The Munster Plantation was supposed to develop compact defensible settlements, but the English settlers were spread in pockets across the province, wherever land had been confiscated. Initially, the English Undertakers were given detachments of English soldiers to protect them, but these were abolished in the 1590s. As a result, when the Nine Years War — an Irish rebellion against English rule – reached Munster in 1598, most of the settlers were chased off their lands without a fight. They took refuge in the province's walled towns or fled back to England. However, when the rebellion was put down in 1601–03, the Plantation was re-constituted by the Governor of Munster, George Carew. The English settler population in the 1620s was four times greater than in the earlier Munster plantation and powerful enough to control a considerable area after the Irish Rebellion of 1641.