Burke, however, had the good taste and good sense to acknowledge that Froude suffered from nothing worse than the invincible prejudice which all Catholics attribute to all Protestants.

As a Protestant and an Englishman, Froude could not be expected to give such a history of Ireland as would be agreeable to Irishmen.

"Yet to the honour of this learned gentleman be it said that he frankly avows the injuries which have been done, and that he comes nearer than any man whom I have ever heard to the real root of the remedy to be applied to these evils." When his handling of documentary evidence was criticised, Froude repeated his challenge to the editor of The Saturday Review, which had never been taken up, and on that point the American sense of fair play gave judgment in his favour.

But how was public opinion to pronounce upon such a subject as the alleged Bull of Adrian II., granting Ireland to Henry II of England?
The Bull was not in existence, and Burke boldly denied that it had ever existed at all.
Froude maintained that its existence and its nature were proved by later Bulls of succeeding Popes.

The matter had no interest for Protestants, and the American press regarded it as a bore.