Part 5 (2/2)
Mr. Littleton was at that time too well apprised of this black transaction to obey her commands. He opened the letter, took a copy of it. Upon further recollection, carried the original to the father, who bid him open and read it. He did so. What do you think, gentlemen, was all the poor old man said upon this discovery? He only again dropped these words, ”Poor love-sick girl! What will not a woman do for the man she loves?”
Upon the Monday morning, after having been kept for two days without seeing her father, by the order of the physicians, her conscience, or rather fear, began to trouble her; she told the maid she should go distracted if she did not see her father, and sent a message to beg to see him. Accordingly she was admitted. The conversation between them was this--”Papa, how do you do?” ”My dear, I am very ill.” She immediately fell upon her knees and said, ”Dear sir, banish me where you will; do with me what you please, so you do but pardon and forgive me. And as to Mr. Cranstoun, I never will see, write, or speak to him again.” He answered, ”I do forgive you, but you should, my dear, have considered that I was your own father.” Upon this the prisoner said, ”Sir, as to your illness I am innocent.” Susan Gunnell, who was present, interrupted her at this expression, and told her she was astonished to hear her say she was innocent, when they had the poison to produce against her that she had put into her father's water gruel, and had preserved the paper she had thrown into the fire. The father, whose love and tenderness for his daughter exceeded expression, could not bear to hear her thus accused; therefore, turning himself in his bed, cried out, ”Oh that villain! that hath eat of the best, and drank of the best my house could afford, to take away my life and ruin my daughter!” Upon hearing this the daughter ran to the other side of the bed to him; upon which he added, ”My dear, you must hate that man, you must hate the very ground he treads on.” Struck with this, the prisoner said, ”Dear sir, your kindness towards me is worse than swords to my heart. I must down upon my knees and beg you not to curse me.” Hear the father's answer, a father then dying by poison given by her hand--”I curse thee, my dear! No, I bless you, and will pray to G.o.d to bless you, and to amend your life”; then added, ”So do, my dear, go out of the room lest you should say anything to accuse yourself.” Was ever such tenderness from a parent to a child! She was prudent enough to follow his advice, and went out of the room without speaking. His kindness was swords to her heart for near half an hour.
Going downstairs she met Betty Binfield, and, whilst she was thus affected, owned to her she had put some powder into her father's gruel, and that Susan and she, for their honesty to their master, deserved half her fortune.
Gentlemen, not to tire you with the particulars of every day, upon Wednesday, in the afternoon, the father died. Upon his death the prisoner, finding herself discovered, endeavoured to persuade the manservant to go off with her; but he was too honest to be tempted by a reward to a.s.sist her in going off, though she told him it would be 500 in his way. That night she refused to go to bed. Not out of grief for her father's death, for you will be told by the maid who sat up with her that she never during the whole night showed the least sorrow, compa.s.sion, or remorse upon his account. But in the middle of the night she proposed to get a post-chaise in order to go to London, and offered the maid twenty-five guineas to go with her. ”A post-chaise! and go to London! G.o.d forbid, madam, I should do such a thing.” The prisoner, finding the maid not proper for her purpose, immediately put a smile upon her face--”I was only joking.” Only joking! Good G.o.d! would she now have it thought she was only joking?
Her father just dead by poison: she suspected of having poisoned him; accused of being a parricide; and would she have it thought she was capable of joking?
When I see the a.s.sistance she now has (and I am glad to see she has the a.s.sistance of three as able gentlemen as any in the profession) I am sure she will not be now advised to say she was then joking. But it will appear very plainly to you, gentlemen, that she was not joking, for the next morning she dressed herself in a proper habit for a journey, and, while the people put to take care of her were absent, stole out of the house and went over Henley Bridge. But the mob, who had heard of what she had done, followed her so close that she was forced to take shelter in a little alehouse, the Angel. Mr. Fisher, a gentleman who was afterwards one of the jury upon the coroner's inquisition, came there, and prevailed with her (or in other words forced her) to return home. Upon her return, the inquest sitting, she sends for Mr. Fisher into another room and said, ”Dear Mr. Fisher, what do you think they will do with me? Will they send me to Oxford gaol?” ”Madam,” said he, ”I am afraid it will go hard with you. But if you have any of Mr. Cranstoun's letters, and produce them, they may be of some service to you.” Upon hearing this she cried out, ”Dear Mr.
Fisher, what have I done? I had letters that would have hanged that villain, but I have burnt them. My honour to that villain has brought me to my destruction.” And she spoke the truth.
