w has (and I am glad to see she has
the assistance 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 lordships
and the jury. It will be proper for us to begin by establishing 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 circumstances, 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