The new viceroy had been charged by the king to secure supplies of money for him from out of Ireland. Indeed, the appointment was based on a sort of co-partnership, the king insisting upon a large percentage of the profits of the post. Moriz knew that conciliation was the only means of obtaining the money, and he began by releasing the Earl of Kildare from imprisonment in Dublin Castle, and showing similar clemency to other {34} distinguished prisoners. The policy of Walter de Bermingham (1348-49), John, Lord Carew (1349), and Sir Thomas de Rokeby (1349-55), was in direct contrast. They favoured war where Moriz had tried peace, and with the usual result. The native Irish had by now the protection and assistance of the leading Anglo-Irish families, who were influenced by the Irish blood in their veins, and took common cause against the viceroy and his battalions. In almost every encounter the English were defeated, and, finally, Dublin itself was threatened. In alarm the English colony began to make hasty preparations for flight to England. They sold what they could and abandoned the rest, and it seemed as though the English in Ireland would cease to exist when an order came from England declaring that any English colonist deserting Ireland would be put to death. Compelled to remain, they continued their miserable existence, threatened with murder by their foes, and in continual danger of robbery by the very men appointed to protect them. Dublin at this period was in a wretched condition. There had been no attempt to build a city, and in reality the place was a fort whereby England maintained its footing in Ireland. In the country the native chiefs and the Anglo-Irish noblemen ruled, administering justice in their crude fashion, and in some cases issuing their own coinage. The Viceroy of Ireland was in reality Viceroy of Dublin, and not always even that.