This, gentlemen, is in substance the history of this black affair.
But, my lords, though this is the history in order of time, yet it is not the order in which we shall lay the evidence before your lords.h.i.+ps and the jury. It will be proper for us to begin by establis.h.i.+ng the fact that Mr. Francis Blandy did die of poison. When the physicians have proved that, we will then proceed to show that he died of the poison put into the water gruel on the 5th of August. After this we will call witnesses who from a number of circ.u.mstances, as well as from her own confession, will prove she put it into her father's water gruel, knowing it was for her father, and knowing it to be poison.
Having done this, we will conclude with a piece of evidence which I forgot to mention before, and that is the conversation between her and Mr. Lane at the Angel. Mr. Lane and his wife happening to be walking at that time, finding a mob about the door, stepped into the alehouse to see the prisoner. The moment she saw a gentleman, though it was one she did not know, she accosted him, ”Sir, you appear to be a gentleman; for heaven's sake, what will become of me?” ”Madam!” said he, ”you will be sent to Oxford gaol; you will there be tried for your life. If you are innocent, you will be acquitted; if you are guilty, you will suffer death.”
The prisoner upon hearing this stamped with her foot, and said, ”Oh!
that d.a.m.ned villain!” Then pausing, ”But why do I blame him? I am most blame myself, for I gave it, and I knew the consequence.” If she knew the consequence, I am sure there are none of you gentlemen but who will think she deserves to suffer the consequence.
And let me here observe how evidently the hand of Providence has interposed to bring her to this day's trial that she may suffer the consequence. For what but the hand of Providence could have preserved the paper thrown by her into the fire, and have s.n.a.t.c.hed it unburnt from the devouring flame! Good G.o.d! how wonderful are all Thy ways, and how miraculously hast Thou preserved this paper to be this day produced in evidence against the prisoner in order that she may suffer the punishment due to her crime, and be a dreadful example to all others who may be tempted in like manner to offend Thy divine majesty!
Let me add that, next to Providence, the public are obliged to the two n.o.ble lords[4] whose indefatigable diligence in inquiring into this hidden work of darkness has enabled us to lay before you upon this occasion the clearest and strongest proof that such a dark transaction will admit of. For poisoning is done in secret and alone. It is not like other murders, neither can it be proved with equal perspicuity.
However, the evidence we have in this case is as clear and direct as possible, and if it comes up to what I have opened to you I make no doubt but you will do that justice to your country which the oath you have taken requires of you.
[Sidenote: Mr. Serjeant Hayward]
Mr. SERJEANT HAYWARD--May it please your lords.h.i.+ps and you gentlemen of the jury, I likewise am appointed to a.s.sist the Crown on this occasion, but His Majesty's learned counsel having laid before you so faithful a narrative of this dismal transaction, it seems almost unnecessary for me to take up any more of your time in repeating anything that has been before said; and, indeed, my own inclinations would lead me to cast a veil over the guilty scene--a scene so black and so horrid that if my duty did not call me to it I could rather wish it might be for ever concealed from human eyes. But as we are now making inquisition for blood it is absolutely necessary for me to make some observations upon that chain of circ.u.mstances that attended this b.l.o.o.d.y contrivance and detested murder.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Captain Cranstoun and Miss Blandy (_From an Engraving in the British Museum_.)]
Experience has taught us that in many cases a single fact may be supported by false testimony, but where it is attended with a train of circ.u.mstances that cannot be invented (had they never happened), such a fact will always be made out to the satisfaction of a jury by the concurring a.s.sistance of circ.u.mstantial evidence. Because circ.u.mstances that tally one with another are above human contrivance.
And especially such as naturally arise in their order from the first contrivance of a scheme to the fatal execution of it.
Having suggested this much, I shall now proceed to lay before you those sort of circ.u.mstances that seem to me to arise through this whole affair, and leave it to your judgment whether they do not amount to too convincing a proof that the prisoner at the bar has knowingly been the cause of her own father's death, for upon the prisoner's knowledge of what she did will depend her fate.
Of all kinds of murders that by poison is the most dreadful, as it takes a man unguarded, and gives him no opportunity to defend himself, much more so when administered by the hand of a child, whom one could least suspect, and from whom one might naturally look for a.s.sistance and comfort. Could a father entertain any suspicion of a child to whom, under G.o.d, he had been the second cause of life? No, sure, and yet this is the case now before you. The unfortunate deceased has received his death by poison, and that undoubtedly administered by the hand of his own--his only--his beloved child. Spare me, gentlemen, to pay the tribute of one tear to the memory of a person with whom I was most intimately acquainted, and to the excellency of whose disposition and integrity of heart I can safely bear faithful testimony. Oh! were he now living, and to see his daughter there, the severest tortures that poison could give would be nothing to what he would suffer from such a sight.
