In a letter addressed to the Governors of the Hospital, Pearce argued the point in a very serious and connected manner. "If," said he, in allusion to some of the witnesses, who at various times had stated they felt his bedding and found it dry, "the simple act of placing one's hand upon a damp bed, or even the immediate impression on a man's body when he gets into it, was infallible, how could it occur so frequently that travellers at times are crippled with rheumatism, or lose their lives by remaining all night in damp bedding? If the thing was so easily discoverable, no man of common understanding could be injured by such a proceeding or accident at inns. "Technically speaking, the matter of which I complain is not a delusion; it is an allegation--a positive charge, susceptible of proof, if proper evidence could be brought to bear upon the fact, not warped or suborned by the man or men in whose power I hourly am. It would be a sad delusion for me to declare my bed was composed of straw instead of flocks, or that I was a prophet, or the Pope, or Sir Astley Cooper. I grant I have no such crotchets. My mind is perfectly sound, calm, and reflective; and I implore you to consider well the distinction between the things which cannot in nature physically be and the things which can physically be. It is a vital one in my sad case. "It may be told you, I have charged persons elsewhere with this atrocity of damping my bed. I have done so. At the private madhouse, near Uxbridge, whence I was brought here, my bed was kept almost wet for three months, and I only saved my life by sleeping on a large trunk, with my daily articles of dress to cover me. Some portion of this time, the cold was eight and ten degrees below freezing-point." He then solicited that a lock might be put upon his cell-door to protect him from this annoyance; and concluded his letter with this appeal: "I beseech you to commiserate my hard lot. I have some little claim to the title of a gentleman, and have been estimated by persons of some consideration in society; I am now, by a wretched chain of circumstances, in a great prison hospital, dragged from my children and my home, and the comforts of social life, and doomed to herd with desperadoes against the State, the destitute, and the mad."