What was to be done? A blank refusal to honour the King’s warrant was impossible, so they temporised and parleyed with Hamilton. Meanwhile, the Deputy, smarting at the loss of the hoped-for escheat from Sir Con (whom he would gladly have hanged), poured out his soul in protest to Cecil. He wrote on the 19th June, 1605:— “The King’s grants daily increase. There is come hither one Mr. James Hamilton with two Letters from the King: one containing a gift of £100 land in fee-farm, in the name of Thomas Irelande; the other for passing to him the Great Ardes or Upper Claneboy—by virtue of which words, if he have his desires, he will have more lands than the greatest lords in this kingdom, and all is given in free and common soccage, whereby his Majesty’s tenures are lost and everywhere abridged. If copies of these letters be called for the grants will be found to be extraordinary. “When I was in England, it pleased the King, by your means, to bestow on me the Castle of Belfast and other lands adjoining. I have passed it twice, and as yet I understand by this gentleman—who, it seems, has sought all the records—there are some questions may be made thereon, by reason of some grants made long since to Sir Thomas Smith. For albeit that deed be of no force, yet, not being so found void in the ‘office,’ as the records of those deeds were not in this Kingdom, I am subject to some danger. I pray, therefore, that one Letter more may be granted to me for re-passing the same.” While awaiting Cecil’s reply, Chichester, on the 26th June, 1605, appointed a Commission of his most trusted officials and cronies to hold Inquisitions preliminary to any grant being made, so that by a rigid enforcement of the Patent laws (hitherto ignored), Hamilton should not get a rood of land or a rill of water to which he was not strictly entitled. The scope of the Commission was severely limited to the text of the King’s Letters which Hamilton presented, and the persons appointed to execute it were:— Nicholas Kerdiff, Serjeant-at-Law, Sir Charles Calthrop, Attorney-General, William Parsons, Surveyor-General, Nicholas Kenney, Escheator-General. John Dallway of Carrickfergus, Robert Barnwall, and Laurence Masterson.