Chapter XIX: Preface: To the Publick

As the Publick are in great Doubts concerning the Truth of the cruel, and almost unparalleled Murder of the late Mr. Blandy, of HENLEY UPON THAMES, in Oxfordshire, by Reason of the mysterious Accounts published as the Confession of his Daughter, who was executed for that cruel Parricide, and which were done by her own Desire and Direction: the following Pages are thought necessary to be made publick, by which the World may be satisfied concerning that tragical Affair: which is from the Words of Captain WILLIAM-HENRY CRANSTOUN, hitherto supposed, but now out of Doubt, to have been concerned with her in that black Crime: and also from original Letters of hers, and papers found immediately after his Decease, in his Portmanteau-Trunk in his Room in the House of Mons. MAULSET, the Sign of the BURGUNDY CROSS, in the Town of FURNES, in the AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS, where he died on THURSDAY, the 30th of NOVEMBER last, and was buried in the Cathedral Church there, in great Funeral Pomp, on the second of DECEMBER.

It is thought needless to premise any more, only to assure the Publick that what is contained in the following short Tract is authentick, and gives an account of the Vicissitudes of Fortune, which attended Captain CRANSTOUN, from the Time of his absconding for Prevention of his being apprehended, to the Time of his Death, which was attended with great Torments.

Miss Mary Blandy, being suspected of poisoning her Father, Mr.
Francis Blandy, who died in great Agonies, on the 14th of August,
1751, was examined by the Mayor and Coroner of Henley upon Thames:
and there appearing, upon the Oaths of the Servants to the Deceased,
and others, sufficient Grounds to think that Miss Blandy, with the
Assistance and Advice of Capt. William Henry Cranstoun, was the
Parracide, she was accordingly committed to Oxford Castle: and a
proper Warrant and Messenger was sent, in order to apprehend the
said Capt. Cranstoun, who was then supposed to be either in
Northumberland or Scotland, with his Mother: but the Affair being in
the News-Papers, it reached the Knowledge of a certain Person of
Distinction, who was a relation of the Captain's, before the
Messenger and Warrant got down, who informed him thereof: upon which
the Captain thought it most advisable to abscond: And being secreted
from that Time, in England, till the Beginning of March, 1752, when
Miss was tried at Oxford Assizes, and found guilty, it was then
thought proper for him to get out of the Kingdom: as upon her Trial
it appeared, beyond all Doubt, that he was principally concerned in
that Murder, and furnished her with the Powders that compleated the
vile Deed.

On the eighteenth Day of March, at which Time she lay under Sentence
of Death, he embarked in a Vessel for Bologne in France, and went by
the name of Dunbar, a Female distant relation of his, of that name,
being there at the time: who was married to one R----[31], and who
was there on Account of some Debts he had contracted in Great
Britain.

Cranstoun arrived at Bologne on the 27th Day of the Month of March,
which soon being known, he was obliged to be kept secret in that
Town; as some of the Relations of his Wife who were Officers in one
of the Scotch Regiments in the French Service, upon hearing of his
being there, declared they would destroy him, not only for his cruel
and villainous Usage to his Wife and Child, but also as being a
Murderer: and went purposely to Bologne.

He continued at Bologne in Secret till the 20th of July last, when
he absconded privately in the Morning early, with the said R----,
and his Wife who were obliged to fly, on Account of an Arret of the
Parliament of Paris, which had ordered him to pay 1000 Livres, and
Cost of a Law-Suit, to the famous or, more properly, infamous
Captain P-----w,[32] so well known here: And as that Affair was
something remarkable, I shall here give the reader a brief Relation
of it, notwithstanding it is foreign to Mr. Cranstoun's Affair,
which, as it will take up but little Room, I am almost persuaded
will not be disagreeable to the Reader.

A certain Irish Nobleman being at Bologna, on Account of Debts he
owed in England, Capt. P----w being there at the same Time, got
acquainted with the above-named Irish Lord. At this Time Mr. R----,
who was married to Mr. Cranstoun's Relation, as above-named, was a
Merchant in that Town, and who, together with many more of the
Merchants of the Place, was taken in very considerably by the said
Irish Lord.

