EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM DUNKIRK ANENT THE DEATH OF CRANSTOUN.

(From the London Magazine, February, 1753.)

On Dec. 2 last died at the sign of the Burgundy-cross in Furness, a town belonging to the Queen of Hungary, about 15 English miles East of this place, Capt.  William Henry Cranstoun, aged forty-six.  His illness did not continue above 9 days, but the last three his pains were so very great, and he was swelled to such a degree, that it was thought by the physician and apothecary that attended him, that he would have burst, and by the great agonies he expired in, he was thought to be raving mad.  As he had just before his death embraced the Roman Catholick religion, he was buried in great solemnity, the corporation attending the funeral, and a grand mass was said over the corpse in the cathedral church, which was finely illuminated, and in which he was buried.  Some little time before he died he made a will, which was sealed up in the presence of one Mrs. Ross (whose maiden name was Dunbar, and which name he went by) and two other persons who were also his acquaintance.  The will he signed with his own name, and gave all his fortune which was in his brother’s hands to his child, who is now living at Hexham in Northumberland, with her mother, to whom he had so villainously denied being married, and for which he often said, a curse had attended him for injuring the character of so good a wife.  When he was asked concerning Mr. Blandy’s murder, he often reflected on himself greatly, yet said, that Miss Blandy ought not to have blamed him so much as she did, but the particulars of which he said should never be known till his death.  He first made his escape out of England the latter end of last February to Bologne; but as soon as he was known to be there, was obliged to be kept concealed by Mrs. Ross, some relations of his wife’s, who were in that country, threatening revenge for his base usage to her; so that Miss Ross and he were obliged at last to fly from Bologne by night, which was on the 26th of July last, and lived in Furnes from that time.  The fortune in his Brother’s hands, which he has left to his child, by his will, is L1500, his patrimony which he formerly received 5 per cent. for, but on his being cast before the Lords of Session in Scotland, in the cause concerning the validity of his marriage, which was confirmed, L50 out of the L75 was ordered by their lordships to be paid the wife annually for the support of her and the child, which she received, and has lived ever since with some of her relations in Hexham aforementioned.  It was further said that before he died he declared that he and Miss Blandy were privately married before the death of her mother, which was near two years before Mr. Blandy was poisoned.

APPENDIX XI.

LETTER FROM JOHN RIDDELL, THE SCOTS GENEALOGIST, TO JAMES MAIDMENT, REGARDING THE DESCENDANTS OF CRANSTOUN.