ains the following among other averments. We are told that Sprot,
in July 1600, at Fastcastle, saw and read the beginning of a letter from
Logan to Gowrie (Letter IV). Logan therein expresses delight at
receiving a letter of Gowrie's: he is anxious to avenge 'the
Macchiavelian massacre of our dearest friends' (the Earl decapitated in
1584). He advises Gowrie to be circumspect, 'and be earnest with your
brother, that he be not rash in any speeches touching the purpose of
Padua.'

[Picture: Fastcastle]

This letter, _as thus cited_, is not among the five later produced in
1609; it is a blurred reminiscence of parts of _two_ of them. The reason
of these discrepancies is that the letter is quoted in the Indictment,
_not_ from the document itself (which apparently reach the prosecution
after the Indictment was framed), but from a version given from memory by
Sprot, in one of his private examinations. Next, Sprot is told in his
Indictment that, some time later, Logan asked Bower to find this letter,
which Gowrie, for the sake of secrecy, had returned to Bower to be
delivered to Logan. We know that this was the practice of intriguers.
After the December riot at Edinburgh in 1596, the Rev. Robert Bruce,
writing to ask Lord Hamilton to head the party of the Kirk, is said to
request him to return his own letter by the bearer. Gowrie and Logan
practised the same method. The indictment goes on to say that Bower,
being unable to read, asked Sprot to search for Logan's letter to Gowrie,
among his papers, that Sprot found it, 'abstracted' it (stole it),
retained it, and 'read it divers times,' a _false quotation of the MS.
confession_. Sprot really said that he kept the stolen letter (IV)
'_till_' he had framed on it, as a model, three forged letters. It
contained a long passage of which the 'substance' is quoted. This
passage as printed in Sprot's Indictment is not to be found textually, in
any of the five letters later produced. It is, we repeat, merely the
version given from memory, by Sprot, at one of his last private
examinations, before the letter itself came into the hands of Government.
In either form, the letter meant high treason.

Such is the evidence of the Indictment against Sprot, of August 12, 1608.
In the light of Sprot's real confessions, hitherto lying in the
Haddington muniment room, we know the Indictment to be a false and
garbled document. Next, on the part of Government, w