The above-nam'd Lord having got as deep in Debt as he possibly
could, and his being so intimately acquainted with the Captain, who
lived very profusely with my Lord, on the Money he had got upon
Credit: this R----, with the Rest of that Nobleman's Creditors,
began to press his Lordship for their Money, and his Lordship
finding it impossible to weather the Storm off much longer, having
told them, from Time to Time, that he was to have great Remittances
from his Steward: and P----w puffing his Lordship off greatly to the
Creditors, his Lordship secretly got away from Bologne, in a Vessel
that was bound for Ireland.

His Lordship being gone, the Creditors all agreed (affirming that
P----w was concerned in facilitating his Escape, and cheating them)
to apply to the Magistrates of the City of Bologne for a Process
against P----w, for their several Debts due to them from his
Lordship, as he was not only concerned in helping him to make his
Escape, but had partaken largely of the Money.

Upon their application P----w was arrested, and cast by the
Magistrates of Bologne afterwards in the Law-Suit: who appealing to
the Parliament of Paris, against the Decree and Judgment of the
Magistrates of Bologne: they on hearing the Cause on both sides,
reversed the Decree of the Magistrates of Bologne, and issued in May
last an Arret, that his Lordship's Creditors should pay to the
Captain, as Damages for his false Imprisonment, Costs and Scandal he
had sustained by the Prosecution of their Suit, 3000 Livres, besides
all his costs in both Courts, and also that they should be at the
Expence of Printing and Paper, for 1500 Copies of the said Arret,
which were to be stuck up on the Exchanges, and other Publick
Places, in the several Cities and great Towns in France; which was
accordingly done, the latter End of the said Month of May, pursuant
to the said Arret.

Mr. Cranstoun about this time received a Bill of £60 from Scotland,
payable in London, which Mr. R---- went privately to London with,
and got the Money for: which was all the Remittances Cranstoun ever
had to the Time of his Death, from Great Britain.

Mr. R---- being returned to Bologne with the Cash in July, and not
being able to satisfy his Part of the Arret of the Parliament of
Paris, to the Captain, and dreading the fatal Consequence thereof,
privately absconded, as is related before, with his Wife and
Cranstoun, to Ostend in the Queen of Hungary's Territories, as a
Sanctuary from the Arret of the French Parliament: where they
continued only about fourteen Days, and then removed to Furnes, and
took up their Abode at the House known by the Sign of the Burgundy
Cross, where Mr. R---- died in September, and Cranstoun the 30th of
November following.

During the Time of his living at Furnes, he always went by the Name
of Dunbar, and first Cousin to Mrs. R----.

Capt. P----w, on the Credit of this Arret of Parliament, put up for
a great Man: who being known too well at Bologne to live there,
either with Respect or Honour, removed to a Town in France, call'd
Somers, nine Miles from Bologne, in the Road to Paris, where he took
the grandest House in the Place: but his Fortune being only outside
Shew, as it was when in England, in September he absconded from
thence: and was obliged to fly into the Queen of Hungary's Country
for Protection, having contracted large Debts in France.

The Captain now began his old Tricks; for at Brussels, going for a
London Merchant, he obtained a Parcel of fine Lace, some Pieces of
Velvets, and other Things, to the Amount of near £200, for which he
gave the Gentleman of Brussels a pretended Bill for £321 8s. 6d. of
a Banker's in London: and on the Payment of the said Bill, he was to
have another large Parcel of Goods.

The Bill was sent to England for Payment, but the Captain had fled
before the Return of a Letter, which informed the Tradesman that it
was a counterfeit Bill: whereupon they pursued him, and soon found
that the Goods he had obtained were shipped on Board a Vessel for
England, at Flushing, a Sea-Port in Zealand, belonging to the States
of Holland, from which Place the Captain had been gone three Days:
that was the last Account that Mrs. R---- and Cranstoun ever heard
of him.

I shall now proceed to the Account given by Captain Cranstoun,
concerning the poisoning of Mr. Blandy: in which I shall insert
three Letters, bearing Date the 30th of June, the 16th of July, and
the 18th of August, 1751: all directed for the Honourable William
Henry Cranstoun, Esq., which were found among his Papers at his
Death: all being judged by the near Similitude of the Writings to
have been wrote by one Person: and tho' no Name was subscribed at
the Bottom of either, yet, by their Contents, they plainly shew from
whom they were sent.

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.