At one time White Webbs had been inhabited almost exclusively by Jesuits, being used as a centre for the renovation of vows, religious retreats, and conferences upon the affairs of their missions.[233] In his examination,[234] Father Garnet said "that it was a spacious house fitt to receave so great a company that should resort to him thither; there being two bedds placed in a chamber, but thinketh there have not been above the number of 14 Jesuits at one time there." Disastrously for himself and his order, he was obliged to confess[235] that "Catesby and Wynter, or Mr Catesby alone, came to him to White Webbs and tould this exam{t}. there was a plott in hand for the Cath{c}. cause against the King and the State," assuring him that it was something quite "lawfull"; but that he had "dissuaded him," and that "he promised to surceasse." [233] _Records S. J._, Vol. iv. p. 83, footnote. [234] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n. 16 [235] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n. 44. It was no secret that White Webbs had been one of the principal meeting-places of the Jesuits; therefore, after they had given up going there, and it had got into the hands of Catesby and his band of conspirators, the Government, not altogether unnaturally, supposed that the Jesuits had purposely assigned it to the plotters as a convenient place from which to carry out their dread design. This, however, was not the case; for, in October 1605, Father Garnet had intended to have gone thither, but finding that Catesby and his friends had established themselves in the house, most likely with the purpose of carrying out the "plott in hand," which he so greatly feared, he did not dare to go there,[236] "and so accepted the offer of Sir Everard to be his tenants at Coughton." He felt the more anxious to go to Coughton because Catesby had promised to come there on the 31st;[237] and he says, "I assuredly, if they had come, had entered into the matter, and perhaps might have hindered all." As the modern Jesuit, Father Pollen, says, "to be able to do this he would, of course, have to ask Catesby to allow him to open the matter, but of success in this, considering that Catesby had of his own accord offered to tell him, he did not much doubt, and, perhaps to make the negotiations easier, he had ordered Greenway to be there too." The pity is that he had not "entered into the matter" earlier. Nervous and horror-stricken, he had refused to allow Catesby to tell him the details, when he had reason for believing a plot to be brewing; he was tongue-tied when he afterwards met Catesby, having heard those details in confession; yet, after being for some time at Gothurst with Catesby, it was not until Catesby had left that he came to the conclusion that he might, and that it was highly desirable that he should, beg Catesby's leave to speak to him of a subject which had been transmitted to him through the confessional, at Catesby's desire.