at annapolis before revolution 43

the records were then transmitted and errors or
reasons transmitted with them. The minimum
limit of three hundred pounds in controversy re-
mained until the Revolution. By instructions sent
by Lord Baltimore to the province in 1726/7, pur-
suant to a royal instruction governing appeals from
all the provinces, execution was suspended on such
appeals upon the giving of security.²⁶ And by an
act of 1773, chapter 7, section 5, the security was
required to be lodged with the clerk of the King's
Council in twelve months. And in time formal
written judgments of the Privy Council, under
its seal, would be received by the court and en-
tered. These ultimate appeals were more frequent
in the earlier part of the eighteenth century than
later.

It has sometimes been assumed that because of
the lack of professional training in the judges of
this pre-Revolutionary court their methods and
results must have been inartificial and hardly ju-
dicial according to our present conceptions. But
the facts stated so far seem to show that in function
and method the court cannot be distinguished from
a full-fledged court of justice. It was a tribunal
holding special sessions exclusively for judicial
business; its procedure was in accordance with
judicial forms elaborated in England; and the
cases were argued by professional lawyers, and de-
cided by the judges, upon established principles
of law. And its decisions appear to have been
taken as settling the law. Daniel Dulany, in an
opinion given in the case of Somerville v. Johnson,
1 Harris & McHenry, 348, 354, said, "What Mr.

26. H. D. No. 1, fol. 723.