Catalogue description The QUEEN to the LORD DEPUTY (BOROUGH).

For the weal of Ireland we employ great forces there under you, and have sent a navy and army to the seas towards Spain, to withstand all dangers that might come from thence. We now wish to reform the great disorders there, especially in "charging of us with pay of more persons than are known there to serve us," and for that purpose we have devised certain ordinances. As you are in the field, you may not have leisure to peruse and observe them; so we require you, for avoiding delay, to impart them to such of the Council as can attend to the execution of them.

Certify us what numbers of persons are ready for service according to their allowances, for the certificates from the Treasurer (Wallop) and Muster Master are not satisfactory. Rafe Lane, the Muster Master, seems to have been very negligent, and to have made up his checks by guess. The Treasurer certifies that our charge is about 12,000l. a month, "besides many other extraordinary charges of persons not subject to Lane's muster." He has "sent a declaration of the expense of 24,000l. saving 800l.," but does not state what number of persons are in our pay, or until what time the imprests are to serve. Sir William Russell, our late Deputy, has made declaration to our Council that the numbers he left there in pay were 8,303; but he believed that in truth there were not above 5,000. The Undertakers in Munster have neglected the habitation thereof with Englishmen, and have made grants to the Irish. Charge the Council "to answer you what hath been done therein to reform this disorder, upon our express commandment given to certain of them to inquire of the said defaults, and to have proceeded sharply to the reformation thereof either by punishment of the offenders or by seizing into our hands of their lands so misused." Give commission to certain chosen persons, joining with them the President of our Council there, to inquire into this matter, and how many Patentees are absent and not resident upon their lands.

The lands and seignories of the late Earl of Clancarre are to be surveyed.

Greenwich, 1st July 1597.

Copy.

Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, ed. J. S. Brewer & W. Bullen (6 vols., 1867-73), vol. III, document 274.