Gentlemen, I will not detain you by going through every particular, but bring you to the fatal period.  Upon the 3rd of August, being Saturday, Susan Gunnell made a large pan of water gruel for her master.  Upon Monday, the 5th, the prisoner will be proved to go into the pantry where it was kept, and, after having, according to Mr. Cranstoun’s advice, put in a double dose of the powder, she stirred it about, for a considerable time, in order to make it mix the better.  When, fearing she should have been observed, she went immediately into the laundry, to the maids, and told them that “she had been in the pantry, and, after stirring her papa’s water gruel, had ate the oatmeal at the bottom,” saying that, “if she was ever to take to the eating anything in particular, it would be oatmeal.”  Strange inconsistence!  She who had cautioned the maid against it not above a fortnight before, who had declared that it had been prejudicial to her own health, is on a sudden grown mighty fond of it.  But the pretence is easily to be seen through.  That afternoon some of the water gruel was taken out of the pan and prepared for her father’s supper.  She again in the kitchen takes care to stir it sufficiently, looks at the spoon, rubs some between her fingers, and then sends it up to the poor old man her father.  He scarce had swallowed it when he was taken violently ill, and continued so all the next day, with a griping, purging, and vomiting.  Yet she herself orders a second mess of the same gruel for her father’s supper on the Tuesday, and was herself the person who carried it up to her father and administered it to him as nourishment.  The poor old man, grown weak with the frequent repetition, had not drank half the mess before he was seized, from head to foot, with the most violent pricking pains, continual reaching and vomiting, and was obliged to go to bed without finishing it.  The next morning the poor charwoman, coming again to the house, unfortunately ate the remainder of the gruel, and was instantly affected in so violent a manner that for two hours together it was thought she would have died in Mr. Blandy’s house.  The prisoner at this time was in bed; but the maid, going up to her room, told her how ill dame Emmet had been, at the same time saying she had ate nothing but the remainder of her father’s water gruel.  The prisoner’s answer was, “Poor woman!  I am glad I was not up, I should have been shocked to have seen her”—­should have been shocked to have seen the poor charwoman eat what was prepared for her father, but was never shocked at her father’s eating it, or at his sufferings!

Gentlemen, in the afternoon of the Wednesday, notwithstanding the poor man, her father, had suffered so much for two days together, yet she again endeavours to give him more of the same gruel.  “No,” says the maid, “it has an odd taste; it is grown stale, I will make fresh.”  “It is not worth while to make fresh now, it will take you from your ironing; this will do,” was the prisoner’s