after revolution to 1805 75

The number of appeals continued small until
1785, not exceeding seven in any one year until
that one, when there were eleven, without deduct-
ing for instances of more than one appeal in the
same controversy. In 1784, only two appeals had
been entered. But in 1786 there were thirty-one,
in 1787 seventy-four, in 1788 seventy-seven, and in
1789 one hundred and sixty. The number jumped
after 1785. The docket filled with entries from
1791 to 1798 is a larger volume than that which
contained all the entries from 1695 to 1790. The
number of cases argued was not increased in pro-
portion; many were disposed of under rules, ap-
parently for want of prosecution. The increase
in the number filed might be taken as indicating
a sudden change in the valuation of the right of
appeal, or of the newly-organized court, but it
seems likely to have been due in no small part to
the passage of an act of 1785, chapter 80, section
6, which provided that on a reversal of a judgment
upon the merits the court should award costs in-

the courts. And in 1751, after a will of John Gibb, of Queen
Anne's County, had been set aside, at the suit of a niece, on a
finding of mental incompetency of the testator, Edward Dorsey
appeared on behalf of nineteen negroes who by the terms of the
will were to be manumitted and to receive the testator's real
estate and most of his personal estate, and applied to the Com-
missary General to have the case reopened on the ground that the
executors had failed to defend the interests of the negroes. Al-
though the application was late, the Commissary General, Daniel
Dulany, reopened the case, and after a full hearing decided
against the negroes because he concluded that the will had been
procured by them by undue influence exerted upon the testator,
even if the testator was of competent mind, which the Com-
missary doubted. There was an appeal to a Court of Delegates,
but only four out of five delegates commissioned attended, and
there being an equal division of opinion, the Commissary's judg-
ment was affirmed. But a second Court of Delegates was allowed,
and commissioned, and by that court the judgment was reversed,
and the will upheld. MSS. papers in possession of Court of
Appeals.