Mr. SERJEANT HAYWARD—
May it please your lordships and you gentlemen of the jury, I likewise am appointed to assist the Crown on this occasion, but His Majesty's learned counsel having laid before you so faithful a narrative of this dismal transaction, it seems almost unnecessary for me to take up any more of your time in repeating anything that has been before said; and, indeed, my own inclinations would lead me to cast a veil over the guilty scene—a scene so black and so horrid that if my duty did not call me to it I could rather wish it might be for ever concealed from human eyes. But as we are now making inquisition for blood it is absolutely necessary for me to make some observations upon that chain of circumstances that attended this bloody contrivance and detested murder.
Experience has taught us that in many cases a single fact may be supported by false testimony, but where it is attended with a train of circumstances that cannot be invented (had they never happened), such a fact will always be made out to the satisfaction of a jury by the concurring assistance of circumstantial evidence. Because circumstances that tally one with another are above human contrivance. And especially such as naturally arise in their order from the first contrivance of a scheme to the fatal execution of it.
Having suggested this much, I shall now proceed to lay before you those sort of circumstances that seem to me to arise through this whole affair, and leave it to your judgment whether they do not amount to too convincing a proof that the prisoner at the bar has knowingly been the cause of her own father's death, for upon the prisoner's knowledge of what she did will depend her fate.
Of all kinds of murders that by poison is the most dreadful, as it takes a man unguarded, and gives him no opportunity to defend himself, much more so when administered by the hand of a child, whom one could least suspect, and from whom one might naturally look for assistance and comfort. Could a father entertain any suspicion of a child to whom, under God, he had been the second cause of life? No, sure, and yet this is the case now before you. The unfortunate deceased has received his death by poison, and that undoubtedly administered by the hand of his own—his only—his beloved child. Spare me, gentlemen, to pay the tribute of one tear to the memory of a person with whom I was most intimately acquainted, and to the excellency of whose disposition and integrity of heart I can safely bear faithful testimony. Oh! were he now living, and to see his daughter there, the severest tortures that poison could give would be nothing to what he would suffer from such a sight.
And since the bitterest agonies must at this time surround the heart of the prisoner if she does but think of what a father she has lost, I can readily join with her in her severest afflictions upon this occasion, and shall never blame myself for weeping with those that weep, nor can I make the least question but my learned assistants in this prosecution will with me rejoice likewise, if the prisoner, by making her innocence appear, shall upon the conclusion of this inquiry find occasion to rejoice. But, alas! too strong I fear will the charge against her be proved, too convincing are the circumstances that attend it. What those are, and what may be collected from them, is my next business to offer to your consideration.
But before I enter thereupon I must beg leave to address myself to this numerous and crowded assembly, whom curiosity hath led hither to hear the event of this solemn trial, hoping that whatever may be the consequence of it to the prisoner her present melancholy situation may turn to our advantage, and reduce our minds to seriousness and attention. Solemn, indeed, I may well call it as being a tribunal truly awful, for this method of trial before two of His Majesty's learned judges has scarce ever been known upon a circuit; judges of undoubted virtue, integrity, and learning, who undergo this laborious and important work, not only for the sake of bringing guilt to punishment, but to guard and protect innocence whenever it appears.
But you, young gentleman of this University, I particularly beg your attention, earnestly beseeching you to guard against the first approaches of and temptations to vice. See here the dreadful consequences of disobedience to a parent. Who could have thought that Miss Blandy, a young lady virtuously brought up, distinguished for her good behaviour and prudent conduct in life, till her unfortunate acquaintance with the wicked Cranstoun, should ever be brought to a trial for her life, and that for the most desperate and bloodiest kind of murder, committed by her own hand, upon her own father? Had she listened to his admonitions this calamity never had befallen her. Learn hence the dreadful consequences of disobedience to parents; and know also that the same mischief in all probability may happen to such who obstinately disregard, neglect, and despise the advice of those persons who have the charge and care of their education; of governors likewise, and of magistrates, and of all others who are put in authority over them. Let this fix in your mind the excellent maxim of the good physician, "Venienti occurrite morbo." Let us defend ourselves against the first temptations to sin, and guard our innocence as we would our lives; for if once we yield, though but a little, in whose power is it to say, hitherto will I go, and no further?