The letter from the prisoner to Captain Cranstoun, without any date to it, which was opened by Littleton, has, then, been read to you, and with that the counsel for the Crown conclude their evidence.

The prisoner in her defence complains of hard usage she has met with, denies her ever speaking ill of her father, owns herself to be passionate, and complains that words of heat upon family affairs have been misconstrued and applied to an ill intention in her; that she was not in her senses when she lost her father, nor in a proper dress to make her escape when she went over Henley Bridge; that she was taken in at the Angel by the woman of the house out of more compassion, and was then desirous to put herself under the protection of the town sergeant; that, during her confinement, she was not suffered to have decent attendance for a woman; that she was affronted by her own servants, cruelly traduced, and heavily ironed, without any reasonable cause; that she thought the powder innocent, and never had a thought of hurting her father; but her own ruin is effected by such an imputation upon her, and her appearance here, without her being convicted.  She then calls her witnesses, and the first is Ann James, who tells you she lives at Henley, and used to wash at Mr. Blandy’s house; that she remembers that some time before Mr. Blandy’s illness there was a difference between the prisoner and Elizabeth Binfield, and that the latter was to go away; and that she has heard Elizabeth Binfield curse the prisoner and damn her for a bitch, and say she would not stay; that since this affair happened she heard her say (speaking of the prisoner), “Damn her for a black bitch; she should be glad to see her go up the ladder and swing.”  She tells you that, when this conversation happened, the prisoner was gone to gaol, that it was in Mr. Blandy’s kitchen, and that Nurse Edwards, Mary Seymour, and Mary Banks were present.

Elizabeth Binfield is then called up again, and absolutely denies the words she is charged with; she says she never acquainted the witness with any quarrel she had had, to the best of her remembrance, but that she had some few words of difference with the prisoner, who had said that she was to go away.

Mary Banks is then called, who says that she was in Mr. Blandy’s kitchen while he was dead in the house; but she does not remember who was in company, nor any conversation that passed between Elizabeth Binfield and Ann James till the words are directly put into her mouth, and then she recollects that Elizabeth Binfield said “she should be glad to see Miss Blandy, that black bitch, go up the ladder to be hanged;” but she tells you this was on the night that Mr. Blandy was opened, and that the prisoner was then in the house.

Those two witnesses are called to impeach the credit of Elizabeth Binfield as having a prejudice against the prisoner; but I see no great stress to be laid on their evidence, for they manifestly contradict one another, but do not falsify her in any one thing she has said.