ruing to the Crown. The controversy with Cambridge may have been due
only to Browne, and his eagerness for fees. In general, Ralegh appears
to have exercised his powers moderately. A grantee who succeeded
commended him for having 'ever had a special care to carry a very tender
hand upon the business for avoiding of noise and clamour, well knowing
it to be a thing extracted from the subject upon a nice point of a
statute law.' A year after the first patent of wines he received a
similar boon. This was a licence in March, 1584, to export for a
twelvemonth woollen broadcloths. A payment to the Crown was reserved. In
1585, 1587, and 1589 the same privilege was conferred and enlarged. One
grant authorized him to export overlengths. Burleigh protested. He
declared the conditions too beneficial to the grantee. Probably they
were. The privilege brought him into collision with several bodies of
merchants. Soon after the earliest of the licences had been granted, in
June, 1584, we read of a petition, backed by Walsingham, for the release
of ships which had infringed his patent. The Queen would not consent
unless upon the terms that the offenders compounded with him. In 1586
the Merchant Adventurers of Exeter obtained a commission of inquiry
whether his officers did not levy excessive fees upon certificates. He
is represented by a local antiquary as less popular in that city than
elsewhere in Devonshire. His patent rights as well as his official
duties caused ill-will between it and him.

[Sidenote: _An Irish Seigniory._]

A gift in appearance much more magnificent, though the gains eventually
were meagre, was the Irish grant of 1586. At last the Earl of Desmond's
insurrection had been quelled, at the cost of the utter devastation of a
province. The curse of God was, it was lamented, so great, and the land
so barren, that whosoever did travel from one end to the other of all
Munster, even from Waterford to Limerick, about six score miles, he
should not meet man, woman, nor child, save in cities or towns, nor yet
see any beast, save foxes and wolves, or other ravening creatures. The
few survivors fed upon weeds and carrion, robbing the graves and gibbets
of their dead. It was determined to repeople the 574,268 forfeited
acres. Ralegh retained his Irish captain's commission. In 1587 his name
occurs at the head of the list. He, Ormond, Hatton, and Fitton were
among the principal Undertakers for the resettlement. By the scheme
nobody