Charles Spurgeon Commentary Acts 26:32

"And Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar." — Acts 26:32 (ASV)

But it was not God's purpose that Paul should be set free; he must go to Rome, and must there, before the emperor himself, bear witness which he could not bear as a free man, but which the emperor must hear when Paul was brought before him as a prisoner who had appealed to him, and must therefore be heard in person.