James Logan

“ But they also contain many peculiarities of spelling which are not Logan’s, but are Sprot’s. The very dotting of the ‘i’s’ is Sprot’s, not Logan’s. The long ‘s’ of Logan is heavily and clumsily imitated. There is a distinct set of peculiarities never found in Logan’s undisputed letters: in Sprot’s own letters always found. The hand is more rapid and flowing than that of Logan. Not being myself familiar with the Scottish handwriting of the period, my own opinion is of no weight, but I conceive that the general effect of Logan’s hand, in 1586, is not precisely like that of the plot-letters. ”

“ During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed, as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresap, the last spring in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. ”

“ LOGAN, Sir WILLIAM EDMOND (1798–1875) , Canadian geologist, second son of William Logan, by his wife Janet, born Edmond, and grandson of James Logan, a ‘baxter’ of Stirling, who emigrated to Canada in 1784, was born in Montreal on 20 April 1798. After a good grounding at the school of one Skakel, the Canadian Busby, he was sent by his father in 1814 to the high school at Edinburgh, and thence to Edinburgh University, where he graduated with distinction in mathematics in 1817. ”

“ At the conclusion of his year of office as mayor he again visited England to consult with Hannah, Penn's widow (Penn had died in 1718 and his eldest son in 1720) . In 1725, after his return to Pennsylvania, Logan became involved in a controversy with Governor Sir William Keith, who was superseded in 1726. In the course of the dispute he published ‘The Antidote,’ Philadelphia, 1725, and ‘A Memorial from James Logan in behalf of the Proprietor's family and of himself, Servant to the said family,’ 1726. In 1728 Logan was maimed for life by a fall in which he broke off the head of his thighbone ”

“ At this time Lady Restalrig was deeply distressed, she wished Logan at the Indies, if only he would first settle Flemington on herself. ‘If it be God’s will, I desire never to have a child to him,’ she said. ‘I have a guess what this mystery means, woe’s me for his motherless children,’ that is, children of former marriages. Later, Lady Restalrig had a daughter, Anna, by Logan.
Matthew Logan, as usual, denied every word attributed to him by Sprot, except regrets for his own condition. Matthew could do no less to save his own life. ”

“ Meanwhile, just after Logan’s death, in autumn 1606, Sprot forges Letters I, II, III, IV, V, and the torn letter, with two compromising letters to Bower, two to Ninian Chirnside, and an ‘eik,’ or addition, of compromising items to a memorandum on business, which, in September 1605, Logan gave to Bower and John Bell before he started for London and Paris. All these documents, the plot-letters, I, II, III, IV, V, and the rest (which lie before me) , are mere instruments of blackmail, intended to terrorise the guardians of the Logans. ”

“ In his confessions he paints with sordid and squalid realism, the life of a debauched laird, tortured by terror, and rushing from his fears to forgetfulness in wine, travel, and pleasure; and to strange desperate dreams of flight. As a ‘human document’ the confessions of Sprot are unique, for that period.
On July 5, 1608, Sprot, in prison, wrote, in his own ordinary hand, the tale of how he knew of Logan’s guilt: the letter was conveyed to the Earl of Dunbar, who, with Dunfermline, governed Scotland, under the absent King. ”

“ And how is it, how can it be, that we again see him here, walking arm in arm with his murderer?"
"The thing cannot be, Mrs. Logan. It is a phantasy of our disturbed imaginations, therefore let us compose ourselves till we investigate this matter farther."
"It cannot be in nature, that is quite clear," said Mrs. Logan. "Yet how it should be that I should think so—I who knew and nursed him from his infancy—there lies the paradox. As you said once before, we have nothing but our senses to depend on, and, if you and I believe that we see a person, why, we do see him. ”

