'HONOURED SIR, 'When I consider how easily you might make me happy, since all I desire

is to be permitted to go to my poor father and mother; when I reflect

upon your former proposal to me in relation to a certain person, not one

word of which is now mentioned; and upon my being in that strange manner

run away with, and still kept here a miserable prisoner; do you think,

sir, (pardon your poor servant's freedom; my fears make me bold; do you

think, I say,) that your general assurances of honour to me, can have

the effect upon me, that, were it not for these things, all your words

ought to have?--O, good sir! I too much apprehend that your notions of

honour and mine are very different from one another: and I have no other

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hopes but in your continued absence. If you have any proposals to make

me, that are consistent with your honourable professions, in my humble

sense of the word, a few lines will communicate them to me, and I will

return such an answer as befits me. But, oh! What proposals can one in

your high station have to make to one in my low one! I know what belongs

to your degree too well, to imagine, that any thing can be expected but

sad temptations, and utter distress, if you come down; and you know not,

sir, when I am made desperate, what the wretched Pamela dares to do! 'Whatever rashness you may impute to me, I cannot help it; but I wish

I may not be forced upon any, that otherwise would never enter into my

thoughts. Forgive me, sir, my plainness; I should be loath to behave to

my master unbecomingly; but I must needs say, sir, my innocence is so

dear to me, that all other considerations are, and, I hope, shall ever

be, treated by me as niceties, that ought, for that, to be dispensed

with. If you mean honourably, why, sir, should you not let me know it

plainly? Why is it necessary to imprison me, to convince me of it? And

why must I be close watched, and attended, hindered from stirring out,

from speaking to any body, from going so much as to church to pray for

you, who have been, till of late, so generous a benefactor to me? Why,

sir, I humbly ask, why all this, if you mean honourably?--It is not for

me to expostulate so freely, but in a case so near to me, with you, sir,

so greatly my superior. Pardon me, I hope you will; but as to seeing

you, I cannot bear the dreadful apprehension. Whatever you have to

propose, whatever you intend by me, let my assent be that of a free

person, mean as I am, and not of a sordid slave, who is to be threatened

and frightened into a compliance with measures, which your conduct to

her seems to imply would be otherwise abhorred by her.--My restraint is

indeed hard upon me: I am very uneasy under it. Shorten it, I beseech

you, or--but I will not dare to say more, than that I am'Your greatly oppressed unhappy servant.'




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