British Royal Proclamations Relating to America, 1603-1783

1621, March 8.

[Suppressing Lotteries in Virginia.]

BY THE KING.

Whereas, at the humble suit and request of sundry Our loving and well disposed Subjects, intending to deduce a Colony, and to make a Plantation in Virginia, Wee, for the inlarging of Our Government, increase of Navigation and Trade, and especially for the reducing of the savage and barbarous people of those parts to the Christian faith, did incorporate[1] divers Noblemen, Gentlemen and others, adventurers in the sayd Plantation, and granted unto them sundry Priviledges and Liberties; amongst which, for their better helpe and assistance to raise some competent summes of money to prosecute the same Plantation to a happy end, Wee did grant them licence to set foorth, erect, and publish Lotteries, to continue for one yeere after the opening of the same, and further, during Our pleasure; which liberty hath been by the same Company put in use divers yeeres past. Now forasmuch as We are given to understand, that although Wee in granting the sayd Licence, had Our eye fixed upon a religious and Princely end and designe, yet the sayd Lotteries, having now for a long time been put in use, doe dayly decline to more and more inconvenience, to the hinderance of multitudes of Our Subjects.[2]

Wee whose care continually waiteth upon the generall welfare of Our people, have thought it expedient, for the generall good of Our Subjects, to suspend the further execution of the saide Lotteries, untill upon further deliberation and advisement, We shall be more fully informed of the inconveniences and evils thereby arising, and may ordaine due remedy for the same, without any conceit of withdrawing Our favour in any degree from the said Company or plantation, and good worke by them intended.

And therefore We doe heereby expresly charge and command the sayd Company and their successors, and all their Officers, Ministers, and Servants, and all others, That from hencefoorth they desist and forbeare, to use or execute any manner of grant or Licence from Us, for the keeping and continuing of any Lotterie, or to keepe or continue any Lotterie, within this Our Realme of England or the Dominions thereof, untill such time as Wee shall declare Our further pleasure therein. And Wee likewise require all Justices, Officers, and Ministers whatsoever, from hencefoorth, diligently and carefully to see this Our pleasure executed, and to punish the infringers thereof, as contemners of Our Royall command.

Given at Our Palace of Westminster the eighth day of March, in the eighteenth yeere of Our Reigne of Great Britaine, France and Ireland.

God save the King.

Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, and John Bill, Printers to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. M.DC.XX.

1 p. folio. Copies in Antiq., I. T., P. C., P. R. O., and Q. C.; also John Carter Brown Library.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The third charter to the Virginia Company, granted March 12, 1612, contained four clauses, sections xvi-xix, regarding the conduct of lotteries (Brown's Genesis of the United States, ii, 552).

[2] The Privy Council, upon complaint of the House of Commons, took action regarding the suspension of lotteries in Virginia on March 4, 1621 (Acts of Privy Council, Colonial, i, 39). For the general subject of lotteries in Virginia, see Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, ii, 275; Kingsbury, Records of Virginia Company, i, 93; Brown, Genesis of the United States, index; and Brown, First Republic in America, index. In the last reference, p. 394, this proclamation is incorrectly dated March 18. The proclamation is reproduced in fac-simile in Three Proclamations concerning the Lottery for Virginia, published by the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I., 1907, in which volume are also reproduced a broadside of 1613 issued by the Council for Virginia regarding the drawing of the lottery and "A Declaration for the certaine time of drawing the great standing Lottery," printed February 22, 1615 [-16].

Clyx.com