There are other cases in which there seems to have been evidence of corruption. The Chester Hospital, we are told, had been much neglected[653]; in 1653 we hear also that persons counterfeited the Letters Patent and orders of the Council of State for licenses to collect money for charitable purposes, so that people were cheated, and it was necessary to pass a special resolution of Parliament on the subject[654]. A curious instance of corruption in the administration of charitable funds appears at Barnstaple. Many sums of money had been bequeathed there as elsewhere for the purpose of enabling a young craftsman or trader to set up business on his own account. Some time before the war the town rulers found it difficult to find young men who could furnish good security, and so lent part of the money to more prosperous manufacturers, who, they said, set the poor inhabitants to work. But in 1653 the money was altogether misapplied; the Corporation bought some gold maces, found they had no funds to pay for them, and so ordered the debt to be paid with this endowment[655]. Apparently the money was never paid back, for payments on account of it cease after this time. [653] _Calendar of State Papers_, Dec. 22, 1657. [654] _Ib._, Sept. 9, 1653. The order is to the effect that the Council of State is to take care to suppress and prevent the like abuse in the future. [655] Barnstaple Records, _North Devon Herald_, April 22, 1880. Any one of these instances of fraud and neglect might have occurred at any time, but so many receive official notice when peace was restored that they must have occurred more frequently during the war than at other times. A letter of this period seems to indicate the opinion of contemporaries: "You speak of feasts to relieve the poor, but it is well if the money left long since for the poor be given to them and not to feasts[656]." [656] _Calendar of State Papers_, Aug. 12, 1658. [Sidenote: 2. Attempts to regain a good organisation of poor relief under the Commonwealth.]