though her father "had many wives laid out for
him," he would not marry till she was "settled." Mrs. Davis, the
landlady of the Angel, and Robert Stoke, the officer who took the
prisoner into custody, said that Miss Blandy did not then appear to
them to be attempting night. This concluded the exculpatory
evidence. For the defence, Mr. Ford protested against the
"unjustifiable and illegal methods" used to prejudice his client,
such as the publication of the proceedings at the inquest, and,
particularly, the "very scandalous reports" concerning her,
circulated since her commitment, to refute which he proposed to call
"the reverend gentleman who had attended her," Parson Swinton. The
Court, however, held that there was no need to do so, as the jury
would entirely disregard anything not deposed to in Court. Mr.
Bathurst replying for the Crown, maintained that it was proved to
demonstration that Francis Blandy died of poison, put in his gruel
upon the 5th of August by the prisoner's hand, as appeared not only
from her own confession, but from all the evidence adduced. "Examine
then, gentlemen," said the learned counsel, "whether it is possible
she could do it ignorantly." In view of the great affection with
which it was proved the dying man behaved to her, the prisoner's
assertion that she gave him the powder "to make him love her" was
incredible. She knew what effects the poisoned gruel produced upon
him on the Monday and Tuesday, yet she would have given him more of
it on the Wednesday. Having pointed out that, when she must have
known the nature of the powder, she endeavoured to destroy it,
instead of telling the physicians what she had given her father,
which might have been the means of saving his life, counsel
commented on the terms of the intercepted letter to Cranstoun as
wholly inconsistent with her innocence. Further, he remarked on the
contradiction as to dates in the evidence of the witnesses who
reported Betty Binfield's forcible phrase, which, he contended, was
in fact never uttered by her. Finally, he endorsed the censure of
the prisoner's counsel upon the spreaders of the scandalous reports,
which he asked the jury totally to disregard. On the conclusion of
Bathurst's reply, the prisoner made the following statement:--"It is
said I gave it [the powder] my father to make him fond of me: there
was no occasion for that--but to make him fond of Cranstoun."

Mr. Baron Legge then proceeded to charge the jury. The