Page:The Life of Mr. Richard Savage - Johnson (1727).djvu/32

 sufficient Recommendations for your Lordship to intercede for him. Blot out the unhappy Moment which was the Source of his present Calamity, and he will appear unsullied in either; nor will that appear so black, if Murder in any Case may be extenuated; when we consider the Evidences who cast him; three Women, my Lord, who have since contradicted what before they had sworn; the other Evidence, a Man, by Report of no amiable Character; but who are said to have most grosly misrepresented the Fact, and to have industriously spread that Misrepresentation: But my Intention is not to prove innocent whom the Law has found guilty; but to submit the two distressful Gentlemen, who now lie under Sentence of Death, as Objects of the Royal Mercy. When the Law has found guilty one or more Persons, whom it is consistent with Virtue and Wisdom to save, it is the blessed Privilege of the Sovereign to turn the Course of the Law, and bid the afflicted live. The Reputations of Mr. Savage and Mr. Gregory have been always clear; nor are they in any Action of their Lives to be lamented by their Friends but on this melancholly Occasion. The first I have known and conversed with several Years, and can therefore more fully speak him: I have discovered in him a Mind uncapable of Evil; I have beheld him sigh for the distressed, when more