lover would surely play her false; her father was sick of the whole
affair, and if she went off with the captain, would doubtless
disinherit her. As for that "honourable" gentleman himself, the
inducement to get possession of her £10,000, the beginning and end
of his connection with the Blandys, sufficiently explains his
purpose. Was not the spirit of his family motto, "Thou shalt want
ere I want," ever his guiding light and principle, and would such a
man so circumstanced hesitate to resort to a crime which he could
induce another to commit and, if necessary, suffer for, while he
himself reaped the benefit in safety? Had he succeeded in securing
both his mistress and her fortune, Mary's last state would, not
improbably, have been worse than her first.

So much for the "motive," which presents little difficulty. Then,
with regard to the question whether, on the assumption of his guilt,
Mary Blandy was the intelligent agent of Cranstoun or his innocent
dupe, no one who has studied the evidence against her can entertain
a reasonable doubt. Apart from the threatening and abusive language
which she applied to her father, her whole attitude towards his last
illness shows how false were her subsequent professions of
affection. She herself has disposed of the suggestion that she
really believed in the love-compelling properties of the magic
powder, though such a belief was not inconceivable, as appears from
the contemporary advertisement of a "Love Philtre," of which a copy
is printed in the Appendix. She told her dying father that if he
were injured by the powder, she was not to blame, as "it was given
her with another intent." What that "intent" was she did not then
explain, but later she informed Dr. Addington that it was to "make
him [her father] kind" to Cranstoun and herself. In the speech which
she delivered in her own defence she said, "I gave it to procure his