ed, that the
nature of the disease required a very sharp remedy. Winter's scruples
were removed, and he entered into the project with all his energies.
Still Winter started difficulties, which Catesby was most expert at
removing. He objected the difficulty of procuring a place, from which
they might commence their labours for the mine; but Catesby encouraged
him by proposing to make the attempt, and that, if it failed, they might
desist from any thing of the kind afterwards.

It seems that Catesby conceived the plan during the spring, A.D. 1603.
Thomas Winter states that he was requested to meet him in town; where,
after receiving a second letter, he found him with John Wright. At this
meeting they conversed on the necessity incumbent on them of doing
something for the cause of their religion and country; for these men,
forsooth, professed to be patriots. Winter expressed his readiness to
hazard his life in the cause; and Catesby made known his project. Thomas
Winter then went to the Continent to meet Fawkes, to whom he was to make
known the fact, that a plot was in agitation. They met and returned to
England the following spring, when they were joined by Catesby, Percy,
and Wright. At one of these meetings Percy came into the room and said,
"Shall we always, gentlemen, talk, and never do any thing?" Catesby took
Percy aside for a few minutes. Percy proposed to kill the king; but
Catesby said, "_No, Tom_, thou shalt not adventure thy life to so small
a purpose." At this time the plan was partially concocted by Catesby,
but was revealed only to Winter. Catesby and Winter agreed that an oath
of secresy should be administered before the plot was fully disclosed to
their companions; who, though they were all anxious to enter upon any
project, however desperate, were not yet acquainted with the plan which
had been devised by Catesby.

Though Winter and Fawkes had met on the Continent, and had travelled
together to England, yet it does not appear that the latter was made at
that time acquainted with the treason. He came to England with Winter,
with a view to the contrivance of a plot, but with the particular scheme
projected by Catesby he was not acquainted, until after his return from
the Continent. He was a reckless character, and ready to join in any
desperate enterprise. Fawkes, in his own confession, declares, that the
matter was at first broken to him in a general way by Winter. The
parties were now five in number, nam