In the plan brought forward by Ministers for that purpose. 1750 he delivered a long oration about the demolition of the port of Dunkirk, a favourite topic for the assailants of successive governments for half a century. Meanwhile he continued steadily to attend the courts in Westminster Hall, and to go the Oxford circuit, though with little encouragement. A.D. 1752. While at the bar, he was engaged in one cause célèbre,—the trial, at Oxford, of Miss Blandy for the murder of her father, which he had to conduct for the Crown as the leader of the circuit. This is the most horrid parricide to be found in our criminal annals, and I hope it will remain for many generations without a parallel. Mr. Bathurst's address to the jury has been much praised for its eloquence, and, as it certainly contains proof of good feeling, if not of high talent and refined taste, I have pleasure in copying the best passages of it. After making some observations upon the prosecution being carried on by order of the King, and upon the immense concourse of people assembled, he thus proceeded: "Miss Blandy, the prisoner at the bar, a gentlewoman by birth and education, stands indicted for no less a crime than that of murder; and not only for murder, but for the murder of her own father, and for the murder of a father passionately fond of her, undertaken with the utmost deliberation; carried on with an unvaried steadiness of purpose, and at last accomplished by a frequent repetition of the baneful dose administered with her own hand. A crime so shocking in its own nature, and so aggravated in all its circumstances, as will (if she be proved to be guilty of it) justly render her infamous to the latest posterity, and make our children's children, when they read the horrid tale of this day, blush to think that such a creature ever existed in a human form. I need not, gentlemen, point out to you the heinousness of the crime of murder. You have but to consult your own breasts, and you will know it. Has a murder been committed? Who has ever beheld the ghastly corpse of the murdered innocent, weltering in its blood, and did not feel his own blood run slow and cold through all his veins? Has the murderer escaped? With what eagerness do we pursue! With what zeal do we apprehend! With what joy do we bring to justice! And when the dreadful sentence of death is pronounced upon him, every body hears it with satisfaction, and acknowledges the justice of the Divine denunciation that Who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' If this, then, is the case of any common murderer, what will be thought of one who has murdered her own father? who has de A.D. 1752. CONDUCTS THE PROSECUTION OF MISS BLANDY. 125 signedly done the greatest of all human injuries to him from whom she received the first and greatest of all human benefits? who has wickedly taken away his life to whom she stands indebted for life? who has deliberately destroyed, in his old age, him by whose care and tenderness she was protected in her helpless infancy? who has impiously shut her ears against the loud voice of nature and of God, which bid her 'honour her father,' and instead of honouring him has murdered him?-In shortly opening the case, that you may the better understand the evidence, although I shall rather extenuate than aggravate, I have a story to tell which I trust will shock the ears of all who hear me. Mr. Francis Blandy, the unfortunate deceased, was an attorney-at-law, who lived at Henley, in this county. A man of character and reputation, he had one only child,-a daughter,-the darling of his soul, the comfort of his age. He took the utmost care of her education, and had the satisfaction to see his care was not ill bestowed, for she was genteel, agreeable, sprightly, sensible. His whole thoughts were bent to settle her advantageously in the world. In order to do that, he made use of a pious fraud (if I may be allowed the expression), pretending he could give her 10,000l. for her fortune. This he did in hopes that some of the neighbouring gentlemen would pay their addresses to her; for out of regard to him she was, from her earliest youth, received into the best company; and her own behaviour made her afterwards acceptable to them. But how short-sighted is human prudence! What was intended for her promotion, proved his death and her destruction." He then went on to state the following facts :-"Captain Cranstoun, an officer of the army, of a noble family in Scotland, but of a most profligate character, being stationed with a recruiting party at Henley,-for the sake of Miss Blandy's expected fortune, pretended to fall in love with her, and paid his addresses to her. She, being soon deeply attached to him, accepted his offer, but the father positively refused his consent. The lovers then resolved to poison him-and Captain Cranstoun sent Miss Blandy some Scotch pebbles with a powder to clean them, which was white arsenic. To prepare the world for what was to happen, according to the superstition of the times, they had pretended to have heard supernatural music in the house, and to have seen an apparition which foreboded his death. She first administered the poison to her father in his tea, and when it caused him exquisite anguish, and seemed to be consuming his entrails, she gave him a fresh dose of the poison in the shape of gruel, which she said would comfort and relieve him. As he was dying, the cause of his death was discovered and communicated to him. He exclaimed, 'Poor love-sick girl! what will not a woman do for the man she loves?' She said, 'Dear Sir, banish me where you will, do with me what you please, so that you do but forgive me.' He answered, 'I do forgive you, but you should, my dear, have considered that I was your own father; but, oh, that that villain, who hath eat of the best and drank of the best my house could afford, should take away my life and ruin my daughter!' She then ran for the paper containing the powder, and threw it into the fire, thinking it was destroyed; but it remained unconsumed, and pro duced her conviction. How evidently the hand of Providence has interposed to bring her to this day's trial, that she may suffer the consequence! For what but the hand of Providence could have preserved the paper thrown by her into the fire, and could have snatched it unburnt from the devouring flame? Good God! how wonderful are all thy ways! and how miraculously hast thou preserved this paper, to be this day produced in evidence against the prisoner, in order that she may undergo the punishment due to her crime, and be a dreadful example to all others who may be tempted in like manner to offend thy Divine Majesty!" Some witnesses being called for the defence, Mr. Bathurst replied, and thus concluded:: 66 Gentlemen, you are sworn to give a true verdict according to the evidence laid before you. If upon that evidence she appears to be