"Few cases," says Sir James Stephen,[8] "have given rise to more discussion than that of the alleged poisoning of Sir Theodosius Boughton by his brother-in-law, Captain Donellan, in 1781." It was long deemed a mystery, and even now the facts are not considered conclusive against the man who actually suffered for the crime. Donellan was found guilty, and in due course executed, but to this day the justice of the sentence is questioned, and the case, in the opinion of some, should be classed with judicial errors. This is not the view of Sir James Stephen, who has declared that the evidence would have satisfied him of Donellan's guilt. "Why should he not have been found guilty?" asks the eminent judge. "He had the motive, he had the means, he had the opportunity; his conduct, from first to last, was that of a guilty man." Sir Theodosius Boughton was a young baronet who, on his majority, came into an estate of £2,000 a year. In 1780 he was living at Lawford Hall, Warwickshire, with his mother and sister, the latter having married Captain Donellan in 1777. Mrs. Donellan was her brother's heir; if he died childless everything would go to her. Donellan claimed afterwards to have been quite disinterested. He had all his wife's fortune settled on her and her children, and would not even keep a life interest in her property in case she predeceased him. This settlement extended not only to what she had but to what she expected, and his conduct in this matter was one of the points made by the defence in his favour. [Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN DONELLAN. (_From a Contemporary Print._)] Boughton was suffering from a slight specific disorder, but was otherwise well; Donellan wished to make it appear otherwise. Talking of him to a friend, he described his condition as such that the friend remarked the young man's life would not be worth a couple of years' purchase. "Not one," promptly corrected Donellan. On the 29th of August, 1780, a country practitioner who was called in pronounced Sir Theodosius in good health and spirits, but prescribed a draught for him: jalap, lavender water, nutmeg, and so forth. The remainder of the day was spent in fishing, and the baronet went to bed, having arranged that his mother should come to him and give him his medicine at seven o'clock next morning. He had been neglectful about taking it; it had been kept locked up in a cupboard, but, at his brother-in-law's suggestion, it was now left on the shelf in another room--where, as the prosecution declared, anyone, Captain Donellan in particular, might have access to it.