The necessities of government, however, let their cause be what it might, were by no means feigned; and a new parliament was assembled about seven months after the last, wherein the king, without waiting for a petition, informed the commons that the treasurers were ready to exhibit their accounts before them. This was a signal victory after the reluctant and ungracious concession made to the last parliament. Nine persons of different ranks were appointed at the request of the commons to investigate the state of the revenue and the disposition which had been made of the late king's personal estate. They ended by granting a poll-tax, which they pretended to think adequate to the supply required.[144] But in those times no one possessed any statistical knowledge, and every calculation which required it was subject to enormous error, of which we have already seen an eminent example.[145] In the next parliament (3 Ric. II.) it was set forth that only 22,000_l._ had been collected by the poll-tax, while the pay of the king's troops hired for the expedition to Britany, the pretext of the grant, had amounted for but half a year to 50,000_l._ The king, in short, was more straitened than ever. His distresses gave no small advantage to the commons. Their speaker was instructed to declare that, as it appeared to them, if the affairs of their liege lord had been properly conducted at home and abroad, he could not have wanted aid of his commons, who now are poorer than before. They pray that, as the king was so much advanced in age and discretion, his perpetual council (appointed in his first parliament) might be discharged of their labours, and that, instead of them, the five chief officers of state, to wit, the chancellor, treasurer, keeper of the privy seal, chamberlain, and steward of the household, might be named in parliament, and declared to the commons, as the king's sole counsellors, not removable before the next parliament. They required also a general commission to be made out, similar to that in the last session, giving powers to a certain number of peers and other distinguished persons to inquire into the state of the household, as well as into all receipts and expenses since the king's accession. The former petition seems to have been passed over;[146] but a commission as requested was made out to three prelates, three earls, three bannerets, three knights, and three citizens.[147] After guarding thus, as they conceived, against malversation, but in effect rather protecting their posterity than themselves, the commons prolonged the last imposition on wool and leather for another year.