Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) anything illicitly obtained by a confidence trickster team.

1591		Greene Notable Discovery of Coosnage in Grosart (1881–3) X 38: In Coni-catching law. The partie that taketh vp the Connie, the Setter, He that plaieth the game, the Verser He that is coosned, the Connie, He that comes in to them, the Barnackle The monie that is won, Purchase.
1607		Middleton A Trick to Catch the Old One I iii: I got the purchase, true.
1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair II iv: All the purses and purchase I give to you to-day by conveyance, bring hither to Urs’la’s presently. Here we will meet at night, in her lodge, and share.
c.1620		Fletcher False One III ii: I scorn to nourish it with such bloody purchase. / Purchase so foully got.
1638		Rowley Match at Midnight [not in 1633 1st edn] I i: A bag Of a hundred pound at least all in round shillings: Which I made my last night’s purchase from a lawyer.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 34: What I value myself mostly for, is this here purchase, a gold snuff-box [...] which I untied out of the tail of a pretty lady’s smock.
1776		in D. Herd Scot. Songs (1776) II 234: There dwells a Tod on yonder craig, And he’s a Tod of might; He lives as well on his purchase As ony laird or knight [F&H].