And since the bitterest agonies must at this time surround the heart of the prisoner if she does but think of what a father she has lost, I can readily join with her in her severest afflictions upon this occasion, and shall never blame myself for weeping with those that weep, nor can I make the least question but my learned a.s.sistants in this prosecution will with me rejoice likewise, if the prisoner, by making her innocence appear, shall upon the conclusion of this inquiry find occasion to rejoice. But, alas! too strong I fear will the charge against her be proved, too convincing are the circ.u.mstances that attend it. What those are, and what may be collected from them, is my next business to offer to your consideration.
But before I enter thereupon I must beg leave to address myself to this numerous and crowded a.s.sembly, whom curiosity hath led hither to hear the event of this solemn trial, hoping that whatever may be the consequence of it to the prisoner her present melancholy situation may turn to our advantage, and reduce our minds to seriousness and attention. Solemn, indeed, I may well call it as being a tribunal truly awful, for this method of trial before two of His Majesty's learned judges has scarce ever been known upon a circuit; judges of undoubted virtue, integrity, and learning, who undergo this laborious and important work, not only for the sake of bringing guilt to punishment, but to guard and protect innocence whenever it appears.
But you, young gentleman of this University, I particularly beg your attention, earnestly beseeching you to guard against the first approaches of and temptations to vice. See here the dreadful consequences of disobedience to a parent. Who could have thought that Miss Blandy, a young lady virtuously brought up, distinguished for her good behaviour and prudent conduct in life, till her unfortunate acquaintance with the wicked Cranstoun, should ever be brought to a trial for her life, and that for the most desperate and bloodiest kind of murder, committed by her own hand, upon her own father? Had she listened to his admonitions this calamity never had befallen her.
Learn hence the dreadful consequences of disobedience to parents; and know also that the same mischief in all probability may happen to such who obstinately disregard, neglect, and despise the advice of those persons who have the charge and care of their education; of governors likewise, and of magistrates, and of all others who are put in authority over them. Let this fix in your mind the excellent maxim of the good physician, ”Venienti occurrite morbo.” Let us defend ourselves against the first temptations to sin, and guard our innocence as we would our lives; for if once we yield, though but a little, in whose power is it to say, hitherto will I go, and no further?
And now, gentlemen of the jury, those observations I had before mentioned, I shall attempt to lay before you in order to a.s.sist you in making a true judgment of the matter committed to your charge. The author and contriver of this b.l.o.o.d.y affair is not at present here. I sincerely wish that he was, because we should be able to convince him that such crimes as his cannot escape unpunished. The unhappy prisoner, ruined and undone by the treacherous flattery and pernicious advice of that abandoned, insidious, and execrable wretch, who had found means of introducing himself into her father's family, and whilst there, by false pretences of love, gained the affection of his only daughter and child. Love! did I call it? It deserves not the name; if it was love of anything it was of the 10,000 supposed to be the young lady's fortune. Could a man that had a wife of his own, and children, be really in love with another woman? Such a thing cannot be supposed, and therefore I beg leave to call it avarice and l.u.s.t only; but be it what it will, the life of the father becomes an obstacle to the criminal proceedings that were intended and designed to be carried on between them, and therefore he must be removed before that imaginary state of felicity could be obtained according to their projected scheme. Mark how the destruction of this poor man is ushered into the world--apparitions, noises, voices, music, reported to be heard from time to time in the deceased's house. Even his days are numbered out, and his own child limits the s.p.a.ce of his life but till the following month of October. What could be the meaning of this, but to prepare the world for a death that was predetermined? Who could limit the days of a man's life but a person who knew what was intended to be done towards the shortening of it?
In order to bring this about Cranstoun sends presents of pebbles, as also a powder to clean them, and this powder, gentlemen, you will find is the dreadful poison that accomplished this abominable scheme.
From time to time mention is made of the pebbles, but not a syllable of the powder. Why not of the one as well as of the other, if there had not been a mystery concealed in it? Preparation is made for an experiment of its power before Cranstoun's departure. He mixes the deadly draught, but the prisoner's conscience, not yet hardened, forced her to turn away her eyes, and she durst not venture to behold the cup prepared that was to send the father into another world.
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