that, in the second place, even if Coke's words were--as they doubtless were--accepted by the jury, the position of the prisoners actually at the bar would be neither better nor worse. Much more serious is Father Gerard's argument that the confession of Bates, Catesby's servant, to the effect that he had not only informed Greenway of the plot, but that Greenway had expressed approval of it, was either not genuine, or, at least, had been tampered with by the Government. As Father Gerard again italicises,[269] not a passage from the examination itself, but his own abstract of the passage, it is better to give in full so much of the assailed examination as bears upon the matter:-- "Examination of Thomas Bate,[270] servant to Robert Catesby, the 4th of December, 1605, before the Lords Commissioners. "He confesseth that about this time twelvemonth his master asked this said examinant whether he could procure him a lodging near the Parliament House. Whereupon he went to seek some such lodging and dealt with a baker that had a room joining to the Parliament House, but the baker answered that he could not spare it. "After that some fortnight or thereabouts (as he thinketh) his master imagining, as it seemed, that this examinant suspected somewhat of that which the said Catesby went about, called him to him at Puddle Wharf in the house of one Powell (where Catesby had taken a lodging) and in the presence of Thomas Winter, asked him what he thought what business they were about, and this examinant answered that he thought they went about some dangerous business, whereupon they asked him again what he thought the business might be, and he answered that he thought they intended some dangerous matter about the Parliament House, because he had been sent to get a lodging near that House. "Thereupon they made this examinant take an oath to be secret in the business, which being taken by him, they told him that it was true that they meant to do somewhat about the Parliament House, namely, to lay powder under it to blow it up.