General Dillon (an Irish Catholic soldier, who after the capitulation of
Limerick, had entered the French service), through the instrumentality of
Kelly, who acted as his secretary and amanuensis for that purpose. It
was a case of circumstantial evidence altogether. The impartial reader
of history now will feel well satisfied on two points: first, that
Atterbury was engaged in the plot; and second, that the evidence brought
against him was not nearly strong enough to sustain a conviction. It was
the case of Bolingbroke and Harley over again. We know now that the men
had done the things charged against them, but the evidence then relied
upon was utterly inadequate to sustain the charge.

A "Dialogue in Verse between a Whig and a Tory" was written by Swift in
the year 1723, "concerning the horrid plot discovered by Harlequin, the
Bishop of {220} Rochester's French Dog." The Whig tells the Tory that
the dog--

"His name is Harlequin, I wot,
And that's a name in every plot"--

was generously

"Resolved to save the British nation,
Though French by birth and education;
His correspondence plainly dated
Was all deciphered and translated;
His answers were exceeding pretty,
Before the secret wise committee;
Confessed as plain as he could bark,
Then with his fore-foot set his mark."

[Sidenote: 1723-1731--Atterbury's sentence]

There was more than mere fooling in the lines. The dog Harlequin was
made to bear important evidence against the Bishop of Rochester.
Atterbury had never resigned himself to the Hanoverian dynasty. He did
not believe it would last, and he openly declaimed against it. He did
more than this, however: he engaged in conspiracies for the restoration
of James Stuart. Horace Walpole says of him that he was simply a
Jacobite priest. He was a Jacobite priest who would gladly, if he could,
have been a Jacobite soldier, and had given ample evidence of courage
equal to such a part. He had been engaged in a long correspondence with
Jacobite conspirators at home and abroad. The correspondence was carried
on in cipher, and of course under feigned names. Atterbury appears to
have been described now as Mr. Illington, and now as Mr. Jones.
Atterbury refused to make any defence before the House of Commons, but he
appeared before the House of Lords on May 6, 1723, and defended himself,
and made strong and eloquent protestation of his innocence. One of the
witnesses whom he called