In those colonies which were provided by charter with a Court of
Assistants, this body soon came to act as a judicial court. This
took place in the colony of Massachusetts Bay as soon as the seat
of the company's government was transferred from England to
America, and took place as a matter of course. Divisional courts
were frequently held by part of the assistants, with original
jurisdiction of minor causes, and all sat semi-annually, or
oftener, to try larger ones and hear appeals.[Footnote: Noble,
"Records of the Court of Assistants of Massachusetts Bay," I,
Preface; Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts,
III, 317.]

In Connecticut, appellate jurisdiction was originally retained by
the General Assembly, but when the docket became too crowded,
resort was occasionally had to the appointment of a special and
temporary commission of appeals to clear it off. As early as
1719, one was constituted for this purpose to hold office for two
years.

No colony set up a permanent supreme court with full appellate
jurisdiction. None probably cared to do this, and none probably
thought that it could. The Lords of Trade and Plantations would
have rightly thought such a step hardly consistent with the
maintenance of their revisory and controlling powers. It would
have been too costly to allow two appeals; and for them to
reverse a judgment of a colonial supreme court would have been
more distasteful to Americans than the exercise of a similar
power as to a court professedly of superior, not supreme,
jurisdiction.