The accused, Mr. Donellan, had been a captain in the army, and was the son of Colonel Donellan. At the age of twelve years he entered into the Royal Regiment of Artillery, with part of which he went to the East Indies in 1754. On his arrival there he changed his service into the 39th foot; but on that regiment being ordered home, he, with many other of his officers, had his majesty’s leave to remain in the service of the East India Company, without prejudice to their rank in the army. He then obtained a company, and certainly distinguished himself as a good soldier, not only having been much wounded in the service, but, if his own account may be credited, being singularly instrumental to the taking of Mazulapatam. Being appointed, however, one of the four agents for prize-money, he condescended to receive presents from some black merchants, to whom part of their effects had been ordered to be restored, for which he was tried by a court-martial, and cashiered. He subsequently purchased a share in the Pantheon, where he figured for some time as master of the ceremonies; and after a variety of applications he at length obtained a certificate from the War-office, that he had behaved in the East Indies “like a gallant officer;” in consequence of which he was put upon half-pay in the 39th regiment. But notwithstanding the most strenuous memorials and petitions representing his great services, and insisting that the offence for which he was broke was of a civil nature only, and not cognizable by a court-martial, he never could obtain a restoration into the Company’s service. In June, 1777, he married Miss Boughton; and on Friday, March 30th, 1781, he was tried at the assizes at Warwick for the wilful murder of Sir Theodosius Edward Allesley Boughton, Bart., his brother-in-law. The evidence was of such a nature that the fairest mode of stating it will be by repeating it as it appeared on the trial.
Mr. Powell, apothecary of Rugby, deposed that he had attended Sir Theodosius Boughton for two months before his death, on account of a slight complaint of a certain description.
On Wednesday morning, the 27th of February, he was sent for to Lawton Hall, and on his arrival there at a little before nine o’clock, Capt. Donellan conducted him to the apartment of Sir Theodosius. On his entering, he perceived that the baronet was dead, and on his examining the body he concluded that it was about an hour since life had fled. He had some conversation with Captain Donellan with regard to the deceased, and he was told by him that, he had “died in convulsions.” He could not recollect the precise nature of the conversation, but the general effect of what Captain Donellan said was, that the deceased gentleman had taken cold.
Lady Boughton, the mother of the deceased, deposed that Sir Theodosius was twenty years old on the 3rd of August last. On his coming of age, he would have been entitled to above 2000l. a year; and in the event of his dying a minor, the greater part of his fortune was to descend to his sister, the wife of Mr. Donellan. It was known in the family on the evening of Tuesday, the 26th, that Sir Theodosius was to take his physic the next morning. He used to put his physic in the dressing-room. He happened once to omit to take it; upon which Mr. Donellan said, “Why don’t you set it in your outer room? then you would not so soon forget it.” After this he several times put the medicines upon his shelf over the chimney-piece in his outer room. On the evening of Tuesday, the 26th, about six o’clock, Sir Theodosius went out fishing, attended only by one servant, Samuel Frost. Witness and Mrs. Donellan took a walk in the garden, and were there above an hour. To the best of her recollection she had seen nothing of Mr. Donellan after dinner till about seven o’clock, when he came out of the house-door in the garden, and told them that “he had been to see them fishing, and that he would have persuaded Sir Theodosius to come in, lest he should take cold, but he could not.” Sir Theodosius came home a little after nine, apparently very well; and he went up into his own room soon after, and went to bed. He requested her to call him the next morning and give him his physic.
She accordingly went into his room about seven in the morning, when he appeared to be very well. She asked him “Where the bottle was?” and he said “It stands there upon the shelf.” He desired her to read the label, which she accordingly did, and found there was written upon it “Purging draught for Sir Theodosius Boughton.” As he was taking it, he observed, “it smelled and tasted very nauseous;” upon which she said “I think it smells very strongly like bitter almonds.” He then remarked that “he thought he should not be able to keep the medicine upon his stomach.”
