Saward's letter to Hardwicke fell into the hands of the police and compromised him. While Hardwicke and Atwell were in Newgate awaiting trial, active search was made for Saward, who was at length taken in a coffee-shop near Oxford Street, under the name of Hopkins. He resisted at first, and denied his identity, but on being searched, two blank checks of the London and Westminster Bank were found in his pocket. He then confessed that he was the redoubtable Jim Saward, or Jim the Penman, and was conveyed to a police court, and thence to Newgate. At his trial Atwell and Hardwicke, two of his chief allies and accomplices, turned informers, and the whole scheme of systematic forgery was laid bare. The evidence was corroborated by that of many of the victims who had acted as messengers, and others who swore to the meetings of the conspirators and their movements. Saward was found guilty, and the judge, in passing sentence of transportation for life, expressed deep regret that "the ingenuity, skill, and talent, which had received so perverted and mistaken direction, had not been guided by a sense of virtue, and directed to more honourable and useful pursuits." The proceeds of these forgeries amounted, it was said, to some thousands per annum. Saward spent all his share at low gaming houses, and in all manner of debaucheries. He was in person a short, square-built man of gentlemanly address, sharp and shrewd in conversation and manner. He was fifty-eight at the time of his conviction, and had therefore had a long criminal career. The vicissitudes of the felon transport who ventured to return before his sentence of exile had expired, has been told by one of their number. His statement bears date of 1852 and runs as follows: