A true Copy of the Petition of the rebels IN IRELAND, Subscribed by eleven Lords, and others of quality among them; Attested to be an Exact Copy, being examined with the original by a Person of Honour there, when it was intercepted; and sent over unto two Members of the House in Letters, dated the 17th of August: 1642.  
To the Kings most Excellent majesty, The humble PETITION OF THE CATHOLIQVES OF IRELAND.  
Most Sacred and Dread sovereign,  
We your most loyal and Obedient Subjects, whom it nearest concerns to preserve the Rights and Prerogatives of Your Crown firm and entire, as yielding us a just and merciful protection against the security of our penal Laws. In maintenance of that power the birthright of Kings, kept unblemished for You by Your famous Ancestors, we have had recourse to Arms, to that end only, that You Our gracious sovereign, with all the preeminences due and derived unto You, by a long succession of Monarchs, might alone reign over us; And we in the just freedom of Subjects (Independent of any Jurisdiction not derived from Your majesty) live happily under the Crown of England. Yet lest these our intendments by the practice of our Adversaries might be misrepresented unto You, and we enforced undeservedly to suffer in Your majesty's opinion (which would be a burden more heavy unto us, than the sword of our Adversaries, although daily imbrued in the blood of our wives and children) we have often endeavoured to have access to that royal throne, which with the hazard of our Lives and Fortunes, we labour to maintain glorious and unspotted.  
Yet such is the unwearied watchfulness of our Adversaries, that all our attempts are made frustrate; And now of late when by Lieutenant colonel Read, whom therefore we employed, because a stranger to our cause and Country, and so likeliest to pass undiscovered, we sent our Petition. He poor Gentleman was intercepted, and put to the torture of the wrack, so as now it is beyond our reach, and only in Your Power to provide that we may be heard by Your majesty, since we are so unhappy as that Your majesty's resolution of coming into this Your Kingdom, met with greater diversions than the threats and menaces of the Puritan party of the Parliament of England, who seek all things to limit You our King, and to govern us Your Subjects.  
That it would therefore please Your majesty, to appoint some such way by which with safety we may approach Your royal presence, that so You may be informed truly of the whole scope of our Resolutions, and we receive faithfully Your Commands.  
And we, as our duty binds us, will ever pray for Your majesty's happy reign over us.   

London, Printed by L. N. and J. F. for F. C. August 24. 1642.