Important information upon the same point is furnished by Cecil in another letter, written in the following January.[267] He undertakes to explain to his correspondent how it came to pass that a circumstance of supreme importance, of which the government were fully cognizant,[268] was not mentioned in the official account. This he does as follows: "And although in his Majesty's book there is not any mention made of them [the Jesuits], and of many things else which came to the knowledge of the State, yet is it but a frivolous inference that thereby [they] seek to serve their turn, considering the purpose of his Majesty was not to deliver unto the world all that was confessed concerning this action, _but so much only of the manner and form of it, and the means of the discovery_, as might make it apparent, both how wickedly it was conceived by those devilish instruments, and _how graciously it pleased God to deal with us in such an extraordinary discovery thereof_." Turning to the details of the story which survive the struggle for existence in the conflict of testimony, if any can be said to do so, there is abundant matter deserving attention, albeit we may at once dismiss the time-honoured legend concerning the sagacity of the British Solomon, and his marvellous interpretation of the riddling phrases which baffled the perspicacity of all besides himself.[269] More important is Cecil's admission that the presence of the powder under the Parliament House was at least suspected for several days before anything was done to interfere with the proceedings of those who had put it there. The reasons alleged for so extraordinary a course are manifestly absurd. It was resolved, he told the ambassadors, "that, till the night before, nothing should be done to interrupt any purpose of theirs that had any such devilish practice, but rather to suffer them to go on to the end of their day." In like manner he informed the Privy Council[270] that it was determined to make no earlier search, that "such as had such practice in hand might not be scared before they had let the matter run on to a full ripeness for discovery." It certainly appears that, at least, it would have been well before the eleventh hour to institute observations as to who might be coming and going about the cellar. On the other hand, can it be imagined that any minister in his right senses would have allowed the existence of a danger so appalling to continue so long, and have suffered a desperado like Faukes to have gone on knocking about with his flint and steel and lantern in a powder magazine beneath the House of Parliament? Accidents are proverbially always possible, and in the circumstances described to us there would have been much more than a mere possibility, for the action said to have been taken by the authorities, in sending the chamberlain to "peruse" the vault, seems to have been expressly intended to give the alarm; and