[Sidenote: _REJOINDER FOR THE CROWN._] On the 12th, Reeves and Wreag tore all the bishop’s special pleading to tatters. The former insisted that every charge had been proved, and that the bishop’s exalted character and holy function only aggravated his detestable crime. As to the penalty named in the Bill, of the intolerable pressure of which Atterbury had complained, almost in tears, Wreag took up the complaint, and said, ‘I venture to affirm this is the mildest punishment that ever was inflicted for such an offence. His life is not touched, his liberty not properly affected. He is only expelled the society, whose government he disapproved, and has endeavoured to subvert; and is deprived of the public employment which that government had entrusted him with. The enjoyment of his life, his private estate, and his liberty, under any government that may be more agreeable, is allowed him.’ [Sidenote: _WIT OF LORD BATHURST._] The debate on the question whether the Bill should then be read a third time and passed took place on the 15th. Willis, Bishop of Salisbury, and Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, pressed hardly against their brother prelate. The Duke of Argyle, the Earls of Peterborough and Cholmondely, and Lord Findlater, were as hostile as those bishops. On the other side, Gibson, Bishop of London, spoke in behalf of Atterbury. Earl Poulett commented upon the extraordinary character of the proceedings, and the Duke of Wharton, Lords Bathurst, Cowper, Strafford, Trevor, and Gower, spoke vigorously against the Bill,――the first two especially distinguished themselves in this way. Lord Bathurst, with vigour equal to Wharton’s, put forth a vigorous wit of his own. In allusion to the hostility of some of the bishops to Atterbury, Lord Bathurst remarked, ‘I can hardly account for the inveterate hatred and malice which some persons bear the learned and ingenious Bishop of Rochester, unless it was that they were intoxicated with the infatuation of some of the wild Indians, who fondly believe that they inherit not only the spoils, but even the abilities of the great enemy whom they kill,’ Nevertheless, the Bill, by which the bishop was deprived of his estate and function, and was doomed to perpetual banishment, with _death_ as the penalty of returning without leave, passed the House. Forty peers in all (nearly the whole of the minority) protested on various grounds,――irregularity, illegality, and of conclusions unwarranted by evidence. [Sidenote: _NEWSPAPER COMMENTS._]