his father, from whom he received the whisky of which the deceased drank, to murder the deceased, is shown by the evidence. It is true that the facts proved are sufficient to raise grave suspicions against the prisoner; but they fall far short of establishing his guilt clearly and satisfactorily, as required by the humane rules of the law, to warrant his conviction of the crime charged against him. On the other hand, the facts proved show that the wife of the deceased, three weeks before his death, had been supplied by her paramour with strychnine to administer to her husband; and there is nothing in the case to exclude the hypothesis that the death of the deceased may

not have been occasioned by the felonious act of his own unfaithful wife. It was not proven that the prisoner at any time procured, or had in his possession, poison of any kind; nor was the attempt made to connect him with, or to show knowledge on his part of, the poison which was delivered by Henry Carroll to Sallie Young, to be administered to her husband.

In short, the facts proved are wholly insufficient to warrant the conviction of the plaintiff in error for the crime for which he has been sentenced to be hanged: and the judgment of the circuit court must, therefore, be reversed, the verdict of the jury set aside, and a new trial awarded him.

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 chimneypiece 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 doze; 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 bottles 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 parlor, 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 Isaid 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 endeavor 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 upstairs 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 Theo

dosius 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.

Two days afterwards, Sir William in consequence of the rumors which had reached him of the manner of his ward's death, and that suspicions were entertained that he had died from the effect of poison, wrote a letter to the prisoner, requesting that an examination might take place, and mentioning the gentlemen by whom he wished it to be conducted. He accordingly sent for them, but did not exhibit Sir William Wheeler's letter alluding to the suspicion that the deceased had been poisoned, nor did he mention to them that they were sent for at his request. Having been induced by the prisoner to suppose the case to be one of ordinary sudden death, and finding the body in an advanced state of putrefaction, the medical gentlemen declined to make the examination, on the ground that it might be attended with personal danger. On the following day, a medical man, who had heard of their refusal to examine the body, offered to do so; but the prisoner declined his offer, on the ground that he had not been directed to send for him. On the same day the prisoner wrote to Sir William a letter, in which he stated that the medical men had fully satisfied the family, and endeavored to account for the event by the ailment under which the deceased had been suffering; but he did not state that they had not made the examination. Three or four days afterwards, Sir William, having been informed that the body had not been examined, wrote to the prisoner insisting that it should be done; which, however, he prevented by various disingenuous contrivances, and the body was interred without examination.

Dr. Rattray, of Coventry, deposed, that in consequence of a request

from the coroner, who 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 on the eleventh day after death. 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.

Dr. Ashe, of Birmingham, was of opinion, from the symptoms described, that the deceased died by poison. If the laurel-water were distilled strong enough to collect