It is now my duty to explain how grossly Sir Everard was deceived by Catesby, when he was assured that any Jesuit Fathers had approved of the conspiracy "in general, though they knew not the particulars." What I am about to write may appear a long digression; but it should be remembered that it was chiefly upon Catesby's assurance of the approval of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus that Sir Everard consented to join in the conspiracy; therefore the amount of consent actually obtained from them, if any, is of the utmost importance to my story. Here is Father Gerard's account of the so-called approval of the plot, which Catesby had extracted from Father Garnet, and on the strength of which he persuaded Sir Everard Digby and others to join in it.[162] "Having a great opinion both of the learning and virtue of the Fathers of the Society, Mr Catesby desired to get, by cunning means, the judgment of their Superior, so as he should never perceive to what end the question were asked." This makes Father Gerard's opinion of Catesby's shameful dishonesty in the affair unmistakably clear. "Therefore," he continues, "coming to Father Garnet, after much ordinary talk, and some time passed over after his arrival" (at a house in Essex, in June 1605, that is to say, about three months before he revealed the plot to Sir Everard) "one time he took occasion (upon some speech proposed about the wars in the Low Countries or such like)"--observe the fraud of this! Catesby was to have command of a regiment in the "Low Countries," so he clearly intended to lead Father Garnet to suppose that he was contemplating a position in which he might very probably find himself when _there_--"to ask how far it might be lawful for the party that hath the just quarrel to proceed in sacking or destroying a town of the enemy's, or fortress, when it is holden against them by strong hands. The Father answered that, in a just war, it was lawful for those that had right to wage battle against the enemies of the commonwealth, to authorise their captains or soldiers, as their officers, to annoy or destroy any town that is unjustly holden against them, and that such is the common doctrine of all Divines: in respect that every commonwealth must, by the Law of Nature, be sufficient for itself, and therefore as well able to repel injuries as to provide necessaries; and that, as a private person may _vim vi repellere_, so may the commonwealth do the like with so much more right, as the whole is of more importance than a part; which, if it were not true, it should follow that Nature had provided better for beasts than for men, furnishing them with natural weapons as well to offend as to defend themselves, which we see also they have a natural instinct to use, when the offence of the invader is necessary for their own defence. And therefore that it is not fit to think that God, Who, by natural reason, doth provide in a more universal and more noble manner for men than by