

By W. W. Ravenhill, Esq. mee 
my poor children have some of your blood in their veins, and although it be 
only mine and their misery that they should (as without your help they must) 
fall into poverty, yet will it not be mine and their disgrace alone, but that more 
of their dishonour will be distributed abroad with their blood. Sith my husband’s 
crime be as great as the punishment he hath suffered for it, yet what have my 
poor children done? What could 7 poor fatherless children do that scarce discern 
betwixt the right hand or the left ? methink (good uncle) the blood that was so 
untimely poured out of his veins is enough to cool the thirst of the Sword of 
Justice, and if it were not, yet the tears of a widdow, and of so many fatherless 
children incessantly spent upon that subject were enough to keep the edge of it 
from piercing to the very roots of the family, and cutting us off from having a 
name (unless a dishonorable one) upon earth. Butif thus it must be, and lam 
informed it is, I beseech you, uncle, that you will set before you all the motives 
to compassion, which have ever drawn tears to pity or hand to help destitute 
souls, and to believe they meet allin me. I confess I do not merit so great a 
‘favour from you, yea, the only argument I can offer you is the sad consequence 
of the crime, which I am sure offended you, viz.: misery. But as I have not 
formerly left your goodness unexperienced on such like occasions, so cannot I 
chuse but hope that you will be my refuge now; now in a time wherein I have 
such a dearth of friends, and plenty of enemies, some whereof (1 trust) have 
buried their enmity to us in the blood of my husband and therefore may be the 
more easily reconciled to bestow on us this only good that they can do us, that 
mercy may leave us bread to eat as well as justice, having given us plenty of tears 
to drink; think with yourself (Good uncle), that you heard a voice from the 
ashes of my dead father and mother bespeaking your assistance of their daughter, 
who, tho’ she might justly be denied, yet I am sure they cannot [but] be re- 
ceived by you. But God forbid that I should think that you needed the pressure 
of some from the dead ere you would help the fatherless and widow to whom 
your bond of Christian Religion engageth all that profess it, though it were 
not to them who are (and I hope you think so) of your household of faith, I 
shall, therefore humbly crave your pardon for my passionate solicitation of you, 
as springing rather from my weakness than your inexorableness, fearing I might 
like to see that day wherein my children might seek bread out of a desolate 
place, even under their own mother’s roof. 
_I beseech you, therefore, (dear unele) to have in your eye the reward prepared 
for the merciful man which that God hath promised, who will go himself before 
_ you, whilst you are a father of the fatherless and defender of the cause of the 
widow, from whom I acknowledge to have received all the evil I have suffered, 
as well as all the good that may descend by yours or the hand of any other friend, 
on her that must wear an indelible mark of unhappiness the [as her] title. 
Dear uncle 
Your disconsolate dutiful niece 
ARUNDELL PENRUDDOCK.” 
She addressed the Protector as follows :— 
Peton of Mrs. Penruddock after the deceuse of her husband. 
“To his Highnesse the L, Protectour of England Scotland and Ireland the 
Humble Petition of Arundell Penrnddock the Unfortunate Relict of John 
Penruddock in behalfe of herselfe and her 7 children. 
VOL, XV.—NO. XLVIII. D 