“ Thus, at the examination of Logan’s real and forged letters, as at the examination of Queen Mary’s real and Casket letters, in spelling and handwriting ‘no difference was found.’ Yet the plot-letters were all forged, and Mr. Anderson shows that, though ‘no difference was found,’ many differences existed. Logan had a better chance of acquittal than Mary. The Lords of the Articles, writes Sir Thomas Hamilton to the King (June 21, 1609) , ‘had preconceived hard opinions of Restalrig’s process.’ [243b] Yet they were convinced by the evidence of the witnesses, and by their own eyes. ”

“ He was kissing, looking at, smoothing out, and caressing a tiny kid glove, which he had begged from her at that very ball where they first met, on the 5th of August—the fatal day of the Ruthvens, as Elspat Gorm was wont to call it.
"Roland, old fellow," said Logan, dropping into his quarters one evening when he was dressing for mess, "what is up—you look like the ace of spades? Never saw a fellow so changed in all my life." ”

“ Nevertheless, when Gray was driven into exile, later in 1587, Logan was one of his ‘cautioners,’ or sureties. He had been of the party of Gowrie’s father, during that nobleman’s brief tenure of power in 1582, 1583, and, when Gowrie fell, Logan was ordered to hand his eyrie of Fastcastle over, at six hours’ notice, to the officers of the King. Through the stormy years of Bothwell’s repeated raids on James (1592–1594) Logan had been his partisan, and had been denounced a rebel. Later he appears in trouble for highway robbery committed by his retainers. ”

“ A man on horseback, who left the gate of St. Anthony, came galloping from Leith; his armour flashed in the setting sun, and a cloud of dust rolled under the hoofs of his horse.
"In harness," said one falconer.
"He is not Sir Robert," muttered another.
"St. Mary! how he drives his horse!" exclaimed Marion Logan.
"It is Leslie of Balquhan!" growled Birrel, ferociously, as he grasped his dague. "Now, curse be on my folly, that sent not this butterfly, with her attendant wasps, hence on a fool's errand." ”

“ Alexander told me of the nobleman of Padua, it is à propos to the purpose we have in hand.’ This is casually inserted in the last words of the postscript, not blazoned in the text, as in the forgeries confessedly modelled on this letter. The whole tone of the letter is in keeping with the alleged author’s temperament. It is respectful, but far from servile. Gowrie is a great Earl, but Logan is of an old and good name. There is the genial sensualism of the man, with his promise of wine and ‘a fine hattit kit’ (a kind of syllabub) . ”

“ This brief sketch of a turbulent life is derived from Logan’s own letters to Archibald Douglas, now among the Cecil Papers at Hatfield; from the ‘Papers relating to the Master of Gray,’ in which we find Logan, under a cypher name, betraying the Master, his cousin and ally, and from the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, in which all that dead world, from the King to the crofter, may be traced, often in circumstances peculiarly private. ”

“ Logan's house, then they spoke of what they had seen and heard, and agreed that they had sufficient proof to condemn young Wringhim, who they thought richly deserved the severest doom of the law.
"I never in my life saw any human being," said Mrs. Calvert, "whom I thought so like a fiend. If a demon could inherit flesh and blood, that youth is precisely such a being as I could conceive that demon to be. The depth and the malignity of his eye is hideous. ”

“ All his lands he sold—not that he was in debt, he was a large lender—p. 228for purposes of profligacy. These proceedings gave rise to gossip. The Laird must be selling his lands to evade forfeiture. He must have been engaged in the Gowrie mystery. Then Logan dies (July 1606) . Bower is also dead (January 1606) . It occurs to Sprot that there is money in all this, and, having lost Logan’s business, the hungry Sprot needs money. He therefore makes a pact with some of Logan’s debtors. He, for pay, will clear them of their debts to Logan’s executors, whom he will enable them to blackmail. ”

“ Sprot ‘knew perfectly,’ he said, on July 5, that one letter from Gowrie and one from his brother, Alexander Ruthven, reached Logan, at Fastcastle and at Gunnisgreen, a house hard by Eyemouth, where Sprot was a notary, and held cottage land. [183] Bower carried Logan’s answers, and ‘long afterwards’ showed Sprot ‘the first of Gowrie’s letters’ (the harmless one about desiring an interview) and also a note of Logan’s to Bower himself, ‘which is amongst the rest of the letters produced.’ It is No. ”

