Treason > Guy Fawkes, or The history of the gunpowder plot

TIIF. r.tWPOVDEn PLOT. '11
person ; and a dark lantern, with a light in it,
was discovered in a corner behind the door of
the cellar. Fawkes at once avowed his pur¬
pose to the magistrate, and declared that ‘ if
he had happened to be within the house when
he took him, he would not have failed to have
blown him up, house and all.’
Having left a sufficient guard with the pri-
i soner, Sir Thomas Knevet repaired to White¬
hall to give notice of his success to the Earl
li of Salisbury. Such of the Council as slept at
1 Whitehall were called, and the others who
; were in the town summoned; and the doors
(and gates being secured, all assembled in the
King’s bed-chamber. Fawkes was brought in
til and questioned. Undismayed by the sudden-
Iness of his apprehension, or by the circum¬
stances of this nocturnal examination before
the King and Council, this resolute fanatic be¬
haved with a Roman firmness of nerve, which
filled the minds of all present with astonish¬
ment. To the impatient and hurried questions
which were put to him with some violence and
I passion, he answered calmly and firmly. He
gave his name as John Johnson, the servant
of Thomas Percy, declared his intention to
blow up the King, Lords, and Bishops, and
k others who should have assembled at the open¬
ing of the Parliament, refused to accuse any
one as his accomplice ; and upon being asked
by the King how he could enter upon so bloody
a conspiracy against so many innocent persons,
declared that ‘ dangerous diseases require a
desperate remedy.1 Being questioned as to his
intentions by some of the Scotch courtiers, he
told them that ( one of his objects was to blow
them back into Scotland.1 After a great part