One more question I would ask: Why were no letters of the Ruthvens produced? If there had even been any letters from the Ruthvens, those letters would have been more likely to be preserved than the letters alleged to be found in the custody of those who had been connected with Logan.
"In this way it is in the power of any man—by writing letters referring to an enterprise of a treasonable nature, and keeping the letters in his own custody—to make circumstantial evidence of criminality in any shape against any other man.[1]"
In this case, however, the letters were written not by Robert Logan, but by those who were far more powerful than Robert Logan.
I have said that the letters were alleged to have been found in the custody of those who had been connected with Logan. Robert Logan, laird of Restalrig, died in the month of July, 1606; and the state in which he left his property at the time of his death throws some curious light on the selection of him as a candidate for the honour of being associated with the Ruthvens, in what King James denominated "the Gowrie Conspiracy." It
- ↑ Bentham's Rationale of Judicial Evidence, vol. iii., pp. 43, 44.
