SIR,

MISELLA now sits down to continue her

narrative. I am convinced that nothing would

more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity,

or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just

description of the condition into which the wanton

plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter

may be a sufficient antidote to my example.

After the distraction, hesitation, and delays which

the timidity of guilt naturally produces, I was

removed to lodgings in a distant part of the town,

under one of the characters commonly assumed upon

such occasions. Here being by my circumstances

condemned to solitude, I passed most of my hours

in bitterness and anguish. The conversation of the

people with whom I was placed was not at all capable

of engaging my attention, or dispossessing the

reigning ideas. The books which I carried to my

retreat were such as heightened my abhorrence of

myself; for I was not so far abandoned as to sink

voluntarily into corruption, or endeavour to conceal

from my own mind the enormity of my crime.

My relation remitted none of his fondness, but

visited me so often, that I was sometimes afraid

lest his assiduity should expose him to suspicion.

Whenever he came he found me weeping, and was

therefore less delightfully entertained than he

expected. After frequent expostulations upon the

unreasonableness of my sorrow, and innumerable

protestations of everlasting regard, he at last found

that I was more affected with the loss of my

innocence, than the danger of my fame, and that he

might not be disturbed by my remorse, began to

lull my conscience with the opiates of irreligion.

His arguments were such as my course of life has

since exposed me often to the necessity of hearing,

vulgar, empty, and fallacious; yet they at first

confounded me by their novelty, filled me with doubt

and perplexity, and interrupted that peace which I

began to feel from the sincerity of my repentance,

without substituting any other support. I listened

a while to his impious gabble, but its influence was

soon overpowered by natural reason and early education,

and the convictions which this new attempt

gave me of his baseness completed my abhorrence.

I have heard of barbarians, who, when tempests

drive ships upon their coast, decoy them to the rocks

that they may plunder their lading, and have always

thought that wretches, thus merciless in their

depredations, ought to be destroyed by a general

insurrection of all social beings; yet how light is this

guilt to the crime of him, who, in the agitations of

remorse, cuts away the anchor of piety, and, when

he has drawn aside credulity from the paths of

virtue, hides the light of heaven which would direct

her to return. I had hitherto considered him as a man

equally betrayed with myself by the concurrence of

appetite and opportunity; but I now saw with horrour

that he was contriving to perpetuate his gratification,

and was desirous to fit me to his purpose,

by complete and radical corruption.

To escape, however, was not yet in my power. I

could support the expenses of my condition only

by the continuance of his favour. He provided all

that was necessary, and in a few weeks congratulated

me upon my escape from the danger which

we had both expected with so much anxiety. I

then began to remind him of his promise to restore

me with my fame uninjured to the world. He promised

me in general terms, that nothing should be

wanting which his power could add to my happiness,

but forbore to release me from my confinement.

I knew how much my reception in the world

depended upon my speedy return, and was therefore

outrageously impatient of his delays, which I

now perceived to be only artifices of lewdness. He

told me at last, with an appearance of sorrow, that

all hopes of restoration to my former state were for

ever precluded; that chance had discovered my

secret, and malice divulged it; and that nothing

now remained, but to seek a retreat more private,

where curiosity or hatred could never find us.

The rage, anguish, and resentment, which I felt

at this account are not to be expressed. I was in so

much dread of reproach and infamy, which he represented

as pursuing me with full cry, that I yielded

myself implicitly to his disposal and was removed,

with a thousand studied precautions, through by-

ways and dark passages to another house, where I

harassed him with perpetual solicitations for a small

annuity that might enable me to live in the country

in obscurity and innocence.

This demand he at first evaded with ardent

professions, but in time appeared offended at my

importunity and distrust; and having one day

endeavoured to sooth me with uncommon expressions

of tenderness, when he found my discontent

immoveable, left me with some inarticulate murmurs

of anger. I was pleased that he was at last roused

to sensibility, and expecting that at his next visit

he would comply with my request, lived with great

tranquillity upon the money in my hands, and was

so much pleased with this pause of persecution, that

I did not reflect how much his absence had exceeded

the usual intervals, till I was alarmed with

the danger of wanting subsistence. I then suddenly

contracted my expenses, but was unwilling to

supplicate for assistance. Necessity, however, soon

overcame my modesty or my pride, and I applied to

him by a letter, but had no answer. I writ in terms

more pressing, but without effect. I then sent an

agent to inquire after him, who informed me, that

he had quitted his house, and was gone with his

family to reside for some time on his estate in

Ireland.

