“June 19, 1723.—Yesterday, between twelve and one, the deprived Bishop of Rochester set out from the Tower in the navy barge, and was delivered up to Captain Laurence, commander of the Aldborough man-of-war, lying in Long Reach. Two footmen in purple liveries attended him, himself being in a lay habit of gray cloth. Great numbers of people went to see him take water, many of whom accompanied him down the river in barges and boats. We hear that two messengers went on board the man-of-war, to see him set on shore at Ostend, whence, it is said, he will proceed to Aix-la-Chapelle, after staying some time at Brussels.” The Bishop, however, was set on shore at Calais, from the violence of the weather, which made the passage to Ostend dangerous; and on being told at landing, that Bolingbroke had received the king’s pardon, and had arrived at the same place on his return to England, he pleasantly said, “Then I am _exchanged_.” Pope observed that “the nation was afraid of being overrun with too much politeness, and could not gain one great genius, but at the expense of another.” That Bolingbroke was a man of remarkable talent, must be believed from the evidence of his public career. But the fame of Atterbury seems to have had no firmer foundations than his being the intimate of Pope, and a Jacobite. He had the scholarship of an academic, but he gave no exhibition of ability in public life. His sermons are extant, and are trifling. As a Jacobite, he must have been incapable of comprehending the value of liberty, regardless of Protestantism, and faithless to his king. His mitre alone probably saved him from a severer punishment than exile. But the simple fact that a Protestant bishop conspired to bring back a dynasty pledged to Popery, and notorious for persecution, is enough to consign his memory to historic shame. Another curious instance, involving a bishop, occurred about this period. Wilson, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, in consequence of his refusal of the holy sacrament to the wife of the governor of the island, was thrown by him into prison, and fined. The bishop appealed to the Privy Council, by whom he was released, on the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor Generals, and the fine was remitted. The Earl of Derby, the “sovereign” of the island, contended that it was a “free nation.” But he was not able to show that its freedom implied the power of controlling the spiritual functions of the bishop.