4 RINGGOLD'S CASE.—1 BLAND.

This right of appeal seems to have been conceded to the citizen
by the common law, in all civil cases, without check, or control of
any kind whatever. Tidd Prac, 1074. A writ of error was granted,
on demand, as a matter of right; The Regina v. P«ty, 2 Salk. 504;
and if the appellant was at all apprehensive, that proceedings in exe-
cution of the judgment which had been so taken up by the writ
of error, would not be stayed, he might, as of course, sue out a
writ of supersedeas for the purpose of having all such proceedings
suspended until a decision was had upon the writ of error. Jac.
L. Die. ride Supersedeas. The form of the writ of supersedeas,
which followed, as the adjunct and auxiliary of the writ of error,
was thus. '' that if the judgment be not executed before the super -
sedeas, the sheriff is to stay from executing any process of execu-
tion until the writ of error is determined." Meriton v. Sterens,
Willis, 281. Hence it was. and not from the quaint notion, that
an execution being an entire thing which, when once begun, must
be completed, that, if the fieri * facias had been levied, the
8 sheriff was bound to sell the goods and bring the money
into Court to abide the event of the writ of error. And this be-
comes the more evident on adverting to the fact, that, in many
other cases, where no such special directions were given to the
sheriff, the proceedings, in execution of the judgment, were inter-
cepted and cut short at the very point at which the writ of error
or supersedeas might happen to find them. Jac. L. Die. rule Su-
persedeas. But it has been long established, that the writ of error,
with an approved bond to prosecute it with effect, of itself, ope-
rates as a stay of further proceedings to the same extent, that
might have been specially directed by a writ of supersedeas; which
writ, owing to that, although formerly always sued out in this
State, Land. H. A. 146, Chan. Pro. Lib. C. D. 368, (d) has long
since become obsolete, and is now never resorted to as a mere
auxiliary to a writ of error in any case whatever. 2 Bac. Abr.
477.

But, although the right to appeal, in civil cases at common law,
was thus, for a long time, admitted to be absolute and beyond con-
trol; yet it was limited in its range to such facts as would have
manifestly required a different course of pioceediug and judgment,
had they been made known to the Court: and to such errors in
law as appeared upon the face of the record itself. And these
errors in law, according to the common law mode of proceeding,
could rarely be anything more than such points of law as arose

(d) A fee was formerly allowed to the Chancellor, which was afterwards
directed to be paid into the treasury, for putting the great seal to a writ of
error, and also a distinct fee for putting the great seal "to a supersedeas
thereupon"—1763, ch. 18, s. 88; Oct. 1777, ch. 13; November, 1779, ch. 25, s.
23.