Sir Anthony St. Leger and his brother Commissioners arrived in Ireland early in September 1537, and lost no time in endeavouring to carry out the King's plan. By November they had surveyed most of the King's lands in Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Dublin, and Kildare. The general result of their observations was that they had seen 'divers goodly manors and castles, the more part of them ruinous, and in great decay, the towns and lands about them depopulate, wasted, and not manured; whereby hath ensued great dearth and scarcity of all manner victuals.' But few applications were made for leases, because there was no security, and they saw the necessity of placing a few castles in a defensible state. Within reach of the walls there was no difficulty in getting tenants. By Christmas the survey was finished, and an increased desire to take leases was quickly manifested; but some lands were still unlet. Two thousand marks in money and securities had been collected for the King, 'and much more,' the Commissioners reported, 'would have been levied, in case that men had not of late been sore charged with service doing to his Highness here, whereby we be constrained to look on them with more favourable eye.'[216] [Sidenote: The public accounts.] Brabazon reported that the Commissioners had done their work well. The passing of his own three years' account was a yet more difficult matter. They found it tedious and intricate, both from its nature and from the fact that there were no records of the King's ancient inheritance, or of escheats. Brabazon's own arrangements were good, but all before his time was chaos. 'Every keeper,' said the Master of the Rolls, 'for his time, as he favoured, so did either embezzle, or suffer to be embezzled, such muniments as should make against them and their friends, so that we have little to show for any of the King's lands or profits in these parts: it is therefore necessary that from henceforth all the rolls and muniments to be had be put in good order in Bermingham's Tower, and the door thereof to have two locks, and the keys thereof one to be with the Constable, and the other with the Under-Treasurer, which likewise it is necessary to be an Englishman born; and that no man be suffered to have loan of any of the said muniments, nor to search, view, or read any of them there, but in the presence of one of the keepers aforesaid.' The accounts were nevertheless put in order by March; and having received very gracious thanks from the King, St. Leger and his colleagues returned to England, 'not,' as they were careful to note, 'for that we be weary to serve his Grace, but for because we be very loth to spend any more of his treasure, than we see time to serve him.' Aylmer and Alen, by the King's especial orders, accompanied the High Commissioners to England.[217] [Sidenote: Cromwell and the Irish service.]