Elizabeth, no doubt for some valuable consideration, granted a patent to one Thomas Moore to export 3,000 packs of linen yarn from Ireland in five years. The Corporations of Dublin and Drogheda objected on the grounds that Ireland did not produce 600 packs a year, that Moore was to pay them no custom, that many men in Ireland had sunk their substance in setting up looms on the faith of a very recent statute, and that if the Queen persevered they would all be ruined. She then reduced the amount to 200 packs a year; but Irish vested interests were unappeased, and seven of the most eminent Queen's counsel in Dublin were very clearly of opinion that letters patent were waste paper as against an Act of Parliament. In the end Tremayne effected a compromise, of which the terms are not stated, between the patentee and the municipalities of Dublin and Drogheda, and the latter prayed Burghley to intercede with her Majesty against the passing of any such patents in future. [Sidenote: Dutch weavers in Ireland.] The intercession was not successful, for in 1578 Lord Chancellor Gerrard obtained a similar monopoly, which he assigned to one Middlemore. Both patentee and assignee had disputes with Dublin and Drogheda, their evident object being to be bought off as dearly as possible. 'I caused to plant,' said Sidney, 'above forty families of the reformed churches of the Low Countries, flying thence for religion's sake, in one ruinous town called Swords. It would have done any man good to see how diligently they wrought, how they re-edified the spoiled old castle and repaired almost all the same, and how goodly and cleanly they and their wives and children lived. They made diaper and ticks for beds and other good stuff for man's use, and excellent good leather of deer skins, goat- and sheep-fells, as is made in Southwark.' And he spoke with becoming indignation of the infringement of a law which he had caused to be made for the benefit of Ireland, and which he had restrained himself and his predecessors from contravening. In the forgotten story of these monopolies we have a foreshadowing of Wood's halfpence, and it is possible that the Drapier was not ignorant of the precedent.[185] [Sidenote: Sir John Perrott, President of Munster, 1571.]