[166] Examination, March 13. Records, S. J., Vol. III., p. 157.
[167] Ib.
[168] Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, Pollen, p. 8.
[169] Ib., p. 10.
[170] The Month, No. 369, p. 353-4.
CHAPTER VIII.
In the last chapter we saw how Catesby, by means of his infamous perversion of Father Garnet’s words, induced several of his friends, among others, and last of all, Sir Everard Digby, to join in his conspiracy; but even with his extraordinary powers of personal influence and persuasion, his unscrupulousness, and his intimate friendship with Sir Everard, it is just possible that he might have failed in enlisting him as a conspirator, had it not been for a most unfortunate, and apparently unguarded, remark made by Father Garnet.
Garnet had been at his wits’ end to put a stop to the dangerous inclination to civil rebellion which he had observed among certain of the English Catholics; and, in his despair, he had written to Father Claudius Aquaviva, the General of the Society of Jesus:[171]—“If the affair of the toleration go not well, Catholics[172] will no more be quiet. What shall we do? Jesuits cannot hinder it. Let the Pope forbid all Catholics to stir.”