"This I say religiously, that through two whole years I met no one, whether a countryman of my own or a foreigner, with whom there could be talk about that book, but they all agreed unanimously that you were called its author, and they named no one for the author but you." To Morus's assertion that he had openly, loudly, and energetically disowned the book, where suspected of the authorship, Milton returns a complex answer.

Partly he does not believe the assertion, on the ground that there were many who had heard Morus confessing to the book and boasting of it.

Partly he asks why such energetic repudiations were necessary, and why, in spite of them, intimate friends of Morus retained their former opinion.

Partly he admits that there may latterly have been such repudiations, but not till there was danger in being thought the author.

Any criminal will deny his crime in sight of the axe; and, apart from the punishment which Morus had reason to expect when he knew that Milton's reply to the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ was forthcoming, what had not the author of that book to dread after the Peace between the Dutch and the Commonwealth had been concluded?
By articles IX., X., and XI.