WEE Your MAjESTIES most hum­ble Subjects being intrusted from con­siderable Parts of Your Majesties for­ces in the Kingdom of Ireland, to peti­tion Your Majesty and Your Parliament for supplies, And finding that Your Majesty had committed the care and mannaging of that Warre to Your Parlia­ment here, we addressed Our selves unto the same, whose sense of Our miseries, and Inclination to redresse [Page 2] appeared very tender unto us, but the present distem­pers of this Your Majesties Kingdom of England (to our unspeakable griefe) are grown so great, that all fu­ture Passages by which comfort and life should be con­veyed unto that gasping Kingdom, seem totally to be obstructed so that unlesse Your gracious Majesty, out of Your singular wisdom and fatherly care, apply some speedy remedy, wee Your distressed and Loyall Sub­jects of that Kingdom must inevitably perish. Our con­dition represents unto Your Majesty the estate of all Your Majesties faithfull Protestant Subjects in Ire­land, the influence of Your Princely favour & good­nesse so actively distilled upon Your Kingdome of Ire­land, before the byrth of this monstrous Rebellion there, and since the same so aboundantly expressed in Chara­cters of a deep sense, and lively resentment of the bleeding Condition thereof, gives us hope in this their deplorable extremity to addresse our selves unto Your sacred Throne, humbly beseeching, that it may please Your gratious Majesty, amongst Your other waighty cares so to reflect upon the bleeding condition of that perishing Kingdom, that timely relief may be affor­ded, otherwise Your Loyall Subjects there must yeeld their fortunes a Prey, their Lives a sacrifice, and their Religion a scorne, to the mercilesse Rebells pow­erfully [Page 3] assisted from abroad. Whilest we live we rest in your Majesties Protection, if our deaths are signed in that Cause, we will dye in Your obedience, and living and dying ever pray for Your Majesties long and prosperous Raigne over us.

THat His Majesty, since the beginning of that monstrous Rebellion, hath had no greater sorrow then for the bleeding Condition of that His Kingdome; And as He hath by all meanes labour'd that timely Reliefe might be afforded to the same, and consented to all Propositi­ons (how disadvantagious soever to Himselfe) that have been offer'd Him for that purpose, and not only at first recommended their Condition to both His Houses of Par­liament, and immediatly of His owne meere Motion sent over severall Commissions, and caus'd some Proportion of Armes and Ammunition (which the Petitioners well know to have been a great support to the Northerne Parts of that Kingdome) to be conveyed to them out of Scot­land, and offer'd to find Ten thousand Voluntiers to un­dertake that Warre, but hath often since prest by many severall Messages, that sufficient Succours might be hast­ned [Page 5] thither, and other matters of smaller Importance laid by, which did divert it, and offer'd, and most really in­tended in His owne Royall Person to have undergone the danger of that Warre, for the defence of His good Sub­jects, and the Chastisement of those perfidious and bar­barous Rebells; and in his severall Expressions of His de­sires of Treaty and Peace, hath declar'd the miserable pre­sent Condition, and certaine future losse of Ireland, to be one of His principall Motives, most earnestly to desire that the present Distractions of this Kingdom might be composed, and that others would concurre with Him to the same End; So His MAjESTY is well pleased that His Offers, Concurrence, Actions and Expressions are so rightly understood by the Petitioners, and those who have imployed them (notwithstanding the groundlesse and horrid Aspersions which have been cast upon Him:) But wishes that instead of a meere generall Complaint (to which His MAjESTY can make no Returne but of Compassion) they could have disgested, and offer'd to Him any such Desires, by consenting to which He might convey (at least in some Degree) comfort and life to that gasping Kingdom, preserve His distressed and loyall Subjects of the same from inevitably perishing, and the true Protestant Religion from being scorn'd and trampled on by these mercilesse and Idolatrous Rebells. And if the Petitioners can yet think on any such, and propose them to His MAjESTY, He assures them that by His readinesse to consent, and His Thankes to them for the Proposall, Hee will make it appeare to them, that their most pressing personall Suffering can­not [Page 6] make them more desirous of Reliefe, then his Care of the true Religion, and of His faithfull Subjects, and of that Duty which obliges Him to his Power to protect both, renders Him desirous to afford it to them.