Here Sprot cited, from memory, but not accurately, more of Letter IV. The existence of such errors is not remarkable. Sprot again swore to the truth of all his depositions since July 5. But if _this_ story is true, how can it be true that Logan was at ease in his mind, after burning the letter from Alexander Ruthven, and another from Father Andrew Clerk, Jesuit, as Sprot previously swore? There was still Letter IV, lost, unburned, a haunting fear. It may be suggested that Sprot only kept this letter ‘_till_’ he had made his forgeries on its model, and then, in a later search, pretended to find and returned it, having first copied it out in Logan’s hand; that copy being our Letter IV. Sprot first would make a copy, in his ordinary hand, of the letter, then restore the original, and, after Logan’s death, copy his copy, in imitation of Logan’s hand, and frame I, III, V, and the torn letter on his copy of IV. Finally, Sprot said that ‘_he believes_ this letter is in his chest among his writings, because he left it there when he was taken by Watty Doig and deposes that it is closed and folded within a piece of paper.’ Sprot said this on August 10. On August 12 he was hanged. Now was this letter, on which he forged three others, found ‘in his kist,’ before his death? That it was so found, we have direct evidence, though not from the best of sources. In the year 1713, an aged nobleman, Lord Cromarty, published a defence of the King’s conduct in the Gowrie affair. Lord Cromarty, in 1713, was aged eighty-three. Born about 1630, he remembered the beginnings of the Civil War, and says that the Covenanters, about 1640–1645, made great political capital out of King James’s alleged guilt in the slaughter of the Ruthvens. Later, Lord Cromarty occupied, in the Restoration, the highest judicial offices, and, as Clerk Registrar, had access to public documents. He was an old courtier, he may have been forgetful, he may have been unscrupulous, but, as to the letter in Sprot’s kist, he writes ‘the letter was found there by the Sheriff Depute, who was ordered by Sir William Hart, Lord Justice of Scotland, to seize the said chest, and make search for this letter, which he found, and delivered to the King’s Advocate, Sir Thomas Hamilton.’ {224} Now this Sir Thomas Hamilton was the ancestor of the Earl of Haddington, who inherits many of his papers. Among these we find a copy, in Sprot’s ‘course hand,’ or rapid current hand, of Letter IV, and another of Letter I, but no such copies of II, III. and V. Each of these is endorsed by James Primrose, Clerk of Council, is endorsed by Sprot, in faded ink, and is _also_ endorsed in Sprot’s ordinary everyday hand, very firm and clear, thus: ‘This is copyitt off the principal’ (the original), ‘lykeas the note writtin upon the bak is writtin by me, George Sprott.’ There is, in fact, another ‘note on the back,’ in ink more faded, on a dirty rubbed part of the paper.