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220 F. X. MARTIN receive and train in their novitiates those young exiles from the British Isles who wanted to become Capuchins 27 • Nugent felt confident that the Capuchin ideal would attract men from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, but it was a common experience of seminaries and religious orders that English-speaking nationals and their continental fellows did not readily live in harmony together. In any case he was convinced that a separate friary was needed where attention could be devoted to the particular training needed for those returning as missionaries to the unusual religious circumstances of the British Isles. For this reason he wrote to Rome on 26 February 1610 asking that a continental house be given over as a base for the Mission. The general, Girolamo, who was harassed with many requests that he send friars to assist the forces of the Counter-Reformation in the disputed religious areas of Europe thought to solve two demands with one decision. Although the Capuchins in Switzerland were rapidly regaining whole districts for Catholicism they were unable, due to shortage of man-power, to accept all the pressing invitations to open new houses. With this in mind the general replied to Nugent on 17 May 1610 suggesting that the Mission to the British Isles establish its base at Thonon in Switzerland 28 • The general's double objective is understandable, but it was wishful thinking to believe that a house in the south-west of Switz– erland, near to Geneva, could serve as an effective base for a Mission to the British Isles. Nugent knew from observation that the rapid growth of the English and Irish Jesuits, the revival of the English and Irish secular clergy as well as of the Augustinians, Dominicans and Franciscans, was inseparably connected with the English, Irish and Scots colleges in Spain, France and the Low Countries. It was France and the Low Countries which figured largely in Nugent's mind. He therefore declined the offer. Nugent had reason to feel satisfied when he was appointed guardian of the Capuchin friary at Douai in August 1610. He could hope to draw recruits to the Capuchin order from the English and Irish colleges at Douai, and the next few years were to show that these hopes were well-founded. But all Nugent's plans were knocked awry when he received a letter from the general, dated 28 August 1610, appointing him commissary general of the new Capuchin Mission to the Lower Rhine 29 • In fact, he was commissioned to in– troduce the Capuchins to Germany. 27 Ibid.; printed ibid., 302. 2s Ibid., 95. 20 Ibid., 97.