However shocked at this abrupt departure, I was

yet unwilling to believe that he could wholly abandon

me, and therefore, by the sale of my clothes, I

supported myself, expecting that every post would

bring me relief. Thus I passed seven months

between hope and dejection, in a gradual approach to

poverty and distress, emaciated with discontent, and

bewildered with uncertainty. At last my landlady,

after many hints of the necessity of a new lover,

took the opportunity of my absence to search my

boxes, and missing some of my apparel, seized the

remainder for rent, and led me to the door.

To remonstrate against legal cruelty, was vain; to

supplicate obdurate brutality, was hopeless. I went

away I knew not whither, and wandered about without

any settled purpose, unacquainted with the usual

expedients of misery, unqualified for laborious

offices, afraid to meet an eye that had seen me

before, and hopeless of relief from those who were

strangers to my former condition. Night came on

in the midst of my distraction, and I still continued

to wander till the menaces of the watch obliged me

to shelter myself in a covered passage.

Next day, I procured a lodging in the backward

garret of a mean house, and employed my landlady

to inquire for a service. My applications were

generally rejected for want of a character. At length

I was received at a draper's, but when it was known

to my mistress that I had only one gown, and that

of silk, she was of opinion that I looked like a thief,

and without warning hurried me away. I then tried

to support myself by my needle; and, by my landlady's

recommendation obtained a little work from

a shop, and for three weeks lived without repining;

but when my punctuality had gained me so much

reputation, that I was trusted to make up a head of

some value, one of my fellow-lodgers stole the lace,

and I was obliged to fly from a prosecution.

Thus driven again into the streets, I lived upon

the least that could support me, and at night

accommodated myself under pent-houses as well as I

could. At length I became absolutely pennyless,

and having strolled all day without sustenance, was,

at the close of evening, accosted by an elderly man,

with an invitation to a tavern. I refused him with

hesitation; he seized me by the hand, and drew me

into a neigbouring house, where, when he saw my

face pale with hunger, and my eyes swelling with

tears, he spurned me from him, and bade me cant

and whine in some other place; he for his part would

take care of his pockets.

I still continued to stand in the way, having

scarcely strength to walk further, when another soon

addressed me in the same manner. When he saw

the same tokens of calamity, he considered that I

might be obtained at a cheap rate, and therefore

quickly made overtures, which I no longer had

firmness to reject. By this man I was maintained four

months in penurious wickedness, and then abandoned

to my former condition, from which I was

delivered by another keeper.

In this abject state I have now passed four years,

the drudge of extortion and the sport of drunkenness;

sometimes the property of one man, and

sometimes the common prey of accidental lewdness;

at one time tricked up for sale by the mistress of a

brothel, at another begging in the streets to be

relieved from hunger by wickedness; without any

hope in the day but of finding some whom folly or

excess may expose to my allurements, and without

any reflections at night, but such as guilt and terrour

impress upon me.

If those who pass their days in plenty and

security, could visit for an hour the dismal receptacles

to which the prostitute retires from her nocturnal

excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded

together, mad with intemperance, ghastly with

famine, nauseous with filth, and noisome with disease;

it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence

to harden them against compassion, or to

repress the desire which they must immediately feel

to rescue such numbers of human beings from a state

so dreadful.

It is said, that in France they annually evacuate

their streets, and ship their prostitutes and vagabonds

to their colonies. If the women that infest this city

had the same opportunity of escaping from their

miseries, I believe very little force would be

necessary; for who among them can dread any change?

Many of us indeed are wholly unqualified for any

but the most servile employments, and those perhaps

would require the care of a magistrate to hinder

them from following the same practices in another

country; but others are only precluded by infamy

from reformation, and would gladly be delivered on

any terms from the necessity of guilt, and the

tyranny of chance. No place but a populous city,

can afford opportunities for open prostitution; and

where the eye of justice can attend to individuals,

those who cannot be made good may be restrained

from mischief. For my part, I should exult at the

privilege of banishment, and think myself happy in

any region that should restore me once again to

honesty and peace.