By W. W. Ravenhill, Mq. 



11 



mv poor children h&ye 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. But if thus it must be, and I am 

 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 all in 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 (I 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, baving 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- 5 

 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 uncle) 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 

 Akundell Peneuddock." 



She addressed the Protector as follows : — 



Peton of Mrs. Penruddock after the decease of her husband. 



" To his Highnesse the L d . Protectour of England Scotland and Ireland the 

 Humble Petition of Arundell Penruddock the Unfortunate Relict of John 

 Penruddock in behalfe of herselfe and her 7 children. 



VOL. XV. — NO. XLVIII. 



