ady to the utmost of our power, and for
what she has suffered from the unhappy man.

We are, dear Madam,
Your obliged and faithful servants,
CHARLOTTE | MONTAGUE.
MARTHA |

***

DEAR MISS HOWE,

We join in the above request of Miss Charlotte and Miss Patty Montague,
for your favour and interest; being convinced that the accident was an
accident, and no plot or contrivance of a wretch too full of them. We
are, Madam,

Your most obedient humble servants,

M.
SARAH SADLEIR.
ELIZ. LAWRANCE.

***

DEAR MISS HOWE,

After what is written above, by names and characters of unquestionable
honour, I might have been excused signing a name almost as hateful to
myself, as I KNOW it is to you. But the above will have it so. Since,
therefore, I must write, it shall be the truth; which is, that if I may
be once more admitted to pay my duty to the most deserving and most
injured of her sex, I will be content to do it with a halter about my
neck; and, attended by a parson on my right hand, and the hangman on my
left, be doomed, at her will, either to the church or the gallows.

Your most humble servant,
ROBERT LOVELACE.

TUESDAY, JULY 18.

LETTER XV

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.

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