words:
"Having spoken of what the lord lieutenant has done, I presume with the
same truth to tell your lordships what he has not done. He never advised
the breaking of the triple league; he never advised the shutting up of
the exchequer; he never advised the declaration for a toleration;
he never advised the falling out with the Dutch and the joining with
France: he was not the author of that most excellent position, Delenda
est Carthago, that Holland, a Protestant country, should, contrary to
the true interests of England, be totally destroyed. I beg that your
lordships will be so just as to judge of my father and all men according
to their actions and their counsels." These few sentences pronounced by
a plain, gallant soldier, noted for probity, had a surprising effect
upon the audience, and confounded all the rhetoric of his eloquent and
factious adversary. The prince of Orange, who esteemed the former
character as much as he despised the latter, could not forbear
congratulating by letter the earl of Ossory on this new species of
victory which he had obtained.

Ossory, though he ever kept at a distance from faction, was the most
popular man in the kingdom; though he never made any compliance with
the corrupt views of the court, was beloved and respected by the king.
A universal grief appeared on his death, which happened about this time,
and which the populace, as is usual wherever they are much affected,
foolishly ascribed to poison. Ormond bore the loss with patience and
dignity; though he ever retained a pleasing, however melancholy, sense
of the signal merit of Ossory. "I would not exchange my dead son," said
he, "for any living son in Christendom."

These particularities may appear a digression; but it is with pleasure,
I own, that I relax myself for a moment in the contemplation of these
humane and virtuous characters, amidst that scene of fury and faction,
fraud and violence, in which at present our narration has unfortunately
engaged us.

Besides the general interest of the country party to decry the conduct
of all the king's ministers, the prudent and peaceable administration of
Ormond was in a particular manner displeasing to them. In England, where
the Catholics were scarcely one to a hundred, means had been found to
excite a universal panic, on account of insurrections and even massacres
projected by that sect; and it could not but seem strange that in
Ireland, where they exceeded the Protestants six t