[Sidenote: Want of money. Jobbery among lawyers.] Want of money was the main reason that the Government was weak; and corruption, while it enriched individuals, woefully impoverished the State. Registers and records were tampered with--a very old complaint in Ireland--merchants defrauded the revenue, and Custom-house officers winked at their roguery. Victuallers not being sure of payment had little credit, failed to perform their contracts, and were tempted into doubtful courses. The courts of law were distrusted, at least by English residents; one of whom gives the following account of the Irish Bench and Bar:-- 'Mr. Lucas Dillon and one or two more excepted, the rest of the champering lawyers whereof there be no small number, are little better to be accounted than junior barristers in the Court of Chancery; who, having read a little of Littleton's "Natura Brevium," within a few years think themselves sufficient to plead at any Bar, and must as the room falleth void be her Majesty's servants, attorney or else solicitor, and so they babble and brag out matters, right or wrong, at their pleasure without controlment, especially if the cause toucheth one of their cousins.'[302] [Sidenote: Kildare is vehemently suspected and arrested.] Desmond was quiet for the time, but the head of the other great Geraldine family was now suspected in his turn. In 1574 Kildare had been in great apparent favour with the Lord Deputy. He had offered Desmond 500_l._ in ready money to assume a submissive attitude, and it was thought that the best way to secure the Pale was to place him in command on the south and west borders, on condition that he should discharge his own followers and trust entirely to 100 horse and 300 foot in the Queen's pay. Fitzwilliam, who admitted that he only accepted the Earl's service for want of a better, had soon reason to believe that he had treasonable or at least dangerous intentions. John Alen, an hereditary enemy, was the first accuser, and when it became known that complaints would be listened to, there was no want of secret information. Some of the accusations were probably true, others almost certainly false. It is very likely that Kildare gave secret intelligence to Rory Oge O'More, but incredible that he should have plotted with him the abduction of Lady Fitzwilliam and her family from Kilmainham. He evidently had frequent communications with the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes, and it was sworn that one of his messengers offered to lead a party to burn Athy, where the Government had large stores. The witness objecting that the Earl would be a loser by this, the other answered, 'It is the Earl's own devise.' Much evidence, reaching back to 1572, was offered as to Kildare's plots to obtain the government as his ancestors had it, and of outrages committed at his instance; but no one dared speak openly. Sir Peter Carew's opinion, 'that Earls were dangerous men to be dealt with,' was probably generally accepted in Ireland.