In the autumn of 1619 St. John reported that 300 outlaws had been killed, most of them doubtless in the hills between Tyrone and Londonderry, but many also near the Wexford plantation, where small bands of ten to twenty escaped detection and punishment for a long time. Their own countrymen and neighbours proved the most efficient tools of the Government, and a grandson of Feagh MacHugh O'Byrne, whom St. John addressed as his loving friend, took money for this service. Means were found to satisfy a very few more native claimants, raising the number to 150, which was considered too many, since the really suitable cases had long been dealt with. Some of the Kavanaghs who boasted themselves the descendants of kings, but whom St. John was never tired of describing as bastards and rebels, 'with a crew of wicked rogues gathered out of the bordering parts, entered into the plantation, surprised Sir James Carrol's and Mr. Marwood's houses, murdered their servants, burned their towns, and committed many outrages in those parts in all likelihood upon a conspiracy among themselves to disturb the settlement of those countries. For which outrage most of the malefactors have since been slain or executed by law.' In London a tenant of Blundell's, who was perhaps crazy and certainly drunken, asked him for a drink, after taking which he proposed to go to Ireland and help to burn his landlord's house. Petitioners continued to bring their complaints both to London and Dublin, and in the summer of 1622 Mr. Hadsor, who knew Irish, looked into the matter and begged them to return to their own countries on the understanding that well-founded grievances should be reported to the King. [Sidenote: The undertakers settle down on the land.] By the time of Hadsor's survey things had gone too far to be altered, and the undertakers had laid out large sums, though in many cases less than they were bound to do. St. John reported in 1621 that 130 strong castles had then been built. But Hadsor retained his opinion as to the injustice attendant on the Wexford plantation far into the next reign, and other able officials agreed with him. And so the grievance slumbered or rather smouldered until 1641.[147] [Sidenote: Plantation in Longford and King's County.] [Sidenote: The plan better than the execution] [Sidenote: Persistence of tribal ideas.]