s these
circumstances. The Government meant to put the letters to their own
uses, on a later occasion, at the trial of the dead Logan.

Meanwhile we must keep one fact steadily in mind. When Sprot confessed
to having forged treasonable letters in Logan's handwriting (as
Calderwood correctly reports that he did confess), he _did not include
among them Letter IV_ (Logan to Gowrie July 29, 1600). _That_ letter was
never heard of by Sprot's examiners till August 10, and never came into
the hands of his examiners till late on August 11, or early on August 12,
the day when Sprot was hanged. Spottiswoode was never made aware that
the letter had been produced. Why Sprot reserved this piece of evidence
so long, why, under the shadow of the gibbet, he at last produced it, we
shall later attempt to explain, though with but little confidence in any
explanation.

Meanwhile, at Sprot's public trial in 1608, the Government were the
conspirators. They burked the fact that they possessed plot-letters
alleged to be by Logan. They burked the fact that Sprot confessed all
these, with one or, perhaps, two exceptions, to be forgeries by himself.
What they quoted, as letters of Logan and Gowrie, were merely
descriptions of such letters given by Sprot from memory of their
contents.

XIV. THE LAIRD AND THE NOTARY

We have now to track Sprot through the labyrinth of his confessions and
evasions, as attested by the authentic reports of his private
examinations between July 5 and the day of his death. It will be
observed that, while insisting on his own guilt, and on that of Logan, he
produced no documentary evidence, no genuine letter attributed by him to
Logan, nothing but his own confessed forgeries, till the cord was almost
round his neck--if he did then.

In his confessions he paints with sordid and squalid realism, the life of
a debauched laird, tortured by terror, and rushing from his fears to
forgetfulness in wine, travel, and pleasure; and to strange desperate
dreams of flight. As a 'human document' the confessions of Sprot are
unique, for that period.

On July 5, 1608, Sprot, in prison, wrote, in his own ordinary hand, the
tale of how he knew of Logan's guilt: the letter was conveyed to the Earl
of Dunbar, who, with Dunfermline, governed Scotland, under the absent
King. The prisoner gave many sources of his knowledge, but the real
source, if any (Letter IV), he reserved till he was certain of death
(August 10).