MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SUNDAY NIGHT, JULY 16.
What a cursed piece of work hast thou made of it, with the most excellent
of women! Thou mayest be in earnest, or in jest, as thou wilt; but the
poor lady will not be long either thy sport, or the sport of fortune!
I will give thee an account of a scene that wants but her affecting pen
to represent it justly; and it would wring all the black blood out of thy
callous heart.
Thou only, who art the author of her calamities, shouldst have attended
her in her prison. I am unequal to such a task: nor know I any other man
but would.
This last act, however unintended by thee, yet a consequence of thy
general orders, and too likely to be thought agreeable to thee, by those
who know thy other villanies by her, has finished thy barbarous work.
And I advise thee to trumpet forth every where, how much in earnest thou
art to marry her, whether true or not.
Thou mayest safely do it. She will not live to put thee to the trial;
and it will a little palliate for thy enormous usage of her, and be a
mean to make mankind, who know not what I know of the matter, herd a
little longer with thee, and forbear to hunt thee to thy fellow-savages
in the Lybian wilds and desarts.
Your messenger found me at Edgware expecting to dinner with me several
friends, whom I had invited three days before. I sent apologies to them,
as in a case of life and death; and speeded to town to the
woman's: for how knew I but shocking attempts might be made upon her by
the cursed wretches: perhaps by your connivance, in order to mortify her
into your measures?
Little knows the public what villanies are committed by vile wretches, in
these abominable houses upon innocent creatures drawn into their snares.
Finding the lady not there, I posted away to the officer's, although
Sally told me that she had but just come from thence; and that she had
refused to see her, or (as she sent down word) any body else; being
resolved to have the remainder of that Sunday to herself, as it might,
perhaps, be the last she should ever see.