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.