THEIR HEIGHT, FORM, AND. STRENGTH. 19 



founded ; and I call upon every noble lord in this 

 House from that kingdom to rise in his place, and 

 vindicate from the aspersions of the noble lord his 

 calumniated and insulted country."* 



(4-) The Earl of Ormond rose and said : " My 

 lords, I cannot sit silent and hear the country to 

 which I have the honour to belong so foully traduced 

 without rising in my place to contradict such un- 

 founded aspersions upon the national character of 

 Ireland." 



(5.) George Ponsonby said during those debates 

 in the House of Commons : " Sir, never was there 

 so foul a misrepresentation and so gross a calumny 

 as this against the Irish Catholics ; there never was 

 a race of men in Europe who would preserve so much 

 of what is good under so much 'oppression. I know 

 them well, and I know, at the same time, that what- 

 ever there is good in them they owe to themselves ; 

 whatever there is bad in them they owe to you yes, 

 sir, I will say it, it is owing entirely to your bad 

 government. ... I have heard arguments in 

 this House from which one would be led to think 

 that some men were sent here only to circulate 

 calumnies against, and to draw the most odious 

 pictures of, the character of our common country." 



* Cobbett's ParliamtHturii l)<ltt',*. vol. xii., p. 234. 



