Winter's examination of the 23rd, as treated by Father Gerard, raises a more difficult question. The document itself is at Hatfield, and there is a copy of it in the 'Gunpowder Plot Book' in the Public Record Office. "The 'original' document," writes Father Gerard,[91] "is at Hatfield, and agrees in general so exactly with the copy as to demonstrate the identity of their origin. But while, as we have seen, the 'copy' is dated November 23rd, the 'original' is dated on the 25th." In a note, we are told 'that this is not a slip of the pen is evidenced by the fact that Winter first wrote 23, and then corrected it to 25.' To return to Father Gerard's text, we find, "On a circumstance so irregular, light is possibly thrown by a letter from Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower, to Cecil[92] on the 20th of the same month. 'Thomas Winter,' he wrote, 'doth find his hand so strong, as after dinner he will settle himself to write that he hath verbally declared to your Lordship, adding what he shall remember.' The inference is certainly suggested that torture had been used until the prisoner's spirit was sufficiently broken to be ready to tell the story required of him, and that the details were furnished by those who demanded it. It must, moreover, be remarked that, although Winter's 'original' declaration is witnessed only by Sir E. Coke, the Attorney-General, it appears in print attested by all those whom Cecil had selected for the purpose two days before the declaration was made." Apparently Father Gerard intends us to gather from his statement that the whole confession of Winter was drawn up by the Government on or before the 23rd, and that he was driven on the 25th by fears of renewed torture to put his hand to a tissue of falsehoods contained in a paper which the Government required him to copy out and sign. The whole of this edifice, it will be seen, rests on the assertion that Winter first wrote 23 and then corrected it to 25.