Three strenuous objections he made.

One was that his work as a Catholic missionary demanded all his thought and all his time; another that he was not historically equipped to deal with so formidable an antagonist; and a third that America ought not to be a battle-ground of Irish contentions.
It was upon the last that he dwelt most tenaciously; nor did he give way until he had satisfied himself, after consulting with the highest authorities of his Church, and with two or three of the coolest and most judicious Irish citizens of New York, that I was right in believing that his appearance in the arena as the champion of Ireland, would lift an inevitable controversy high above the atmosphere of unworthy passion, and put it beyond the reach of political mischief-makers.
How nobly he did his work when he had become convinced that he ought to do it, is now matter of history.

But it is a hundredfold more needful now than it was in 1871 and 1872, that the spirit in which he did it should be known and published abroad.

In the interval between the delivery of two of his replies to Mr.Froude, Mr.Froude went to Boston.
A letter from Boston informed me that upon Mr.Froude's arrival there, all the Irish servants of the friend with whom he was to stay had suddenly left the house, refusing to their employer the right to invite under his roof a guest not agreeable to them.

I handed this letter, without a word, to Father Burke a few hours before he was to speak in the Academy of Music.