period and concerned chiefly administration of justice in Barbados. Effective 
control of colonial chancery courts was limited to Jamaica, Barbados, and 
the Leeward Islands. The jurisdiction over vice-admiralty courts was of importance 
only for the West Indian possessions and the late mainland acquisitions. 
In the relatively unimportant matter of probate and administration 
Jamaica provided the majority of the appeals. 
The explanation for these jurisdictional variances must take into account 
many factors. In some of the continental colonies the level of economic life 
afforded such subject matter that in most litigation it was neither feasible nor 
possible (because of minimum requirements) to appeal to England. It appears 
probable that in Barbados the decline in the number of appeals coincided with 
economic decline. The constitution of the colony was also an important factor. 
In chartered Connecticut political tradition frowned upon appeals. In Massachusetts 
recourse was had to the charter terms to prevent appeals in real actions. 
The statutory appellate minimum, lower than the instructional, largely 
accounts for the number of appeals from Rhode Island—a total half again as 
great as that of its nearest rival, Jamaica. Yet another factor was the ease of 
communication with England. Internal legal development had some effect 
upon the number of appeals. The New England-type record or the extensive 
use in the West Indies of special verdicts and bills of exceptions containing 
all the evidence were more conducive to appeals than the ordinary general 
verdicts in widespread use in such colonies as New York and New Jersey. 
The opposition to governors acting as chancellors in some of the mainland 
plantations undoubtedly undermined the Privy Council's appellate jurisdiction. 
The continued confusion as to the proper appellate tribunal in appeals 
from vice-admiralty courts may have reduced the number of appeals from 
some dependencies. 
The one factor affecting the volume of appeals from any single jurisdiction 
that lay quite out of the control of the Council was the quality and capacity 
of the colonial courts at any given time. If parties were convinced that local 
judgments were devoid of error, there would have been little incentive to 
appeal, although in some colonies the litigiousness of the inhabitants was such 
that they were not necessarily inhibited by such considerations. 
In this connection it is interesting to compare the record of Rhode Island 
in common law appeals with that of the other colonies. In most of the others 
the number of affirmances and reversals were fairly equal, with slightly more 
of the latter. But in prolific Rhode Island the number of reversals was three 
times the number of affirmances. It is also interesting to notice that chancery 
courts were more liable to err than common law courts —probably because the 
governors or governors and councils constituted the judicial personnel. As