soon as they returned from Edinburgh, destroy every
inch of paper connected with the conspiracy? One letter at least
(Logan's to Gowrie, July 29) was not burned, according to Sprot, but was
later stolen by himself from Bower; though he reserved _this_ confession
to the last day of his life but two. We might have expected Logan to
take the letter from Bower as soon as they met, and to burn or, for that
matter, swallow it if no fire was convenient! Yet, according to Sprot,
in his final confession, Logan let Bower keep the damning paper for
months. If this be true, we can only say _quos Deus vult perdere prius
dementat_. People do keep damning letters, constant experience proves
the fact.

After Bower had met Logan in his melancholy mood, he rode away, and
remained absent for four days, on what errand Sprot did not know, and
during the next fortnight, while Scotland was ringing with the Gowrie
tragedy, Sprot saw nothing of Logan.

Next, Logan went to church at Coldinghame, on a Sunday, and met Bower:
next day they dined together at Gunnisgreen. Bower was gloomy. Logan
said, 'Be it as it will, I must take my fortune, and I will tell you,
Laird Bower, the scaffold is the best death that a man can die.' Logan,
if he said this, must have been drunk; he very often was.

It was at this point, in answer to a question, that Sprot confessed that
Logan's letter to Bower (No. II) was a forgery by himself. The actual
letter, Sprot said, was dictated by Logan to him, and he made a
counterfeit copy in imitation of Logan's handwriting. We have stated the
difficulties involved in this obvious falsehood. Sprot was trying every
ruse to conceal his alleged source and model, Letter IV.

Sprot was next asked about a certain memorandum by Logan directed to
Bower and to one John Bell, in 1605. This document was actually found in
Sprot's 'pocquet' when he was arrested, and it contained certain very
compromising items. Sprot replied that he forged the memorandum, in the
autumn of 1606, when he forged the other letters. He copied most of it
from an actual but innocent note of Logan's on business matters, and
added the compromising items out of his own invention. He made three
copies of this forgery, one was produced; he gave another to a man named
Heddilstane or Heddilshaw, a dweller in Berwick, in September 1607; the
third, 'in course hand,' he gave to another client, 'the goodman of
Rentoun,' Hume. One was to be used to terrori