On Thursday 22nd December Sir Amyas sent for both Melville and Bourgoing,--an unusual proceeding, especially as hitherto, since his return, Melville alone had taken and brought back the messages to the Queen. When they were in the presence of Sir Amyas, he said that as he had something to send to the Queen, he thought it expedient to give it to them, declaring he knew not what it contained, but delivered it as he had received it. He then gave them a letter from Curle to his sister concerning certain money which the Queen had promised him. That Curle should have had the "courage," as Bourgoing expresses it, to apply to Mary in this way, seems to point to the fact that he considered himself innocent in her regard, and throws fresh doubt on the confessions supposed to have been extorted from him and Nau. The bags for the Queen contained some of her accounts; the seals had been broken, as Melville and Bourgoing pointed out to Paulet, who replied that he had, according to his duty, broken them, that he might be aware of the contents. A letter from Nau was among the papers, and a short memorandum which he had made on the papers taken to him, but the chief accounts for the year were missing, nor did they ever reach Mary; in spite of much correspondence on the subject between Paulet, Walsingham, Waad, and others, and Elizabeth's own apparent wish that they should be restored. At this time Paulet was laid up by a cold, and all communications between him and his prisoner had to be conveyed by her attendants. Day by day the Queen anxiously waited, hoping to see Paulet and inquire from him concerning the subjects which were to her of the deepest interest, but his own cold and gout occupied Paulet's attention far more than his prisoner's feelings. At last on the 8th of January, knowing that he had been out the day before, Mary sent to beg him to visit her, but Paulet still pleaded cold and inability to come. "We," continues Bourgoing, who was evidently one of those sent, "according to our charge, said that Her Majesty, being unable to communicate with him, and having no reply to her letter written nearly three weeks past (to Queen Elizabeth), and hearing nothing about it, but being always kept in suspense, proposed writing, and that as he seemed to be better in health, Her Majesty would prepare her letters, so that when he was well he would find them all ready." Paulet, appearing a little angry, replied that Mary could write and prepare what she liked. The Queen therefore wrote once more, and for the last time, to her cousin,--a letter which, as we shall see, Paulet this time refused to send at all, and of which the dignified and pathetic contents would have remained unknown had not Bourgoing preserved it. It runs as follows, with the exception of one paragraph, which is unintelligible:-- THE LAST LETTER FROM QUEEN MARY TO QUEEN ELIZABETH.[80] [Footnote 80: Chantelauze, p. 578.]