HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE  royal blazon or coat of arms  
¶ 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 We, for the enlarging 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 diverse Noblemen, Gentlemen and others, adventurers in the said Plantation, and granted unto them sundry Privileges and Liberties; amongst which, for their better help and assistance to raise some competent sums of money to prosecute the same Plantation to a happy end, We did grant them licence to set forth, erect, and publish Lotteries, to continue for one year after the opening of the same, and further, during Our pleasure; which liberty hath been by the same Company put in use diverse years past. Now forasmuch as We are given to understand, that although We in granting the said Licence, had Our eye fixed upon a religious and Princely end and design, yet the said Lotteries, having now for a long time been put in use, do daily decline to more and more inconvenience, to the hindrance of multitudes of Our Subjects.  
We whose care continually waiteth upon the general welfare of Our people, have thought it expedient, for the general good of Our Subjects, to suspend the further execution of the said Lotteries, until upon further deliberation and advisement, We shall be more fully informed of the inconveniences and evils thereby arising, and may ordain due remedy for the same, without any conceit of withdrawing Our favour in any degree from the said Company or plantation, and good work by them intended.  
And therefore We do hereby expressly charge and command the said Company and their successors, and all their Officers, Ministers, and Servants, and all others, That from henceforth they desist and forbear, to use or execute any manner of grant or Licence from Us for the keeping and continuing of any Lottery, or to keep or continue any Lottery, within this Our Realm of England or the Dominions thereof, until such time as We shall declare Our further pleasure therein. And We likewise require all justices, Officers, and Ministers whatsoever, from henceforth, diligently and carefully to see this Our pleasure executed, and to punish the infringers thereof, as contemners of Our Royal command.  
Given at Our Palace of Westminster the eighth day March, in the eighteenth year of Our Reign of Great Britain, France and Ireland. 
 God save the King.   

❧ Imprinted at London by Robert Barker; and john Bill, Printers to the Kings most Excellent Majesty. M.DC.XX.