an order of the House of Lords of the 12th June 1719, respecting the state of the Peerage in Scotland."[26] Here, then, are only _twelve_ leaves missing; and on referring to one of the writings indorsed on the map of Canada, (in the Le Normand packet,) the writer stated he had _seen_ the charter, and "it extended over _fifty_ pages of writing."[27] On this subject, Lord Meadowbank proposed the following question to the jury--"Putting aside the evidence of this index, could you have believed, when there is no evidence or trace of this charter in the volume where it should be found, that it could, _out of its place_, have been crammed into the twelve pages that are lost, when the prisoner's own evidence tells you the charter extended to fifty-eight?"[28] To proceed, however--What will the reader suppose was proved at the trial? First, two ancient indexes of the missing twelve pages of vol. lvii. were produced, unerringly indicating the charters which had stood recorded there, and among which was _not_ the charter in question, but only those of date _subsequent_ to the year 1639; while all the charters of that year 1639 stood regularly recorded in the previous--the fifty-sixth volume; and among them, also, was _not_ to be found the charter in question. Mr George Robertson, one of the Joint-Keepers of the Records, thus certified on oath: "I have searched the principal record of the fifty-seventh volume of the Great Seal Register, and at the beginning of the said fifty-seventh volume, twelve leaves have been destroyed or lost. The charters originally recorded in these missing leaves are, however, ascertained with precision from two ancient indexes of the Great Seal Record. I have examined these, and can state as the result, that the twelve leaves now lost did not contain any charter, diploma, patent, nor other grant, in favour of William, Earl of Stirling, nor of any Earl of Stirling, nor of any person of the name of Alexander." Still further, however: the words on the margin, "_Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII._," purported to have been written there by the framer of the excerpt, in the year 1723; and three experienced official gentlemen declared their confident opinion, that no such marking was coeval with the making of the excerpt itself. It was established at the trial, that this mode of referring to the Great Seal Records was _quite a modern one_, commencing with the year 1806 only: a fact proved by the very author of the arrangement, and his assistant; by whom, in the latter year, the Records were re-bound, and the titles made uniform, for facility of reference, in lieu of the loose and discordant methods of reference till then in use! Other experienced officials proved that till the year 1806 no such mode of reference as "_Reg. Mag. Sig._" existed, and they gave specimens of the former mode: _e. g._ "_Chart. in Archivis_," appeared in a law book of 1763; and in a subsequent edition, in the year 1813, the reference was altered to "_Mag.