 On 27 May 1782, lots were drawn at the Black Bear Inn, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with Asgill drawing the paper which put him under threat of execution.Asgill's fellow officer, Major James Gordon, protested in the strongest terms to both General Washington and Benjamin Lincoln, the Secretary of War, that this use of a lottery was illegal.His mother, the doughty Sarah Asgill (of French Huguenot origin), wrote to the French court, pleading for her son's life to be spared.