"Then they told him that he was to receive the sacrament for the more assurance, and he thereupon went to confession to a priest named Greenway, and in his confession told Greenway that he was to conceal a very dangerous piece of work that his master Catesby and Thomas Winter had imparted unto him, and that he being fearful of it, asked the counsel of Greenway, telling the said Greenway (which he was not desirous to hear) their particular intent and purpose of blowing up the Parliament House, and Greenway the priest thereto said that he would take no notice thereof, but that he, the said examinant, should be secret in that which his master had imparted unto him, because that was for a good cause, and that he willed this examinant to tell no other priest of it; saying moreover that it was not dangerous unto him nor any offence to conceal it, and thereupon the said priest Greenway gave this examinant absolution, and he received the sacrament in the company of his master Robert Catesby and Mr. Thomas Winter. * * * * * "Thomas Bate, Nottingham, Suffolk, E. Worcester, H. Northampton, Salisbury, Mar, Dunbar." Indorsed:--"_The exam._ of Tho. Bate 4 Dec. 1605. _Greenway_, §."[271] Out of this document arise two questions which ought to be kept carefully distinct:-- 1. Did the Government invent or falsify the document here partially printed? 2. Did Bates, on the hypothesis that the document is genuine, tell the truth about Greenway? 1. In the first place, Father Gerard calls our attention to the fact that the document has only reached us in a copy. It is quite true; though, on the other hand, I must reiterate the argument, which I have already used in a similar case,[272] that a copy in which the names of the Commissioners appear, even though not under their own hands, falls not far short of an original. If this copy, being a forgery, were read in court, as Father Gerard says it was,[273] some of the Commissioners would have felt aggrieved at their names being misused, unless, indeed, the whole seven concurred in authorising the forgery, which is so extravagant a supposition that we are bound to look narrowly into any evidence brought forward to support it. Father Gerard's main argument in favour of the conclusion at which he leads up to--one can hardly say he arrives at this or any other clearly announced conviction--is put in the following words:-- "If, however, this version were not genuine, but prepared for a purpose, it is clear that it could not have been produced while Bates was alive to contradict it, and there appears to be no doubt that it was not heard of till after his death."