Freeman, signing himself "Mr.Froude's Saturday Reviewer," replied in The Pall Mall Gazette.

The challenge he left to the editor of The Saturday, who contemptuously refused it, and he admitted that after all Froude probably did know what a Bill of Attainder was.

The rest of his letter is a shuffle.

"I have made no charge of bad faith against Mr.
Froude"-- whom he had accused of not knowing what truth meant--"with regard to any Spanish manuscripts, or any other manuscripts.

All that I say is, that as I find gross inaccuracies in Mr.Froude's book, which he does not whenever I have the means of testing him which was certainly not often--"I think there is a presumption against his accuracy in those parts where I have not the means of testing him.
But this is only a presumption, and not proof.