THat this your Kingdome reduced with a vast ex­pence of Treasure, and much effusion of Brittish blood, to the obedience of the Imperiall Crowne of England, hath beene by the Princely care of Your Royall Progenitors, especially of Queene Elizabeth, and of Your Royall Father of ever bles­sed memory, and Your sacred Majesty, in many parts happily planted, great sums of Money disbursed in buildings and improve­ments, Churches edified and endowed, and frequented with mul­titudes of good Protestants, and your Customs and Revenues rai­sed to great yeerly summes by the industry of the Protestant Sub­jects especially, and great yeerly summes by way of Subsidies and Contributions cheerfully paid unto. Your Majestie by Your said Subjects; in which happinesse this Your said Kingdom hath flouri­shed in a long continued Peace, and under Your Highnesse most glo­rious and happy government, untill that by the present Conspiracy [Page 4]and Rebellion raised out of detestation of Your blessed government, and for rooting out of the Protestant Religion, and so for the dis­possessing of Your Majesty of this Your said Kingdome, without the least occasion offered by Your Majesty or Your Protestant Sub­jects. And notwithstanding that Your Majestie immediately before had inla [...]ged, beyond president, Your Royall favour and bounty to them, in g [...]anting all that their and our joynt Agents did desi [...]e of Your Majestie. And we continuing amongst them in all love and amitie, wi [...]hout distrust; Your Petitioners and others, who laboured to oppose those damnable designes and practices, have beene driven from their Dwellings, Estates and Fortunes, their Houses and Chur­ches burnt and demolished, all Monuments of civility defaced ut­terly, Your Majesties Forts and places of strength throwne downe, and the Common and S [...]atute Lawes of this Your Kingdome utterly confounded, by taking upon themselves the exercise of all manner of Authority and Jurisdiction Ecclesi [...]sticall and Civill both by Land and Sea, proper and peculiar to Your sacred Majestie, being Your just Prerogatives, and the royall Flowers of Your Imperiall D [...]adem, to the disherison of Your Crowne and Revenues brought to nothing, and the Protestant Clergy, wi [...]h their Revenues and Support, for the present destroyed. This Your Kingdome in all parts, formerly inhabited in all parts by Brittish Protestants, now depopulated of them, and many thousands of Your Protestant Subjects most barbarously used, stripped naked, tortured, famished, hanged, buried alive, drowned, and otherwise by all barbarous cru­ell sorts of death murdered. Such as yet remaine of them are redu­ced to that extremity, that very few of them have wherewith all to maintaine a being, and all of them so terrified and afflicted with these barbarous and inhumane cruelties (the true reports whereof being now spread abroad into the Christian world) Your Suppliants conceive feare that Your Majesties Brittish Subjects will be discou­raged from comming againe to inhabit this Kingdome, and the remnant of the Brittish left here will be inforced to depart. All this being done by the Conspiracy of the Papists, who did publikely declare the utter extirpation of the Protestant Religion, and all the Brittish Professors thereof, out of this Your Majesties Kingdome. And to the end it may the better appeare in some measure, Your Sup­pliants have made choice of Captaine William Ridgeway, Sir Francis [Page 7]Hambleton Knight and Baronet. Captaine Michael Iones, and Master Fenton Parsons, whom they have imployed and authorized as their Agents, to manifest the truth thereof in such particulars as for the present they are furnished withall, referring the more ample manife­station to Cap. Wil. Ridgeway, Fr. Hambleton, Michael Iones, and Fen­ton Parsons, or any 3 or more of them, or any such other agents as shall with all convenient speed be sent as occasion shall require, to attend Your Majesty, from Your Protestant Subjects of the severall Provinces of this Your Kindome.

Wee therefore Your Majesties most humble loyall and obedient Protestant Subjects, casting downe our selves at Your Royall feete, and flying to You for redresse, and Sutors in these our great cala­mities, as our most gratious Soveraigne Lord and King; And next and immediate under Almighty God, our Protector and Defence: most humbly beseeching Your Sacred Majesty to admit into Your Royall Presence, from time to time our sayd Agents; And in Your great Wisdome to take into Your great care and considera­tion the distressed estates, and humble desires of your said subjects, so that the glory of God, Your Majesties Honour, and the happi­nesse of Your Subjects, the Protestant Religion may be restored throughout the whole Kingdome to its Iustre. That the losses of Your Protestant Subjects may be repaired in such manner, and mea­sure as Your Majesty in Your Princely Wisdome shall thinke fit. And that this Kingdom may be so setled, as that your said Protestant Subjects may hereafter live therein under the happy govern­ment of Your Majesty and Your Royall posterity with comtort and security; whereby Your Majesty will render Your selfe through­out the whole World, a most just and glorious defender of the Protestant Religion, and draw downe a blessing on all other Your Royall undertakings, for which Your Petitioners will ever pray, &c.