The governor of a dependency will always be in some measure judged by the state in which he leaves the country that he has been called to rule, and, tried by this standard, not much can be said for Grey. The friend and hero of Spenser was called, as the poet himself records, 'a bloody man, who regarded not the life of her Majesty's subjects no more than dogs, but had wasted and consumed all, so as now she had nothing almost left, but to reign in their ashes.' Sir Warham St. Leger, who certainly cannot be suspected of any great sympathy with the Irish people, and who was not hostile to Grey, has left a terrible picture of the state of Munster. The country was ruined almost past recovery by the ruthless exaction of cess, and by the extortions of the soldiers. 30,000 at least had perished by famine within six months, and disease also was doing its work. Cork was then a small town, consisting of one street scarce a furlong in length, yet there were sometimes seventy deaths in a day and very seldom as few as twenty. John FitzEdmond of Cloyne, one of the few really loyal men in the province, had lost nineteen-twentieths of his people, and the cattle, which could never graze in safety, were as lean as their masters. The only inhabitants in tolerable case were the actual rebels, who took freely all men's goods and escaped disease 'by enjoying continually the wholesome air of the fields.' And this was Grey's settled policy. Five counties were to be laid waste, in order that the traitors might be starved into submission. 'I have,' St. Leger said, 'often told the Governor that this is far wide from the true course of government,' for the towns would waste away, the revenues dwindle, and the whole country be exhausted by such a frightful drain. Nevertheless, the destruction was nearly as complete as it could be. Nine-tenths of the men had succumbed to the sword, the halter, or the pestilence. The women escaped better, but, taking one thing with another, a competent observer thought there were not enough people left alive to cultivate one hundredth part of the land. But the most harrowing account of all is the oft-quoted passage of Spenser, though the poet lays the blame on the people and not on their ruler. At the beginning of the war, he says, Munster was full of corn and cattle. Eighteen months had destroyed all. Lean as were the starving people, their legs would not bear them, and they crawled out of caves and glens to feed on carrion, or, like ghouls, to scrape the dead from their graves, 'and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for a time, yet not able long to continue therewithal, so that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast; yet sure in all that was there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremity of famine which they themselves had wrought.'[89] [Sidenote: Rising of William Nugent.]