And I wrote thus to my strange wicked
master himself:
'SIR,
'If you knew but the anguish of my mind, and how much I suffer by your
dreadful usage of me, you would surely pity me, and consent to my
deliverance. What have I done, that I should be the only mark of your
cruelty? I can have no hope, no desire of living left me, because I
cannot have the least dependence, after what has passed, upon your solemn
assurances.--It is impossible they should be consistent with the
dishonourable methods you take.
'Nothing but your promise of not seeing me here in my deplorable bondage,
can give me the least ray of hope.
'Don't, I beseech you, drive the poor distressed Pamela upon a rock, that
may be the destruction both of her soul and body! You don't know, sir,
how dreadfully I dare, weak as I am of mind and intellect, when my virtue
is in danger. And, O! hasten my deliverance, that a poor unworthy
creature, below the notice of such a gentleman as you, may not be made
the sport of a high condition, for no reason in the world, but because
she is not able to defend herself, nor has a friend that can right her.
'I have, sir, in part to shew my obedience to you, but indeed, I own,
more to give ease to the minds of my poor distressed parents, whose
poverty, one would think, should screen them from violences of this sort,
as well as their poor daughter, followed pretty much the form you have
prescribed for me, in the letter to Mrs.
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