raised by the New England legislatures. And Lord Mansfield's refusal some years later to enter upon the merits of the Connecticut resolution discussed above indicates that the Pennsylvania case did not create a new line of policy. It was typical of the Privy Council's general attitude that the occasion for a blast at legislative exercise of judicial powers should have been a case that seemed a subversion of conciliar appellate jurisdiction. In Rhode Island, in November, 1763, an action was brought by one John Holmes in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for Newport to establish an equity of redemption in certain lands and tenements in possession of one Thomas Freebody. Judgment being given for plaintiff, an appeal was taken to the Superior Court of Judicature. At the appellate hearing collateral questions of allowance for repair, commission of waste, and sufficiency of tender by the mortgagor were entered into, and in March, 1765, judgment was given that plaintiff recover possession of the premises upon payment of old tenor money or ;£ 656/15/9 1/4 lawful money. Defendant Freebody thereupon prayed and was granted an appeal to the King in Council, giving security to prosecute within a year and a day with effect or to pay the costs and damages incurred in defending the appeal. 623 Instead of prosecuting this appeal, Freebody in May petitioned the General Assembly to set aside the March, 1765, Superior Court judgment and all proceedings thereunder and to grant a new trial on the pleas on file. Despite the insistence of Holmes that the cause was depending before the Council Board, 622 4 APC, Col, #351. With this Pennsylvania case should be compared the protests of the Jamaica Assembly in 1765 upon the release of Pierce Cooke and Lochlan McNeil by the Chancellor upon the return of a writ of habeas corpus granted under 31 Charles 11, c. 2. Cooke and McNeil were committed into custody by the assembly for breach of privilege for causing a writ to be executed upon the coach horse of a member while the assembly was sitting. See The Privileges of the Island of Jamaica Vindicated (1766), passim. 623 See the printed conciliar "cases" of the appellant and respondent in a later appeal in the cause (Col. Univ. Law Lib.); PC 2/1 14/332- 40; MS R.I. Sup. Ct. Jud. ]udg. Book., 1734-72, 265.