the kind I read in England.” By these remarks it would seem that neither Stow nor Maitland had seen the “Proposal” we have quoted above, which gives the reason for the lottery.
In 1586 there was another drawing, about which we are quaintly told: “A Lotterie, for marvellous rich and beautiful armor, was begunne to be drawn at London, in S. Paules churchyard, at the great west gate, (an house of timber and boord being there erected for that purpose) on St. Peter’s Day in the morning, which Lotterie continued in Drawing day and night for the space of two or three daies.”2 Of this lottery Lord Burleigh says in his diary at the end of Munden’s State Papers: “June 1586, the Lottery of Armour under the charge of John Calthorp determined.” About the year 1612 James I., “in special favour for the plantation of English colonies in Virginia, granted a lottery to be held at the west end of St Paul’s; whereof one Thomas Sharplys, a taylor of London, had the chief prize, which was four thousand crowns in fair plate.”3
A correspondent of the Gentlemen’s Magazine in 1778 gives Mr Urban some particulars regarding a lottery “held in London for the present plantation of English colonies in Virginia” in 1619. The writer says: “It may be found, perhaps, upon strict enquiry that this mode of raising money was authorized in many wealthy towns, as well as in the capital; and that it was attended with beneficial effects, not only to the colony of Virginia, but likewise to the town itself where the lottery was held. In proof of this supposition I send you the following authentic extract from the Register of charitable