le conjecture by
showing that, when they tried Sprot, Government produced no letters at
all, only an alleged account by Sprot of two letters unproduced.
Therefore, in August 1608, Mr. Napier argued, Government had no letters;
if they had possessed them, they would infallibly have produced them.
That seemed sound reasoning. In 1608 Government had no plot letters;
therefore, the five produced in the trial of the dead Logan were forged
for the Government, by somebody, between August 1608 and June 1609. Mr.
Napier refused to accept Calderwood's wild tale that Sprot, while
confessing Logan's guilt and his own, also confessed to having forged
Logan's letters.

Yet Calderwood's version (or rather that of his anonymous authority in
MS.) was literally accurate. Sprot, in _private_ examinations (July 5,
August 11, 1608), confessed to having forged all the letters but one, the
important one, Letter IV, Logan to Gowrie. This confession the
Government burked.

The actual circumstances have remained unknown and are only to be found
in the official, but _suppressed_, reports of Sprot's private
examinations, now in the muniment room of the Earl of Haddington. These
papers enable us partly to unravel a coil which, without them, no
ingenuity could disentangle. Sir Thomas Hamilton, the King's Advocate,
popularly styled 'Tam o' the Cowgate,' from his house in that old 'street
of palaces,' was the ancestor of Lord Haddington, who inherits his
papers. Sir Thomas was an eminent financier, lawyer, statesman, and
historical collector and inquirer, who later became Lord Binning, and
finally Earl of Haddington. As King's Advocate he held, and preserved,
the depositions, letters, and other documents, used in the private
examinations of Sprot, on and after July 5, 1608. The records of Sprot's
examinations between April 19 and July 5, 1600, are not known to be
extant.

Sir Thomas's collection consists of summonses, or drafts of summonses,
for treason, against the dead Logan (1609). There is also a holograph
letter of confession (July 5, 1608) from Sprot to the Earl of Dunbar.
There are the records of the _private_ examinations of Sprot (July
5-August 11, 1600) and of other persons whom he more or less implicated.
There are copies by Sprot, in his 'course,' that is, current,
handwriting, of two of the five letters in Logan's hand (or in an
imitation of it). These are letters I and IV, produced at the posthumous
trial of Logan in June 1