Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name | Page 6

that name, of
which Lord Camoys is the representative. Father Morris says that "the
printing, according to the traditions of the place, was carried on in the
attics of the old house."[6] Being near Henley it was possible to go
there by road or by water, and one might come and go on the Oxford
high-road without attracting attention.
Still there was grave risk of discovery from the noise made by the press,
and from the number of extra men about the house, as to the fidelity of
each of whom it was impossible to be absolutely sure. Day by day the
dangers thickened round them. One evening, soon after their arrival,
William Hartley, a priest and afterwards a martyr, who was helping in
the work, and had then just come back from a visit to Oxford,
mentioned casually that Roland Jenks, the Catholic stationer and
book-binder there, was again in trouble, having been accused by his
own servant. Jenks was doubtless known to all Oxford men, indeed but
three years before his name had been noised all over Europe. He had
been sentenced to have his ears cut off for some religious offence,
when the Judge was taken ill in the court itself, and, the infection
travelling with marvellous rapidity, the greater part both of the bench
and of the jury were stricken down with gaol fever, and two judges,
twelve justices, and other high officials, almost the whole jury, and
many others, died within the space of two days.[7]
In mentioning Jenks's new troubles Hartley probably did not realize the
extent of the danger to the whole party which they portended. Persons
had in fact employed the very servant who had now turned traitor, to
bind a number of books for him at his house near Bridewell Church,
London, which with all its contents was thus in a perilous condition.
Early next morning an express messenger was sent in to town with
orders to hide or destroy Persons' papers and other effects. It was
already too late: that very night the house had been searched, and
Persons' letters, books, vestments, rosaries, pictures, and other pious

objects, had all fallen into the hands of the pursuivants. Worse still,
Father Alexander Briant, afterwards a martyr, and one of the brightest
and most lovable of the missionaries, was seized next door, and hurried
off first to the Counter, then to the Tower, where he was repeatedly and
most cruelly racked to make him say where Persons might be found.
Information about his torture was brought to the Jesuits at Stonor, and
one can easily see how grave and disturbing such bad news must have
been. "For almost the whole of one night," says Persons, "Campion and
I sat up talking of what we had better do, if we should fall into their
hands. A fate which befell him soon after."
The Registers of the Privy Council inform us that their Lordships gave
orders to have Jenks sent up to London on the 28th of April. This
settles approximately the date of the beginning of the printing at Stonor,
and the book was not finished till nearly the end of June. So the work
lasted about nine weeks, a fairly long period when we consider the
smallness of the Latin book, here reproduced. It will, however, be
shown from intrinsic evidence, that the stock of type was very small.
The printers had to set up a few pages at a time, to correct them at once,
and to print off, before they could go any further. Then they distributed
the type and began again. When all was finished they rapidly stabbed
and bound their sheets. Considering the fewness of the workmen[8] and
the unforeseen delays which so often occur during printing, the time
taken over the production does not seem extraordinary.
For many years no example of the original edition of the Decem
Rationes was known to exist: none of our great public libraries in
London or at the Universities possesses a copy. But it was the singular
good fortune of the late Marquess of Bute to pick up two copies of this
extremely rare volume, and he munificently presented one of them to
Stonyhurst College. Canon Gunning of Winchester is the happy owner
of a third copy. By the courtesy of the Rector of Stonyhurst, I am able
to offer a minute description of the precious little book.
The volume is, considering the printing of that time, distinctly well got
up. There is nothing at first sight to suggest that its publication had
been a matter of so much difficulty and danger; but when one
scrutinizes every page with care, one finds that it bears about it some
traces of the unusual circumstances under which it was produced.
If we look first