Judge Ross, with true insight, saw the necessity of trying to ascertain what powers the Commission conferred, so that he might estimate what were the matters Parsons was inquiring into. He, therefore, sent for the original parchment. It was sadly defaced, and he, too, found it illegible. Since then, although portions remain undecipherable, enough has been transcribed to show what the Commission covered and authorised. This transcription reveals that it was issued without any reference to Lough Neagh or the Bann. Despite the fact that the decipherment is only partial, it shatters the case the plaintiff made. The Commission is set forth in the Appendix, and, although several words are missing, enough is left to demonstrate that no inquisition founded on such a Commission could establish Crown title to Lough Neagh or the Bann (save as to a few monastic fishings). For what duties were the Commissioners appointed to discharge? They were ordered merely to report on the boundaries and extent of Sir Con O’Neill’s possessions (to prepare for their partition between Hamilton and Montgomery), and also what “concealed lands” should have come to the Crown in Antrim and Down by reason of any forfeiture or attainder to provide for Thomas Irelande’s £100 a year. Nothing more. It was issued not by the King, but by Chichester on the 26th June, 1605, when he was thwarting Hamilton, and only a week after his bitter complaint to Cecil of the extent of the grants to “the Scot.” Then it would have been as repugnant to the Deputy’s feelings as to his interest to allow Hamilton get a rood of land or a fathom of water more than his two King’s Letters covered. Just a year before, Chichester had concocted a Patent annexing to himself for life the fisheries of Lough Neagh and the Bann; and it was hardly likely that his earliest act after becoming Deputy should be to nominate Commissioners to assist a stranger to oust the “Admiral of Lough Neagh” from his new acquisitions and destroy the basis of his aquatic title. The Commission recites that it was sped by reason of the two King’s Letters presented by Hamilton, one on behalf of Thomas Irelande for £100 a year, and the other, on his own behalf, for the acquisition of Sir Con O’Neill’s estate in Claneboy and the Great Ardes. The “metes and bounds” of Sir Con’s territory were fixed by a Patent to his father from Queen Elizabeth of the 13th March, 1587, and never embraced Lough Neagh or the Bann. The grant to Thomas Irelande could not have included them, for it was to be carved out of “concealed or forfeited” lands in Antrim and Down. There had been no previous confiscation of the fisheries. They had never vested in the Crown, and could not have been captured under the terms of Thomas Irelande’s “Letter,” even if Chichester had not already seized them for himself, or was in the mood to befriend an intruder.