Sir John Davies, a native of Wiltshire, who was made Solicitor-General for Ireland on account of his poetical talent, was not opposed to the policy of repression, but at the same time he held firmly that until the Protestant Church in Ireland was itself reformed there could be no hope of converting the Irish people. Writing to Cecil (Feb. 1604) "he is informed," he says, "that the churchmen for the most part throughout the kingdom are mere idols and ciphers, and such as cannot read, if they should stand in need of the benefit of their clergy; and yet the most of those whereof many be serving men and some horseboys, are not without two or three benefices apiece, for the Court of Faculties doth qualify all manner of persons, and dispense with all manner of non-residences and pluralities. . . . The churches are ruined and fallen to the ground in all parts of the kingdom. There is no divine service, no christening of children, no receiving of the sacraments, no Christian meeting or assembly, no, not once in a year; in a word, no more demonstration of religion than among Tartars or cannibals." In his opinion there was no use in asking the bishops of the Pale to hold an inquiry into the abuses, for they themselves were privy to them. "But if the business is to be really performed, let visitors be sent out of England, such as never heard a cow speak and understand not that language, that they may examine the abuses of the Court of Faculties, of the simoniacal contracts, of the dilapidations and dishersion of the churches; that they may find the true value of the benefices, and who takes the profits and to whose uses; to deprive these serving men and unlettered kern that are now incumbents, and to place some of the poor scholars of the College who are learned and zealous Protestants; to bring others out of that part of Scotland that borders on the North of Ireland, who can preach the Irish tongue, and to transplant others out of England and to place them within the English Pale."[6]