Grey was not long in Ireland before he encountered the great Elizabethan problem of how to make bricks without straw. Treasurer Wallop estimated the soldiers' pay at 6,000_l._ worth, exclusive of extraordinaries, and the victualling difficulties were as great as ever. The English officials in Dublin seldom gave Ormonde a good word, but on this head their complaints chimed in with his. The victualler at Cork warned him not to reckon on more than twelve days' biscuit and wine, and there were no means of brewing at Cork. 'I know,' said the Earl, 'it is sour speech to speak of money; I know it will be also wondered at how victuals should want.... I never had for me and my companies one hundred pounds worth of victual, and this being true, I can avow that some have told lies at Court to some of your councillors--yea, not only in this, but in many other things.' 'The soldiers,' said Sir William Stanley, 'are so ill chosen in England that few are able or willing to do any service, but run away with our furniture, and when they come into England there is no punishment used to them, by means whereof we can hardly keep any.' Meantime there were loud complaints of abuses in purveyance for the Viceregal household, and the Irish Council could think of no better plan than to swear the purveyors, and cut off their ears in case of perjury. Wallop reported that bribes were openly taken in official circles; that was the usual course, though he had never given or taken any himself.[69] [Sidenote: Kildare in charge of the Pale.]