57 corded on 4 August 1755: “C. J. W. [Willes] having finished his Crown cases on Wednesday morning tried four N. P. cases for me Wednesday afternoon”.■*' Earlier, at Hertford, Willes abandoned Ryder, and Ryder expressed his annoyance: “He [Willes] finished his Crown side Tuesday 29 July in the morning and went to London, as he pretended first to me because some writings were to be executed next morning, and very soon pretended [he] was bound to see the Duke of N. the next morning”.'’^ Some of the Home Circuit assize towns were close enough to London to be reached by day trips, and Lord Mansfield occasionally returned to Kenwood on finishing his cases, especially at the end of the week, resuming the assizes the following Monday at the next town."*^ The imbalance between the Crown and plea lists was, on occasion, marked. Ryder was correct in observing that, on the Crown side at Sussex, there was “but little business.” Lord Mansfield’s trial notes showhimhearing as fewas one to three cases on several occasions. This happened at other locations as well; the London Chronicle reported on August 7, 1760, that at Hertford, “only two causes were tried on the nisi prius side”. Generally speaking, however, the plea side was busier for Lord Mansfield than the Crown side. With regard to post-sentencing practices on the Crown side at the assizes, Dudley Ryder recorded in his diary for 24 July 1754 the following advice from one of his clerks: [W]hen a judge thinks a convict a proper object of mercy he writes on the side of the calendar ‘reprieve’ and the clerk of assize makes a copy of it with a like memorandum in the margin and delivers it to the judge, keeping the original. And then he [the convict] is kept in prison until the next assize, and in the mean time he [the judge] prepares a memorial to the Secretary of State representing the persons reprieved and submitting what [is] to be done with them. On which the Secretary commonly answers it by an order for their being transported for 14 years and then the clerk of assize contracts with one [sic] named by the Treasury in the home and Norfolk circuit, for which the Treasury allows £5 a man to the contractor. And when the next assizes [arrive], the )udge for the Crown side pronounces the judgment of transportation according to the law. Sometimes the Secretary of State in special cases have desired the judges to send an account of the circumstances of the case to ground His Majesty’s judgment on as to mercy. ■" Ryder Diary, 4 August 1755 (Lincoln’s Inn Libr.iry). Ryder Diary, 28 July 1755 (Lincoln’s Inn Library). Paterson’s road atlas sets out the mileage of the Circuits of the Judges. It was 21 miles from London to Hertford and but 11 —1/2 from London to Kingston. The entire circuit comprised 162— 1/2 miles. Paterson, D., A NewandAccurate Description ofAll the Direct and Principal Crossroads in England and Wales, 8th-ed., London, 1789, p. 295. The Northern Circuit, by comparison, (the “Long Circuit’’) comprised 651-1/2 miles. Ibid, p. 298. Most of the steps described by Rvder are verified by documents among State Papers at the Public Record Office. Numerous reports by trial judges on specific prisoners can be found, respending to inquiries by the Secretaries of State. There as well are certificates of the pardons, both free and conditional, extended to the prisoners that were reprieved on each circuit. These certificates demonstrate how gradations of punishment multiplied after transportation to the American
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