Blandy, Mary, 1720-1752 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Trials (Murder) -- Great Britain; Trials (Poisoning) -- Great Britain
Mr. Cranstoun, at his first Coming into France, talked very little
concerning the Affair of Mr. Blandy's Death: but some Time after,
having read the Account published in London (by the Divine that
attended Miss Blandy in her Confinement) as her own Confession, and
at her desire: which was brought him by Mr. R----, when he came from
London, from receiving the £60 Bill before-mentioned, he began to be
more open upon that Head to Mr. R----, particularly in vindicating
himself, and blaming her for Ingratitude, for he said, she was as
much the Occasion of the unfortunate Deed as himself: which will
more fully appear from the following Relation which he gave of it
himself.
That they having contracted so great a Friendship and mutual Love,
which was absolutely strengthened by a private Marriage of her own
proposing, lest he should prove ungrateful to her (which he said
were her own Words) after so material an Intimacy, and leave her,
and go and live with his real Wife, and her Mother being dead, she
and he, the first Time they met after her Mother's Decease (which he
believed was about 9 or 10 months before Mr. Blandy died, and which
was the last Time he was at Henley) began to consult how they should
get the old Gentleman out of the Way, she proposing, as soon as they
could get Possession of the Effects of the Father, to go both into
Northumberland, and live upon it with his Mother: That he did
propose the Method that was afterwards put in Practice, and she very
readily came into it, and the whole Affair was settled between them,
when he left Henley the last Time, and never before.
He frequently declared, that he believed her Mother was a very
virtuous Woman, and blamed her much, for giving such a ludicrous, as
well as foreign Account, of some Transactions between him and her
Mother, in her Narrative: and hoped, he said, that what was
published as her solemn Declaration, That she did not know (_sic_)
that the Powder which he had sent her, with some Peebles, and which
she had administered to her Father, were of a poisonous Quality, was
a falsehood, and published without her Knowledge, as it appeared to
him the same was not done till after she was dead: for that she was
sensible of what Quality they were, and for what purpose sent, and
particularly by the effect they had on a Woman, who was a Servant in
her Father's Family, sometime before, as she had wrote him Word.
It will not be improper, in this Place, to insert the Letters, as
they tend to the Confirmation of what Mr. Cranstoun had declared.
LETTER I.
Dear Willy,--These, I hope, will find you in Health, as they leave
me, but not in so much Perplexity: for I have endeavoured to do as
directed by yours, with the Contents of your Presents, and they
will not mix properly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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