FATHER PETERS HIS New-Years-Gift To My Lord Chancellor.  
My Lord,  
HAving received the sorrowful Intelligence of your Lordships late misfortune, in being Taken into Custody, I can forbear no longer to Condole the unhappy Circumstances, I am informed you lie now under; But being willing to afford your Lordship what Consolation, the promise of a Holy Fathers care over your troubled Soul, can give you, I here assure you, I have made Intercession to his Holiness, and with great difficulty have procured you a general pardon, signed with his own hand, for all those Manifold black Sins and Enormities you have been Guilty of, through the illegal Execution of that Honourable Authority, His Majesty was pleased( for your great service to the Romish Church) to confer upon you.  
And knowing 'twas the custom of your Lordship to set a-part New-Years Day for the Reception of those obscure presents, which oftentimes altered the property of a case, and made a bad cause a good one, by placing Justice on the wrong side the hedge; I have therefore thought it convenient to enclose the Pardon in this Epistle, and entreat your Lordship to accept it, as a New-Years-Gift, Sincerely intended as a Benefit to your great Soul; and to discharge you of the weight of those premeditated Crimes, which we fear double the oppression of your Lordships present calamities; I must confess there is abundance to be said in Vindication of what the World Taxes, as a great fault upon you, for who would covet to be advanced to Honourable offices of State, without a private end of making an advantage equal to its grandeur, to buoy up the desire of being still Greater, and Ambition incident to most Great Men, who have raised their Fortune like your Lordship.  
I am very much dissatisfied, to think your Lordship( being a Man accounted of so great policy, and judgement) should not take a more timely Care to secure your Person at this Juncture, than I perceive you did. And when you had made so great a step to your preservation, as to Cast Anchor privately in Rope Ally, you must be so indescreet upon a small bustle in the place, to be peeping, by which I understand you were discovered; and now according to the Old English Proverb, I fear They will make You pay for your peeping: But pray, if the Laws should deal so severely by you, as to force you to die a Martyr, and disunite a wise Noddle, from those shoulders, which have bore so many Poor Mens Curses, and Rich Mens Slanders: let me entreat you to die with a Good Courage, for you shall only call at Purgatory for fashions sake, and continue short time e're our Prayers shall convey you to a place( if the Curses of the people of England prevent not) where you shall enjoy the full of those blessings laid up by the Church, for such Worthy Agents as your Lordship: Being the Care of him, who remains till Death.( which I fear will meet you in a short time)  
Your Lordships assured Friend and Servant. P.