'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
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.'