proposed for parliamentary action that appeals should be allowed to the King 
in Council, with reduced or no minimum requirements from any colonial 
judgment touching debts owing His Majesty's subjects. 47 Lieutenant-Governor 
Gooch of Virginia objected to a proposed ,£lOO minimum, on the ground 
that planters as a result would have to pay unjust demands to unscrupulous 
merchants in England rather than be at the expense of time and money in 
defending an appeal in England. 48 The council of the same colony also represented 
that such a reduction of the minimum from to would 
absurdly cause appeals to lie for a sum equal to the charges incurred in prosecuting 
or defending the same; that it would unjustly sacrifice the poor litigant 
to the rich; and that it would favor the English merchant located at the appellate 
site over the colonial planter. 49 Whatever the effect of these representations, 
the provision failed of incorporation in the act which emerged for the 
more easy recovery of debts in the plantations. 50 
Minimum requirements for appeals engendered a problem of valuationhow 
and by whom was it to be determined, if controverted, whether a certain 
cause satisfied the minimum required? As has been indicated, accusations 
were made that governors wrongly refused appeals on pretense of noncompliance 
with minimal requirements. 51 The problem of valuation was particu- 
South Sea Company Court of Directors. The 
subgovernor informed the court that one 
Rigby had represented that it might be of 
service to the company's affairs in Jamaica to 
obtain a particular instruction to the governor 
to admit appeals whatever the value of the 
matter in dispute. For it was alleged that under 
the existing instructions in case of duties no 
one action would ever reach the appealable 
minimum. The matter was referred to a committee 
to make such application as it saw 
proper {Add. MS, 25,503/70). 
47 CSP, Col., 1731, #289; ibid., 1732, #22. 
48 To show the possible hardships Governor 
Gooch outlined a hypothetical course of dealings 
between a planter and his London merchant. 
The planter consigns 10 hhds. of tobacco 
to the latter with instructions to sell 
and from the proceeds to send certain goods 
to Virginia. The merchant sends the goods and 
an account of the sales. The next year more 
tobacco is consigned and more goods sent 
for, "and then comes an account current 
wherein the planter has credit for the first 
tobacco consigned." The correspondence continues 
for three or four years. Then the merchant 
writes the planter that the tobacconist 
to whom he sold four or five hogsheads of the 
first consignment "is broke, that the money 
is lost and the planter must repay it." For this 
and some other small debt making a total of 
£ 100 the planter is sued. No court or jury 
would charge the planter with this loss at 
the end of three years when it is proven the 
merchant never sells but for cash or six 
months' credit. Nevertheless, if the planter 
gets a favorable verdict and an appeal in 
£100 lay and should be taken, the planter 
would rather pay the unjust bill than incur 
the expense of such an appeal (ibid., 1731, 
#289). 
1731, #473- 
50 5 Geo. 11, c. 7. There is no evidence on the 
legislative treatment of the proposed clause 
as to appeals. It may be that the objections of 
Isham Randolph, agent for Virginia, excluded 
the clause; see 4 Stock, op. cit., 128, 130, 145, 
150, 153~56. 
51 2 Col. Rec. No. Car., 161. See also the complaint 
of Manasses Gilligan et ux. that liberty 
to appeal from a chancery decree was granted 
by Governor Crowe of Barbados, provided the 
amount involved satisfied the minimum requirement; 
that a warrant of appraisement 
issued and the negroes in question were appraised 
at £500. Upon a petition to the gov-