Robert Emmet's letter to Sarah Curran


 * September, 1803
 * My dearest Love,
 * I don't know how to write to you. I never felt so oppressed in my life as at the cruel injury I have done you.
 * I was seized and searched with a pistol over me before I could destroy your letters. They have been compared with those found before.
 * I was threatened with having them brought forward against me in Court.
 * I offered to plead guilty if they would suppress them.
 * This was refused. My love, can you forgive me?
 * I wanted to know whether anything had been done respecting the person who wrote the letter, for I feared you might have been arrested.
 * They refused to tell me for a long time.
 * When I found, however, that this was not the case,
 * I began to think that they only meant to alarm me;
 * but their refusal has only come this moment,
 * and my fears are renewed.
 * Not that they can do anything to you even if they would be base enough to attempt it,
 * for they can have no proof who wrote them,
 * nor did I let your name escape me once.
 * But I fear they may suspect from the stile,
 * and from the hair, for they took the stock from me,
 * and I have not been able to get it back from them, and that they may think of bringing you forward.
 * I have written to your father to come to me tomorrow.
 * Had you not better speak to himself tonight?
 * Destroy my letters that there may be nothing against yourself,
 * and deny having any knowledge of me further than seeing me once or twice.
 * For God's sake, write to me by the bearer one line to tell me how you are in spirits.
 * I have no anxiety, no care, about myself;
 * but I am terribly oppressed about you.
 * My dearest love, I would with joy lay down my life, but ought I to do more?
 * Do not be alarmed; they may try to frighten you; but they cannot do more.
 * God bless you, my dearest love.
 * I must send this off at once; I have written it in the dark. My dearest Sarah, forgive me.