The punishment sought to be inflicted on his client was in severity only next to death itself. The bishop’s generous and hospitable way of life had eminently fitted him for the next world, but had left him nothing for this. If he were to be driven into a foreign land, he must, said Sir Constantine, ‘beg upon his crutches or starve.’ The evidence against him was not good in law, and was therefore inadmissible here. Copies of letters, but no production of originals; decyphered extracts, but no proof of correct decyphering; much allegation, but nothing corroborated――such was the quality of the testimony produced on the other side, and it was simply worthless. To correspond with attainted traitors, with treason for a subject, was a capital offence, but to write to even guilty men on common innocent topics, as it might be allowed the bishop had done, once or twice, addressing unfortunate friends, was surely not an evil in a Christian prelate, and it afforded no evidence that ‘Atterbury had any knowledge of their guilty designs――invasion of England by foreign troops, occupation of London and the ports, the seizure of the king and royal family, and the bringing in the Pretender!’ As Willes had acknowledged his inability to interpret some of the cyphers, might he not have misinterpreted those which were supposed to attach guilt to his blameless client? To strike down and fling to reproach and ruin a man against whom no guilt can be proved, appeared to Sir Constantine a most grievous circumstance. After pursuing this line of defence for many hours, the wary counsellor concluded by saying: ‘If there be a difference between your legislative and judicial capacity, I submit it――whether your lordships will be pleased to give that judgment in your legislative capacity, which the counsel for the Bill do, in my apprehension, admit you could not do in your judicial. And, therefore, I hope your lordships will be pleased to reject this Bill (_sic_).’ Mr. Wynne succeeded Sir Constantine; where the latter spoke for one minute, Mr. Wynne spoke for ten. His speech was, what Serjeant Woolrych has called it, ‘a bold and elaborate display of the criticism of evidence,’ with an obstinate insistance on the supposed fact that harmless terms could not possibly mean hurtful things. The speech was altogether so able that his envious learned friends asserted he had stolen all the ideas from the bishop when conversing with him in the Tower; but this weak invention of the enemy has been effectually trampled out, and will not rise again. [Sidenote: _POPE, AS A WITNESS._]