This, gentlemen, is the substance of the evidence on both sides, as nearly as I can recollect it.  I have not wilfully omitted or misstated any part of it; but if I have, I hope the gentlemen who are of counsel on either side will be so kind as to set me right.

A very tragical story it is, gentlemen, that you have heard, and upon which you are now to form your judgment and give your verdict.

The crime with which the prisoner stands charged is of the most heinous nature and blackest dye, attended with considerations that shock human nature, being not only murder, but parricide—­the murder of her own father.  But the more atrocious, the more flagrant the crime is, the more clearly and satisfactory you will expect that it should be made out to you.

In all cases of murder it is of necessity that there should be malice aforethought, which is the essence of and constitutes the offence; but that malice may be either express or implied by the law.  Express malice must arise from the previous acts or declarations of the party offending, but implied malice may arise from numbers of circumstances relating either to the nature of the act itself, the manner of executing it, the person killing, or the person killed, from, which the law will as certainly infer malice as where it is express.

Poison in particular is in its nature so secret, and withal so deliberate, that wherever that is knowingly given, and death ensues, the so putting to death can be no other than wilful and malicious.

In the present case, which is to be made out by circumstances, great part of the evidence must rest upon presumption, in which the law makes a distinction.  A slight or probable presumption only has little or no weight, but a violent presumption amounts in law to full proof, that is, where circumstances speak so strongly that to suppose the contrary would be absurd.  I mention this to you that you may fix your attention on the several circumstances that have been laid before you, and consider whether you can collect from them such a presumption as the law calls a violent presumption, and from which you must conclude the prisoner to be guilty.  I would observe further that where that presumption necessarily arises from circumstances they are more convincing and satisfactory than any other kind of evidence, because facts cannot lie.

I cannot now go through the evidence again, but you will consider the whole together, and from thence determine what you think it amounts to.  Thus far is undeniably true, and agreed on all sides, that Mr. Blandy died by poison, and that that poison was administered to him by his daughter, the prisoner at the bar.  What you are to try is reduced to this single question—­whether the prisoner, at the time she gave it to her father, knew that it was poison, and what effect it would have?

If you believe that she knew it to be poison, the other part, viz., that she knew the effect, is consequential, and you must find her guilty.  On the other hand, if you are satisfied, from her general character, from what has been said by the evidence on her part, and from what she has said herself, that she did not know it to be poison, nor had any malicious intention against her father, you ought to acquit her.  But if you think she knowingly gave poison to her father, you can do no other than find her guilty.