“ His clothes were loosely made, and he wore enormous cuffs, collar and studs. Every way, he looked, as Logan said, "like a man you would rather drink with than fight with, any day."
The Colonel had of course the usual American ideas about equality, and "the sovereign people," with considerable contempt for the little island, from whence "the Britishers came."
Doubtless he had never seen such a dinner-table us the mess of the Royals before, with all its massive and magnificent silver trophies, epergnes, and goblets—even the White House could not equal it ”

“ And, with the emotions we have described in his heart, Allan, as if the further to play out the game of cross-purposes, in a spirit of pique, doubtless, remained in close attendance on Miss Ruby Logan.
Now the latter was not the heiress of Loganlee, as she had several brothers; but, even had she been so, it would not have enhanced her value in the ambitious estimation of Lady Aberfeldie.
But Ruby was a very handsome girl, with a skin pure, transparent, and delicate as the lining of a shell, while her fine hair was ample in quantity, and of the darkest amber ”

“ 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, p. 195Logan 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. ”

“ Ruthven of Ardgowrie out at the elbows—why, man alive, what the devil has come to you? You could marry Miss Darnel without exciting anybody but her special admirers. There is no 'establishment' to break up; no fair denizen of such a villa as is proverbial at St. John's Wood to tear her dyed locks, and demand a monetary kind of 'loot'—so I say again, what the deuce has come to you?" asked Logan, with genuine surprise. ”

“ Logan's curiosity was excited, and she followed the girl straight to the Tolbooth, who by the way said to her that she would find in the prisoner a woman of superior mind, who had gone through all the vicissitudes of life. "She has been very unfortunate, and I fear very wicked," added the poor thing, "but she is my mother, and God knows, with all her faults and failings, she has never been unkind to me. You, madam, have it in your power to save her ”

“ How do these dates fit into the narrative? Logan was at Gunnisgreen (his letter (IV) proves it) on July 29. (Later we show another error of Sprot’s on this point.) He writes that he is sending Bower as bearer of his letter to Gowrie. If Bower left Edinburgh on July 30, he could deliver the letter to Gowrie, at Perth, on August 2, and be back in Edinburgh (whither Logan now went) on August 5, and Logan could leave Edinburgh on August 6, after hearing of the deaths of his fellow-conspirators. We must not press Sprot too hard as to dates so remote in time. ”

“ Then there are the contents of Letter IV. To myself, and to Mr. Anderson, it does not seem probable, it seems hardly credible, that Sprot could have invented the contents of Letter IV. If he did, his power of rendering character might have been envied by the author of the Waverley Novels. In IV Logan is painted, the ‘main loose man, but a good fellow,’ with a master hand. The thing is freely, largely, and spontaneously executed. What especially moves me to think IV no invention, is the reference to the Paduan incident or romance, ‘the good sport that Mr. ”

“ The laird had often manifested to Miss Logan an earnest wish that the two young men should never meet, or at all events that they should be as little conversant as possible; and Miss Logan, who was as much attached to George as if he had been her own son, took every precaution, while he was a boy, that he should never meet with his brother; but, as they advanced towards manhood, this became impracticable. The lady was removed from her apartments in her husband's house to Glasgow, to her great content; and all to prevent the young laird being tainted with the company of her and her second son ”

“ Logan died, we saw, in July 1606. In April, 1608, Sprot was arrested by a legal official, named Watty Doig. He had been blabbing in his cups, it is said, about the Gowrie affair; certainly most compromising documents, apparently in Logan’s hand, and with his signature, were found on Sprot’s person. They still bear the worn softened look of papers carried for long in the pockets. [162] Sprot was examined, and confessed that he knew beforehand of the Gowrie conspiracy, and that the documents in his possession were written by Logan to Gowrie and other plotters. ”