If you will grant our request there will soon be no Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's subjects ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now preserved among the Irish MSS.
Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare.

His campaigns would not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation during the few dry weeks of August and September.

He would wait till the harvest was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and continue hostilities through the winter.

He adopted this course because 'in the cold Irish springs, the fields were bare, the cattle were lean, and the weather was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas in August _food everywhere was abundant_, and the soldiers would have time to become hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break Shane to the ground and ruin him.

There was no time to be lost.
Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's country; while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles, was expected to join him in summer.