The Royal Letter was embellished by recitals drafted by Lord Donegall and crammed with untruth. It set forth that James I., in 1621, granted the fishings unto Arthur, Lord Chichester; that in 1638, “to comply with our late royal father’s occasions,” they were surrendered to Charles I.; that in consideration of this generosity, the Chichesters should have received “an annuity, pension, or yearly rent-charge of £40 per annum,” with liberty to fish for the provision of their households; but that they were disappointed as to all these promises. This was a moving tale of unrequited loyalty; yet the brows of even the Merrie Monarch would have knit had he been told a tithe of the truth. The parchments of the previous half-century contradicted every item of this rigmarole and showed what an accurate recital should have disclosed. This was:— That James Hamilton, through the abuse of spent warrants, came by extravagant grants in collusion with Chichester; That Hamilton made over much of the property to the Deputy, who, to cloak his rapine, issued a Patent for it to his nephew without kingly sanction, and by the misuse of a Royal Commission; That the nephew assigned to his uncle all that the Patent conveyed, including the Bann and Lough Neagh; That, after the Bann was given by Charter to the City of London, £4,500 was paid by his Majesty to “compensate” Hamilton and Chichester; That a bogus “surrender” to the Crown of the Bann was then made; That, seven years later, Chichester (after his removal from the Deputyship), as Lord Treasurer, asserted title to the River by means of false entries in the Crown ledgers; That, by “favour” of the Duke of Buckingham, a King’s Letter was procured in 1620 for a regrant of his estates; That on this warrant, through the knavery of escheators and inquisitors, another Patent giving him the non-tidal Bann was fabricated in 1621; That in 1640 Strafford, on discovering the facts, enforced against his heirs a surrender of the river, with Lough Neagh; and That for this they were lavishly recouped by a Patent granting them valid title to vast properties unjustly come by, with an allowance off their rent of £60 a year. In the days of the Stuarts, truth and patents were estranged. On the 10th April, 1662, the Charter to the Londoners was signed. Charles II. gave them once more the River Bann, from Lough Neagh to the sea, as if no adverse grant had been made to Chichester or Clotworthy. He did so in the same words as it had been conveyed to them by James I. and Cromwell. Two Patents of the river to different interests, within 18 months, was a monstrosity, even for Anglo-Ireland; but not a ripple was raised thereby on the surface of official calm.