Most important families had friends in official circles, and among the lawyers the jobbing was frightful. Records were made away with or altered, so that of seven attainders affecting the Crown's title to land, not one could be proved by documentary evidence. The judges were not above suspicion, and public justice had little chance against well-connected individuals. 'There is,' said the Lord Justice, 'neither judge, counsellor-at-law, nor any gentleman who is not by blood or marriage very near linked together, and though I cannot accuse any for doing things contrary to their conscience or corruptly, yet have I seen such things pass, whether for kindred's sake or neighbourhood I know not, but sure I am no man out of Ireland in the like case but would have made some stay for colour sake at least.' Where private interests were to be forwarded, decisions were given with indecent haste, while Crown business was systematically delayed. Fitzwilliam saw and described abuses clearly, but he had too much experience of Ireland to dream of a speedy reform. He had come with sanguine expectations, but had learned that a man may wear to skin and bones without effecting anything. The English Government had aggravated the difficulty by sending over officials of small parts or credit, far inferior to those born in Ireland. 'Let those sent hereafter,' he said, 'be as good as the best here,' and let 'every one that comes bid farewell to peace and quiet.'[49] FOOTNOTES: [27] Sussex to the Queen, July 16, and the enclosures there; to Cecil, June 23. In his letter of June 28 to Sussex, Shane talks of the Queen's 'suavissima et benevola et gratiosa responsio;' as to the libels he says, 'si scriberem non renuntiassem meæ sententiæ.' Fitzwilliam to Cecil, June 22. _Four Masters_, 1561. [28] Lord-Lieutenant and Council to the Queen, July 31, the official account for Elizabeth's eye. The fuller and truer account is in a letter of the same date from Sussex to Cecil. _Four Masters_, 1561. [29] Instructions to Sussex in _Carew_, July 4, 1562. Sussex to Cecil, Aug. 23, 1562, and Jan. 11, 1563; to the Queen, Aug. 23, 1562; Ormonde to Cecil, Jan. 11, 1563. Sussex was much blamed for not punishing Wingfield himself, but in the end his view prevailed, for the disgraced officer carried confidential instructions on his return to Ireland. See the Queen to the Lord-Lieutenant, July 19, 1563. See also two letters from Cecil in Wright's _Queen Elizabeth_, Aug. 21 and Dec. 18, 1561.