Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 2

6. For the Congressional Resolve of 25 Nov. 1775, and a further resolve of 23 March 1776, see note 3 108 below. For the work of the special committees and the resolve creating the Standing Committee, see Davis, “Federal Courts,” 131 U.S., Appendix xxii—xxiii; 7 JCC 75. For the cases which came before special committees, see McAroy v. The Thistle, note 41 146 below; National Archives, The Revolutionary War Prize Cases 26–27 (pamphlet accompanying Microcopy No. 162, Washington, 1954). It has been suggested that the idea of trial by committee may have come from the example of the British practice under which appeals from the Vice Admiralty courts in cases of prize went to Lords Commissioners for hearing such appeals, a committee of the Privy Council. Jameson, “The Predecessor of the Supreme Court,” in J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States 13–16 (Boston and N.Y., 1889). It should be noted, however, that after 1762 this committee included the judges of the common-law courts. See 1 Holdsworth, History of English Law 565 note.