After his failure at Castlemaine, Perrott said that the work of 'trotting the mountains' was not suited to English soldiers. He had been promised two hundred kerne at sixpence a day, but had received neither the men nor the pay. He could not do without them, even if he had to keep them at his own cost. The only real way of restoring order was to be in two places at once, as Governor and as general; that being impossible, he must have such a force as would bear dividing. 'To follow the kerne from wood to wood your Lordship knows the soldiers are far unable. Therefore, if I should do any good here, I must have kerne against kerne, and gallowglass against gallowglass, and trained men to do what they may for the stand.' Limerick, the garden of Munster, was too much impoverished to support an army, and the men were in dysentery from always eating beef without bread or vegetables, not forty horsemen being fit for service. The Privy Council, who had promised two hundred kerne, now murmured at being asked for a bare hundred, and the fiery President declared that he would never trust them, nor do anything in their faith again. From Ormonde alone, whom he 'ever loved and honoured,' did he get any real help, and he was not always satisfied that even Ormonde did his best to prosecute the rebels, for he urged him to divide his men into four divisions, and then to leave Fitzmaurice no resting-place. But even while chiding the Earl for inaction, Perrott admitted that want of provisions was a fair excuse.[209] [Sidenote: It is proposed to restore the Desmonds. General misery in Munster.] In his extremity Perrott was driven to ask that Sir John of Desmond might be sent over. In the absence of the Earl Sir John would then be leader of the Geraldines, and would draw all away from James Fitzmaurice. The people of the 'poor, ruinous town of Kinsale,' as they called themselves, begged for both brothers to help the President in saving them from the fate of Kilmallock. They of Youghal, who had yet to learn of what Desmond was capable, urged the same request. They complained of being shut up within their walls, in hourly fear of assault, and crushed by the cost of a garrison in which they had no confidence. They were worn with watching; no one could spend a night at home. Rich and poor were in the same plight, and the young would soon be as weak as the old already were. Their chance of food depended on the precarious herring fishery.