The provision that the Commission was “to establish the rights of others” he overcame by having his own backers named as Commissioners. With a view to beguiling the Londoners as to the Bann, these partisans ordered an inquisition respecting its ownership without giving the city notice of their sittings. They were given no authority to inquire into the Londoners’ property, yet they met in Chichester’s pocket-borough of Carrickfergus, and empanelled a jury of his friends and underlings to decide on the title to the river. The legal extravaganza there enacted seems so grotesque that, were it not vouched for by stiff parchment, it would be scouted as impossible. The principal Commissioner was Stephen Allen, Escheator for Ulster, who owed his post to Chichester. At Derry, a fortnight before, Allen held an inquisition for the Barons of the Exchequer, to ascertain by a local jury the number of “royal” fisheries in Ulster, and the rents payable thereout to the Crown. Allen truthfully recorded the Derry jury’s finding as to the Bann, which was that the Londoners owned the entire river from the sea to Lough Neagh, rent free. In this verdict its fishing-places, tidal and non-tidal, were enumerated in the most formal way. Yet, scarcely was the ink dry upon it when, at Carrickfergus, the same Allen got a jury to make a wholly contrary finding, and to bring in a verdict that the Bann, from Lough Neagh to Coleraine, was Chichester’s. He bolstered up this enormity by another. Allen’s duty was to lodge forthwith the Derry “return” in the Exchequer in Dublin. Instead of doing so, he kept it back for nine years. On the other hand, he lodged the Carrickfergus “return” instanter, knowing that it was to be made the basis of a Patent granting the Bann to his old patron. Highly-placed Commissioners, including a Bishop, abetted this misconduct. In framing the verdict, care was taken that the assertion of Chichester’s title should be made indirectly, only. The jury were got to do just enough to enable the Dublin confederates, when the “return” reached them, to shape the grant in the form he required. Nor was what Allen put on record untrue. All that was set forth was that Hamilton and Bassett obtained Patents for the Bann and Lough Neagh, and that these were assigned to Chichester—no more. There was no falsehood here—omission alone conveyed untruth. The Commissioners “forgot” the Charter to the Londoners; they “overlooked” Allen’s proceedings at Derry a fortnight before; they failed to remember the “surrender” of 1611 before the Archbishop of Dublin; or the “compensation” paid to Sir Arthur. As skilled practitioners they operated on the sheltry side of the law, and left the draftsmen of the Patent to do the rest.