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.