Shaftesbury used the plot for all it was worth. As to Ireland, he said, 'I am credibly informed that the papists have their arms restored, and the Protestants are not, many of them, yet recovered from being the suspected party. The sea-towns, as well as the inland, are full of papists. That kingdom cannot long continue in the English hands if some better care is not taken of it.' That this was a reflection on Ormonde no candid reader will deny. And the speech as spoken may have been a good deal stronger than the version published by Shaftesbury. But he afterwards declared that his real object was to attack Lauderdale, and that much more was said about Scotland. Ossory, however, who was an old antagonist, took up the cudgels in what Achitophel's apologists call a violent manner. His answer was at once printed in Holland, and William of Orange admired it greatly. Ossory was wrong in saying that Shaftesbury advised the stop of the Exchequer, but he said nothing against it, and he was Lord Chancellor at the time. The most faithful of biographers could not deny the _delenda est Carthago_ speech. But Ossory's language, though in the main justified by facts, was not opportune, and both Arlington and Southwell advised his father to write in an apologetic or at least pacific strain. He did so, very much against the grain, congratulating Shaftesbury upon becoming President of the Council. He regretted Ossory's speech, but could not be 'much offended at the mistake or transport of a near relation, who might imagine I was glanced at, in which of all things in the world he knew I was most tender in, and valued myself most upon, and I take the liberty to believe that supposing the case your own, your lordship would have the same indulgence for a son of yours.' This was all, he told Southwell, he could 'obtain of himself to say.' Shaftesbury took no notice of the letter, but he received it, and Christie found the original among his papers nearly two hundred years later.[122] [Sidenote: Intrigues about the viceroyalty.]