Trial of Mary Blandy by Unknown
page 67 of 334 (20%)
page 67 of 334 (20%)
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mistress. For the rest, he seems to have passed the brief remainder of
his days in cheating as many of his fellow-sinners as, in the short time at his disposal, could reasonably be expected. A hitherto unpublished letter from Henry Fox at the War Office, to Mr. Pitt, then Paymaster General, dated 14th March, 1752, is, by kind permission of Mr. A.M. Broadley, printed in the Appendix. After referring to Mary's conviction, the writer intimates that Cranstoun, "a reduc'd first Lieut. of Sir Andrew Agnew's late Regt. of Marines, now on the British Establishment of Half-Pay, was charged with contriving the manner of sd. Miss Blandy's Poisoning her Father and being an Abettor therein; and he having absconded from the time of her being comitted for the above Fact, I am commanded to signify to you it is His Majesty's Pleasure that the sd. Lieutenant Wm. Henry Cranstoune be struck off the sd. Establishment of Half-Pay, and that you do not issue any Moneys remaining in your Hands due to the sd. Lieut. Cranstoune." This shows the view taken by the Government of the part played by Cranstoun in the tragedy of Henley. There will also be found in the Appendix an extract from, a letter from Dunkirk, published in the _London Magazine_ for February, 1753, containing what appears to be a reliable account of the last days of Mary Blandy's lover; the particulars given are in general agreement with those contained in the various "Lives" above mentioned. Obliged to fly from France, where he had been harboured by one Mrs. Ross, his kinswoman, whose maiden name of Dunbar he had prudently assumed, he sought refuge in Flanders. Furnes, "a town belonging to the Queen of Hungary," had the dubious distinction of being selected by him as an asylum. There, on 2nd December, 1752, "at the sign of the |
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