Part 11 (1/2)

[The KING'S COUNSEL then interposed, and said that he had not intended to mention what had pa.s.sed in discourse between the prisoner and Dr.

Addington; but that now, as her own counsel had been pleased to call for part of it, he desired the whole might be laid before the Court.]

[Sidenote: Dr. Addington]

Dr. ADDINGTON--On Monday night, the 12th August, after Miss Blandy had been secured, and her papers, keys, &c., taken from her, she threw herself on the bed and groaned, then raised herself and wrung her hands, and said that it was impossible for any words to describe the horrors and agonies in her breast; that Mr. Cranstoun had ruined her; that she had ever, till now, believed him a man of the strictest honour; that she had mixed a powder with the gruel, which her father had drank on the foregoing Monday and Tuesday nights; that she was the cause of his death, and that she desired life for no end but to go through a painful penance for her sin. She protested at the same time that she had never mixed the powder with anything else that he had swallowed, and that she did not know it to be poison till she had seen its effects. She said that she had received the powder from Mr.

Cranstoun with a present of Scotch pebbles; that he had written on the paper that held it, ”The powder to clean the pebbles with”; that he had a.s.sured her it was harmless; that he had often taken it himself; that if she would give her father some of it now and then, a little and a little at a time, in any liquid, it would make him kind to him and her; that accordingly, about six weeks before, at breakfast-time, her father being out of the room, she had put a little of it into his cup of tea, but that he never drank it; that, part of the powder swimming at top of the tea, and part sinking to the bottom, she had poured it out of the window and filled up the cup with fresh tea; that then she wrote to Mr. Cranstoun to let him know that she could not give it in tea without being discovered; and that in his answer he had advised her to give it in water gruel for the future, or in any other thickish fluid. I asked her whether she would endeavour to bring Mr.

Cranstoun to justice. After a short pause she answered that she was fully conscious of her own guilt, and was unwilling to add guilt to guilt, which she thought she should do if she took any step to the prejudice of Mr. Cranstoun, whom she considered as her husband though the ceremony had not pa.s.sed between them.

KING'S COUNSEL--Was anything more said by the prisoner or you?--I asked her whether she had been so weak as to believe the powder that she had put into her father's tea and gruel so harmless as Mr.

Cranstoun had represented it; why Mr. Cranstoun had called it a powder to clean pebbles if it was intended only to make Mr. Blandy kind; why she had not tried it on herself before she ventured to try it on her father; why she had flung it into the fire; why, if she had really thought it innocent, she had been fearful of a discovery when part of it swam on the top of the tea; why, when she had found it hurtful to her father, she had neglected so many days to call proper a.s.sistance to him; and why, when I was called at last, she had endeavoured to keep me in the dark and hide the true cause of his illness.

What answers did she make to these questions?--I cannot justly say, but very well remember that they were not such as gave me any satisfaction.

PRISONER'S COUNSEL--She said then that she was entirely ignorant of the effects of the powder.

She said that she did not know it to be poison till she had seen its effects.

Let me ask you, Dr. Addington, this single question, whether the horrors and agonies which Miss Blandy was in at this time were not, in your opinion, owing solely to a hearty concern for her father?--I beg, sir, that you will excuse my giving an answer to this question. It is not easy, you know, to form a true judgment of the heart, and I hope a witness need not deliver his opinion of it.

I do not speak of the heart; you are only desired to say whether those agitations of body and mind which Miss Blandy showed at this time did not seem to you to arise entirely from a tender concern for her father?--Since you oblige me, sir, to speak to this particular, I must say that all the agitation of body and mind which Miss Blandy showed at this time, or any other, when I was with her, seemed to me to arise more from the apprehension of unhappy consequences to herself than from a tender and hearty concern for her father.

Did you never, then, observe in her any evident tokens of grief for her father?--I never thought I did.

Did she never wish for his recovery?--Often.

Did not you think that those wishes implied a concern for him?--I did not, because I had before told her that if he died soon she would inevitably be ruined.

When did you tell her this?--On Sunday morning, the 11th August, just before I left Henley.

Did not she desire you that morning, before you quitted his room, to visit him again the next day?--Yes.

And was she not very solicitous that you should do him all the service in your power?--I cannot say that I discovered any solicitude in her on this score till Monday night, the 12th August, after she was confined, and her keys and other things had been taken from her.

KING'S COUNSEL--Did you, Dr. Addington, attend Susan Gunnell in her illness?--Yes, sir, but I took no minutes of her case.

Did her symptoms agree with Mr. Blandy's?--They differed from his in some respects, but the most material were manifestly of the same kind with his, though in a much less degree.

Did you think them owing to poison?--Yes.

Did you attend Ann Emmet?--Yes, sir.

To what cause did you ascribe her disorder?--To poison, for she told me that, on Wednesday morning, the 7th August, very soon after drinking some gruel at Mr. Blandy's, she had been seized with p.r.i.c.kings and burnings in her tongue, throat, and stomach, which had been followed by severe fits of vomiting and purging; and I observed that she had many other symptoms which agreed with Mr. Blandy's.

Did she say that she thought she had ever taken poison before?--On my telling her that I ascribed her complaints to poison, which she had taken in gruel at Mr. Blandy's on the 7th August, she said that, if she had been poisoned by drinking that gruel at Mr. Blandy's, she was sure that she had been poisoned there the haytime before by drinking something else.

[Sidenote: Alice Emmet]