Led on by giddy and headstrong passion, she formed the black design of taking him off by poison; and though the impious parricide shocked her at first, yet the force of her affections so far overcame her reason, that she determined within herself to put it in execution.  The flattering hopes of pursuing her mistaken happiness uncontrouled, confirmed her in her purpose, and she thought that when her father was dead, there would be an end of her misery.  Having procured the horrid dose, her first attempt was about six weeks before her father's death, when being at breakfast with him, she conveyed some of it into his cup.  Perceiving an unusual taste in it, he gave it a person then present to taste, who threw it, with the cup, out of the window.  This circumstance seems to bear a suspicious countenance, being done with no other view than to prevent a discovery.

     Her intentions having miscarried for that time, she was determined to make sure work of it the next.  Her father at that time, labouring under the disorders of old age, had recourse to such simple medicines as his complaint required.  His daughter usually administered them to him, and she thought this the best time to put her wicked intentions in practice.  Being troubled with the gravel he took some powders from which he reaped some benefit, and in these powders she mingled the powders.  He swallowed them without suspicion, and she being determined to do it effectually, put some likewise into his water-gruel.

     In a short time after he had taken this fatal potion, the unhappy gentleman found himself prodigiously disordered; and the servant maid in the interim, drank off what gruel was left, and was likewise much affected and soon afterwards died.  This wicked wretch, pretending great sorrow at seeing her father in pain, asked where his disorder lay; he told her in his bowels, and that his pains increased more than he was able to bear.  Upon this she told him, that she imagined it was the gripes, and advised him to take some Daffy's Elixir.

     The unhappy gentleman, ignorant of the cause of his disorder, readily accepted the medicine, and drank off a large glass of it.

     The barbarity of this circumstance is extremely shocking!  She knew the hot quality of that elixir, and the terrible effects it would produce on one who had already taken more than sufficient of a fiery poison to deprive him of life.  He had no sooner drunk this cruel remedy, then he fell from his chair in the most violent agony, and swelled prodigiously.  Assistance being called, the most proper antidotes were applied, but this inhuman creature being very officious in the management of them, by her contrivance they had not the desired effect.

     He lay in the most lamentable tortures for the space of forty-eight hours without relief; a physician came post from London, and all possible means made use of, but in vain, for his body swelled to that degree that it burst, and he died in a most shocking spectacle to behold.

     The persons who were witnesses of this horrid catastrophe were not at a loss to find out the author of it; they immediately accused the unnatural daughter with the murder, and she was taken into custody.  The servants were all strictly examined, in order to discover whether any of them were privy to the affair, but not the least cause of suspicion appeared among them.  As to Miss Blandy she treated their accusation with contempt, and did not shew the least remorse for what she had done.

      On searching her apartment, there was found in a little dressing-box a quantity of white arsenic, mixed up with a certain composition to make it palletable.  When she was asked what she intended to do with that composition, she made answer, that it was only a powder to clean her jewels with, and that if they would not believe her they might taste.

     To such a pitch of wickedness was she arrived, that she even made a jest of what ought to have struck her dumb with horror.  When she was carried before a magistrate, she made answer, that she had it as a present from her admirer, and that he told her it was love-powder.

     The day before she went to gaol, she asked Mrs. Newton, the servant who attended her, if she was to go to gaol that day; she told her, "No, not till to-morrow."  Upon which she replied, she was glad of it, for then she should have time to pack up every thing that she should want; for after to-morrow, said she to Mrs. Newton, you and I shall have nothing to do but enjoy ourselves.

     She accordingly went to Oxford gaol the next day in her father's chariot, attended by a numerous company of spectators, who were with some difficulty kept from insulting her, fearing, as she went in her chariot, that she was going to be screened from justice; though the proper officers assured them she was going to gaol, they would not be satisfied, but accompanied her there; and when she was safely lodged, departed very peaceably: so much had her atrocious crime enraged their just resentment.

     After she had been in gaol some time, being asked, how she could perpetrate such a cruel deed; she replied, she did not think there was any crime to dispatch a cross old fellow out of the world, who was the only bar to her happiness, and that she would do it, was it to be done again.

     When she was told of the dangerous situation she was in, and how carefully she ought to prepare for the worst, she said, that life and death in her present circumstances, was equal to her; and that she was determined, that the event of her trial should giver her very little concern.  And thus, without paying any regard for her future state, she passed her time in an indolent and thoughtless manner.

     She was afterwards tried at Oxford, found guilty and executed.  Her behaviour a little before her execution was decent, serious, and resigned; and, if we are to credit her dying declaration, she did not know, or believe, that the powder, to which the death of her father has been ascribed, had any noxious or poisonous quality lodged in it.