Swords were drawn and Savage killed a Mr.Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of a barmaid who tried to hold him.

Then more swearing, shrieking and sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the coffee-house, and an almost instant arrest.

A pretty picture, was it not?
When Savage was put on trial for his life, he pleaded that the killing of Sinclair was done in self-defence, and his acquittal would probably have followed but for the shrewdness of the prosecution.

This prosecution was conducted by Francis Page, whose severity Pope immortalised in the lines: "Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage Hard-words or hanging--if your judge be Page." Page surely understood human nature, or that portion of it appertaining to the average jurymen, and he disposed of Mr.Savage's defence by one well-directed blow when he said to the good men and true: "Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr.Savage is a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but, gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the jury, that Mr.Savage should therefore kill you, or me, gentlemen of the jury." Whereupon the defendant began to make a speech in his own behalf, but his flow of eloquence was quenched by the judge, and the jury soon found Savage as well as Gregory, one of his companions in the drunken broil, to be guilty of murder.

Many influences were now brought to bear on Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to secure a pardon for the rascal, but that good lady was for a time obdurate.