What is the connotative effect of the word distress on jefferson's tone in this letter?

below i present a summary with the most relevant aspects of chapter 2, which were taken from karangan bahasa inggeris (english essays) spm: argumentative essays.

tuna wira

credit to mohana ram murugiah.

i hope to be of

teacher smiles at the students who wait for his signal to sit down. he nods briefly and the students sit down and get ready for the lesson to start. there is an air of quiet expectancy when teacher refers to the unusual things found underneath their houses that morning. whispers of bags of rice ran among the students and a student muttered reluctantly that the rice is rent for the landlord. this starts off the discussion on the issue of paying rent for the use of the landowner’s land. da wan raises the question of why the landlord owns the land rather than the farmer although they have spent a lot of time farming it. the three reasons of labour, need and inheritance are listed as reasons for the landlord’s ownership of the land. they are discussed and dismissed as inadequate reasons. they suggested a system of collective farming to the farmers. the headmaster comes down the corridor to observe the lesson. teacher very quickly changed the lesson to a geography wesson. the students followed his cue and no one gave the slightest notice < of the headmaster ‘s presence. when the headmaster leaves, teacher explains the implications of winning the scholarship. it involves bearing respontsibilities and the scholarship holder should master what is useful and return to the village. he should understand the injustices in the present system and change it to a fairer system. then, he announces the wiimnuir of the scholarship to be dawan.