or even if the Committee had not refused to embody its reasons in the report 
to the Council. The notes taken by counsel or the judges, that we have so 
largely relied on, show there was often extraordinarily able argument and 
that things were said at the Board no less incisive and pregnant with future 
potentialities than what was said in the English courts. An infinitesimal 
amount of this crept into the books, and since the credit and the prestige of 
a court depends upon report, the Committee thus cheated itself of the status 
it might otherwise have achieved as a law-speaking body in England. 
That the cases decided upon appeal failed for these reasons to occupy a position 
of weight in the body of English law, should not obscure the fact that the 
jurisdiction itself, in the sphere where it functioned, was not thereby rendered 
insignificant. The minatory effect upon provincial courts was ever-present, 
and no litigant could ever afford to leave out of his calculations the possibility 
of recourse to the Council. The correspondence during the eighteenth century 
offers abundant evidence of this. These calculations, however, were usually 
made not without uneasiness, for the cause likely to be appealed often involved 
matters which the colonists could not bring themselves to regard as correctible 
error, and a case that had commenced as a mere private litigation might suddenly 
crackle with political static which would bring the colony agent haring 
over to the Council Office. Most of these questions, extrinsic to the issues presented 
by an appeal, arose because the colonists could not reconcile themselves 
to the orthodox rules respecting the application of English law. Within the 
bounds set by these rules the Lords Committee adhered very steadily to stare 
decisis and to the standards set by the established English courts as these were 
understood by the law Lords on the Committee. The local reaction to this is 
well illustrated by the Jamaican reception of the decision regarding the Statute 
of Frauds in Orby v. Long. 6 The colonists, further, conceded nothing to the 
point of view that rules long entrenched in English court practice, judicial 
decision, or statute were to prevail over provincial legislative experiments, 
or such vagaries as new trials by act of assemblies. The Committee in such 
instances treated the law as embodying what amounted to constitutional substance 
and did not view the matter as one of conflicting policies. Actually if 
what appeared to be considerations of policy came up, the Committee acted 
intelligently and did not blindly follow the views of English administrators. 
Thus, instead of affirming in Kennedy v. Fowles, it could well have reversed 
and thereby have strengthened the enforcement of the Acts of Trade. 7 The 
temperateness of the Council on such matters.of policy was certainly not appreciated, 
for the political dreams of the colonists always exceeded anything 
the English were prepared to do. The pre-Revolutionary assertion that the 
6 Supra, pp. 478-80. * Supra, pp. 515-17.