would never leaf again, and in a few years would decay. Through its bare branches the sunlight and air could come to the growing crops below. But the colonists saved the best of the large trees for lumber, girdling only the gnarly, twisted, and unsound ones.
Within two weeks of her arrival in September the Flora sailed again for Europe. Henry Morton with a thousand pounds avoirdupois of gold went in her. To make it appear that the gold came from Spanish America, the Flora took only part of a cargo of timber and some furs, and sailed to Cuba, where she completed her cargo with sugar and sailed for Amsterdam. Ralph Morton sent instructions to his agents to buy immediately four more ships of not less than two hundred tons each, or, if they could not be bought promptly, to charter them until that number could be bought. Five more of three hundred tons each were to be built on a model furnished by Ralph Morton himself. They were to be considerably longer and lower than the model then in vogue. Thus they would have increased capacity, would pitch less, and drift less to seaward during contrary winds. English shipbuilders were then the best in the world, and they were
