The Lords of the Council had, in April, 1609, commanded a trial of Hamilton’s dispute with MacDonnell as to the “fourth” of the tidal Bann; and, although Chichester then showed no sign of compliance, he saw his advantage in reviving the quarrel, as soon as the money was received. He and Hamilton for him had taken “compensation” on making over to the Crown, fisheries which did not belong to them, and which, as regards the Bann, were owned either by the Church or by O’Neill, O’Cahan, and Sir Randal MacDonnell. O’Cahan was a captive, O’Neill in exile, and against neither fugitive nor hostage had any forfeiture been decreed. MacDonnell being a royal favourite could not handily be banished, attainted, or imprisoned, yet his “fourth,” which the Deputy had “put in sequestration pending a suit at law,” was airily disposed of as a chattel of “the Scot’s.” Then a ponderous scheme to “legally” divest Sir Randal of it was thought out. This grotesque conception is described in the staid pages of the earliest volume of law reports officially published to illustrate the wondrous workings of English justice in Ireland when the overthrow of the Brehon Code was decreed. The decision, like that which set aside as “barbarous” the native system of equity, fell from caitiffs robed as Judges, as inferior in worth and reputation as they were in learning, culture, and honesty to the Brehons they replaced. CHAPTER XIII. DIVIDING THE SPOIL. In November, 1610, the Deputy assembled his men-of-law in the Star Chamber and proceeded to blot out the rights of Sir Randal in a way the King could find no fault with. A report of the business was published in 1615 under the title, “The Case of the Royal Fishery of the Bann,” by Sir John Davies, in his collection of the new legal decisions. This sets forth the Attorney-General’s contentions, as if they were not mere byplay with a confederate posing as an impartial judge. With great show of learning Davies argued that the tidal Bann was a “royal river,” and its salmon fishery a “royal fishery,” and that a grant of anything “royal” must be made by express words. MacDonnell’s Patent, he said, only used words of exception—i.e., it granted him fisheries “excepting three-fourths of the fishery of the Bann.” This lack of express granting words failed, he maintained, to pass the remaining “fourth” by implication. For, quoth he, words of reservation pass nothing “royal” and make no good grant. On behalf of Sir Randal nobody seems to have been allowed to say a word. It was the second time the case was tried behind his back. If any defects existed in his grant, Davies was the culprit, for the King in 1606 had ordered them to be cured by a new Patent, which the Attorney-General should have supervised. Nevertheless “the chief judges of the Privy Council” cheerfully decided that no part of the river belonged to MacDonnell.