innocent, in God's name let her be acquitted. But if upon that evidence she appears to be guilty, I am sure you will do justice to the public and acquit your own consciences." There was a verdict of guilty on the clearest proof of premeditation and design; but (to show the worthlessness of the dying declarations of criminals, and the absurdity of the practice of trying to induce them to confess) she went out of the world with a solemn declaration, which she signed and repeated at the gallows, that she had no intention of injuring her father, and that she thought the powder would make him love her and give his consent to her union with Captain Cranstoun." Jan. 17, Mr. Bathurst continued leagued in politics with those who placed all their hopes of preferment on the accession 1751. of a new Sovereign. At the commencement of the session of 1751 he opposed the address, and, to recommend himself to the Prince, levelled several sarcasms at the King— sneering at the courtly language which the House was called upon to adopt:- "We must not," said he, "express our acknowledgments to his Majesty without calling them our warmest acknowledgments; we must not talk of his Majesty's endeavours, without calling them his unwearied endeavours. Thus I could go on, Sir, with my remarks through the whole of this address; and all this without knowing any thing of the facts we thus so highly extol. How a minister might receive such highflown compliments without knowledge, or how this House may think proper to express itself upon the occasion, I do not know; but I should be ashamed to express myself in such a manner to my Sovereign; nay, 18 St. Tr. 1118-1194. A.D. 1754. MADE A PUISNE JUDGE. 127 I should be afraid lest he should order me out of his presence for attempting to put upon him such gross flattery." t Frederick soon after dying suddenly, Mr. Bathurst went over, with a number of his party, to the Court, and in consequence he was, in 1754, made by Lord Hardwicke a puisne Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. CHAPTER CLIII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD BATHURST TILL HE RESIGNED THE GREAT SEAL AND WAS MADE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL. A.D. 1754. By reading, attendance in Court, and going the circuits, Mr. Justice Bathurst had picked up a little law without much practice: he had industriously made a sort of Digest of the rules of evidence and the points generally arising at the trial of actions;" he was quiet and bland in his manners, and he possessed a great share of discretion, which enabled him on the bench to surmount difficulties, and to keep out of scrapes. With these qualifications he made a very tolerable puisne. When sitting alone, he ruled points of law as rarely as possible, leaving them mixed up with facts to the jury; and sitting in banc, he agreed with the Chief Justice and his brethren, or (if the Court was divided) with the Judge who was supposed to be the soundest lawyer. Notwithstanding his Tory education and his attachment to the Government, he concurred in the judgment of Lord Camden for the liberation of Wilkes, and against general warrants. In a case in which it was held that a bond in consideration of past cohabitation is good in law, he pleased the sanctimonious by enriching his judgment with quotations from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, to prove that "wherever it appears that the man was the seducer, a pro 14 Parl. Hist. 805. " This was afterwards enlarged by Mr. Justice Buller, and published under the name of "Buller's Nisi Prius." * Walter Scott used to tell a story in point. The heir apparent of a considerable family in Scotland having been, though almost fatuous, called to the bar, and there being some talk in the servants' hall about the profession of an advocate, an old butler exclaimed,-"It canna' be a very kittle tred, for our young laird is ane." y See Wilson's Common Pleas Reports. vision for the woman shall be upheld."-The murmurs against his appointment as a political job died away, and there was a still weaker Judge made after him to keep him in countenance.a But although people ceased to wonder that he had been put upon the bench as a puisne Judge, no one ever dreamed of his going higher. A puisne Judge he did remain for fifteen long years, when, according to our modern system, he would have been entitled to retire on a pension. But nothing can be more fantastical than the distribution of prizes in the lottery of legal promotion. A.D. 1770. The triumph at Court on the acceptance of the office of Chancellor by Charles Yorke, was turned into deep dismay by his sudden death. The Great Seal was earnestly pressed upon Sir Eardley Wilmot, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, but he resolutely refused to accept it, partly from a dislike of politics, partly from disapprobation of the measures of the Government, and partly from considering how precarious must have been the tenure of his new office. A strong appeal was again made to Lord Mansfield, and he was implored, by consenting to be Chancellor, to rescue the King from his difficulties, and to restore vigour to the Government, so much weakened by the secession of the Marquis of Granby, the Duke of Manchester, Dunning, and all the liberals who had gone out with Lord Camden; but the wary Scot would not leave his seat in the King's Bench, which he so much adorned, and which he held for life. He advised that the Great Seal should be put into commission, and he consented to preside on the woolsack as Speaker of the House of Lords. This course was adopted. b A strange selection was made of Commissioners, which could not have been by his advice,-unless, indeed, (as was z Turner v. Vaughan, 2 Wils. 339. a When Graham was made a Judge, Law, then at the Bar, said,-" He puts Rook on a pinnacle." Rook till then had been considered very incompetent. b The difficulty of disposing of the Great Seal at this juncture led to the resignation of the Duke of Grafton. After relating his fruitless negotiations, thus he addresses his son, Lord Euston :-" You will feel for me in this distressing dilemma: you will perceive that I had left nothing untried to bring the vessel to tolerable trim: and when you consider that, quitted by Lord Camden, and at the same time by Lord Granby, I had no reliance in the Cabinet but on General Conway only, I know you will think that, under such circumstances, I could not proceed and be of service to the King and to the country; and recollect that the hopes of co-operation with Mr. Yorke to bring about an essential addition of right principle, credit, and sup port, vanished of course with himself. I laid before his Majesty directly my difficulties, and observed that they were such as compelled me to retire from my office, though it would be my full desire to give all assistance to his Majesty's Government."-Journal. |