Here a bottle was delivered to Lady Boughton, containing the genuine draught, which she was desired to smell at, and inform the Court whether it smelt like the medicine Sir Theodosius took. She answered in the negative. She was then desired to smell at another, containing the draught with the addition of laurel-water, which she said had a smell very much like that of the medicine she gave to Sir Theodosius. Lady Boughton then proceeded with her evidence. In two minutes after Sir Theodosius had taken the draught, he struggled very much. It appeared to her as if it was to keep the draught down. He made a prodigious rattling in his stomach, and guggling; and these symptoms continued about ten minutes. He then seemed as if he was going to sleep, or inclined to dose; and perceiving him a little composed, she went out of the room. She returned in about five minutes after, and to her great surprise found him with his eyes fixed upwards, his teeth clenched, and foam running out of his mouth. She instantly desired a servant to take the first horse he could get and go for Mr. Powell. She saw Mr. Donellan in less than five minutes after. He came into the room where Sir Theodosius lay, and said to her, “What do you want?” She answered that she wanted to inform him what a terrible thing had happened; that it was an unaccountable thing in the doctor to send such a medicine, for if it had been taken by a dog it would have killed him; and she did not think her son would live. He inquired in what way Sir Theodosius then was; and on being told, he asked her where the physic bottle was; on which she showed him the two draughts; when he took up one of the bottles, and said, “Is this it?” She answered “Yes.” He then, after rinsing it, emptied it in some dirty water that was in a wash-hand basin; and on his doing so she said, “What are you at? you should not meddle with the bottles.” Upon that he snatched up the other bottle and rinsed it, and then he put his finger to it and tasted it. She repeated that he ought not to meddle with the bottles; upon which he replied, that “he did it to taste it.” Two servants, named Sarah Blundell and Catherine Amos, afterwards came into the room, and he desired the former to take away the basin and the bottles, and he put the bottles into her hands. The witness, however, took the bottles from her, and set them down, bidding her not to touch them; and the prisoner then desired that the room might be cleaned, and the dirty clothes thrown into the inner room. This being done, the witness turned her back for a moment, on which the prisoner again handed the servant the bottles, and bid her take them away, and she accordingly removed them. Witness soon afterwards went into the parlour, where she found Mr. and Mrs. Donellan; and the former told his wife “that her mother had been pleased to take notice of his washing the bottles, and that he did not know what he should have done, if he had not thought of saying that he put the water into them to put his finger to it to taste.” The witness made an answer to this observation, and the prisoner directed his wife to ring the bell in order to call up the servant. When the servant came, he ordered him to send in the coachman; and when he came, the prisoner said, “Will, don’t you remember that I set out of these iron gates at seven o’clock this morning?” “Yes, sir,” said he. “And that was the first time of my going out; I have never been on the other side of the house this morning: you remember that I set out there this morning at seven o’clock, and asked for a horse to go to the wells?” “Yes, sir.” Mr. Donellan said, “then you are my evidence.” The servant answered, “Yes, sir.” She did not recollect that the prisoner made any observation. The witness further said that Mr. Donellan received a letter from Sir William Wheeler, desiring the body might be opened, and that he showed her his answer to this letter. She told him he had better let it alone, and not to send such a letter as that; but she did not tell him the reason of her disliking it. He replied, that “it was necessary to send an answer, and he would send that.” She afterwards attended before the coroner and the jury in order to be examined, when Mr. Donellan also was present; and she mentioned to the jury the circumstance of the prisoner’s rinsing the bottles. Being returned to Lawford Hall, the prisoner said to his wife before the witness, that she had no occasion to have told the circumstance of his washing the bottles: she was only to answer such questions as were put to her; and that question had not been asked her. Being asked whether Mr. Donellan did not endeavour to account to her for her son’s death, she answered, that when the things were removed in order to be put in the inner room, he said to the maid, “Here, take his stockings; they have been wet; he has catched cold, to be sure: and that might occasion his death.” On that she examined the stockings, and there was no mark or appearance of their having been wet. In answer to some further questions, she denied that she or any of the family had ever declined eating of the same dishes that Sir Theodosius did. Mr. Donellan, indeed, had recommended to her not to drink out of the same cup, because he was affected with a certain disorder; nor to touch the bread he did, because there might be arsenic about his fingers, as he used that poison when he was fishing.
Catherine Amos corroborated the testimony of her mistress, and said, that she was called up stairs to the room where Sir Theodosius lay, at the time when the surgeons were engaged in opening the body, and she heard Mr. Donellan say “that there was nothing the matter; and that it was a blood-vessel which broke, which had occasioned the death of his brother-in-law.” About a fortnight afterwards Mr. Donellan brought her a still, which had been recently washed, and he desired her to put it into the oven to dry, in order that it might not rust.
Mr. Kerr, surgeon of Northampton, deposed, that he attended Sir Theodosius when he was at Mr. Jones’s. His disorder was so slight that he did not think it a subject of medicine at all. He ordered him some lotion to wash with, and dissuaded him from the use of medicine.
Dr. Rattray, of Coventry, deposed, that in consequence of an anonymous note which he received, and which desired him to bring Mr. Wilmer with him, in order to open the body of Sir Theodosius Boughton, they went together, and met Mr. Bucknell, Mr. Powell, and Mr. Snow, in Newbold churchyard. Mr. Bucknell opened the body. The witness then proceeded to describe the external appearances of the body, and its appearances in the dissecting. He was asked whether, as he had heard the evidence of Mr. Powell and Lady Boughton, he could, from that evidence, totally independent of the appearances he had described, form a judgment as to the cause of the death of Sir Theodosius. He answered, that, exclusive of these appearances, he was of opinion, from the symptoms that followed the taking of the draught, that it was poison, and the certain cause of his death. Being desired to smell at the bottle, and asked what was the noxious medicine in it, he said it was a distillation of laurel-leaves, called laurel-water. Here he entered into a detail of several experiments on animals, tending to show the instantaneous and mortal effects of the laurel-water. He knew nothing in medicine that corresponded in smell with that mixture, which was like that of bitter almonds. He further said that the quantity of laurel-water contained in the bottle shown to him was sufficient to be the death of any human creature; and that the appearances of the body confirmed him in his opinion that the deceased was poisoned, so far as, upon the viewing a body so long after the death of the subject, one could be allowed to form a judgment upon such appearances.
Mr. Wilmer and Dr. Parsons, professor of anatomy at Oxford, confirmed the evidence of Dr. Rattray.