"As an Irishman, I thought that Mr. Froude's was only one other utterance of those old anti-Irish calumnies which it has been the fashion of English writers to invent and repeat, and which have been discussed, answered, refuted a hun- dred times. My friends, however, urged their request, and Mr. Froude's lectures took a tone so damaging at once to the Irish character, and so bitterly hostile to the Catholic religion, that I felt justified in attempting to answer him in defense of my faith and my country."