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—

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{{c|
{{xxx-larger|ARISTOPIA}}
{{dhr|5}}
{{bl|A Romance-History of the New World}}
{{dhr|5}}
{{asc|By}}
 
{{x-larger|{{uc|[[Author:Castello N. Holford|Castello N. Holford]]}}}}
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[[File:Arena Publishing Company logo (1895).jpg|75px|center]]
{{dhr|5}}
BOSTON
 
{{larger|ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY}}
 
{{sc|Copley Square}}
 
1895
}}

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{{c|
{{sc|Copyrighted, 1895, by [[Author:Castello Holford|C. N. HOLFORD]]}}
{{rule|5em}}
{{smaller|''All Rights Reserved.''}}
}}

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{{sc|Books}} giving us a history of the future—a future bright with the millennial dawn of the optimist or dark with the goblin-haunted night of the pessimist—books in French, with a future French and fantastic, and books in English, with a future Anglo-Saxon and matter-of-fact—are much in vogue. But of books giving a history of the past as it might have been if the current of events had been turned at a critical point by some man with sufficient virtue and mental power, combined with the power which some fortunate material circumstance might have given him, I know not one./begin/

Alas for the world that the makers of history who have had the greatest powers combined with the greatest opportunities have been men whose selfish aims have made their utmost efforts recoil in ruin on their own heads!

Washington, indeed, had great virtues, a great opportunity, and good talents; but neither was his opportunity the greatest that

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history has furnished, nor his mental power so vast, nor his vision of the future so far-reaching and clairvoyant as that of many who have lived before him and since, nor was his devotion to the welfare of mankind so ardent and all-absorbing.

The "Fathers of the Constitution" have been much praised for their wisdom and foresight, and with justice; but there have been men with no opportunities like theirs who were able to look much farther into the future, and who were much more in advance of their age. There were evils which the leaders of the Revolution ought to have foreseen and probably did not, and others they may have foreseen but had no power to avert.

Their power was limited, and the materials with which they had to work were refractory. Old evils were so deeply imbedded in the customs, prejudices, and thoughts of men when our government was forming that the influence of a Washington, a Jefferson, and an Adams would have striven in vain to eradicate them. Then, too, there were evils of which they could have had no conception. They could not have foreseen the application of steam-power to transportation and manufacturing,

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making a few men of great wealth as much the lords of the great highways as were the robber barons of the Middle Ages, with their castles in every mountain pass and on every river ford, taking ruinous toll of every traveler; and the owners of vast "plants" of machinery as absolutely lords of the workmen who attend the machines and the greater number who are displaced by the machines as ever the feudal baron was lord of the serfs and villeins on his estates. Even if they had foreseen these evils it is hard to see how they could have prevented them; they came too late; their power was too small.

And from these evils it has come that this great republic of the new world, so long the hope of the poor and oppressed of the old world, is fast becoming like Europe socially, and threatens to become even worse than Europe. Now, when the bounties of nature, which a little while ago seemed exhaustless, have been all appropriated, this favored land presents the most violent contrasts of wealth with its pitiless power, and poverty with its abject weakness. The disinherited begin to feel their doom: their blind and hopeless but strong and desperate struggles against that doom have already

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begun in wasting strikes and bloody riots; and at every new outburst the wave of fire and blood spreads wider and rises higher.

We reproach the nations of Europe with their millions of armed men, but those millions are levied to repel the invasion of foreign foes. In our land it is hardly a secret that the millions of militia are mustering and drilling for the principal purpose of suppressing insurrection against the plutocracy by the "lower classes"—the laboring class of our own citizens. In every American city are rising the castles of the plutocracy in the shape of great armories for the militia.

But why, some may ask, should we turn from a future thus dark and threatening, to look vainly on a past which might have been, but which, alas! never was? Well, I could never quite agree with the philosophy of Whittier's oft-quoted couplet:

{{ppoem|class=poem|
{{fqm}}Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: It might have been."
}}

or Dante's despairing cry of a lost soul:

{{ppoem|class=poem|
:{{fqm}}Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarse del tempo felice
Nella miseria."
}}

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(There is no greater grief than memory of happy' days in misery; or, as the hero of [[Author:Alfred Tennyson|Tennyson]]'s "[[Locksley Hall]]" paraphrases it, "a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.") Not so. It is a relief and a solace, a pleasure, although a mournful one, in the misery that is, to contemplate the happiness that was or might have been. Then, too, the looking back upon the parting of the ways which led us from happiness to misery may teach us to look forward to the parting of the ways which may lead from misery to happiness. Studying the opportunities which we have lost may teach us to grasp the opportunities which are to come.

Let us, then, take what pleasure we may in figuring a man of great wisdom, foresight, and genius, with an unselfish devotion to the welfare of humanity, placed with immense power at the parting of the ways in the course of human events, seizing the opportunity to turn the march of bewildered and struggling humanity into the path leading up and away from the dangerous marshes over which dance the deluding ''ignes fatui'' of ancient errors, and under which lie the black quagmires of antique evils. Thus to contemplate the past which might have

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been may in some small measure teach us to discern in the future the opportunity, to seize which—if there be no one man with sufficient wisdom, power, and virtue—there may be found a combination of men whose aggregate wisdom, power, and virtue may be sufficient to turn the march of events out of the night of civilization's destruction which some prophets see close ahead, into the brighter day foreseen by the seers of the Millennium.

I cannot afford, as some greater story-tellers have calmly and confidently done, to ignore the possibilities, not to mention the probabilities. But, some may say, your story of the mass of gold is an utter impossibility. Not so. That such a mass of gold has never been found is true; that it does not exist and cannot be discovered by no means follows. If the theory is true that the surface of the earth was once molten and liquid, the gold, by its immense weight, must have sunk below the lighter elements so far that when the crust of the earth became solid it could have come to the surface only by means of an eruption from a great depth. That the amount of gold in the whole globe is so small, in comparison with the rest of the materials, as seems from the

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amount found upon the surface is not at all probable. In the depths of the earth are probably hundreds of thousands of cubic miles of gold. An eruption from so great a depth as to throw up a few hundred cubic feet of gold in a single mass would be by no means a marvel; and a few hundred cubic feet of gold, although of almost incalculable value, would be of trifling bulk compared with the mass of lighter materials thrown out at every volcanic eruption.

The region in which this narrative locates the mine contains numerous quartz dikes in which some gold has been found.

The world has had many men with even greater virtues, clearer foresight, and more entire devotion to the good of humanity than have been ascribed to Ralph Morton. That the opportunity of a new continent on which a new civilization could be wrought out existed three hundred years ago is a matter of history. Given then, the man, the means, and the opportunity, the natural result would be as follows:

—10

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{{sc|On}} a blustering December day in 1607 a ship was working its way up the James River in Virginia. It was the English ship Sea Gull, Captain Christopher Newport, bringing what was called the "First Supply" to the infant colony at Jamestown, planted seven months before.

Seventy new colonists swarmed the decks of the vessel, their gaze eagerly bent forward to discover their goal, the little cluster of cabins over which floated the red cross flag of England, now visible far away up the river.

A strong northerly wind was blowing, hurrying the broken cloud-rack across the sky. It was the remains of a gale which had swept the coast the day before, when the Sea Gull and her consort, the Phœnix, were striving to

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get between the capes of the Chesapeake. The Sea Gull succeeded, but the Phœnix was ill built to work to windward, the wind being somewhat westerly, and she was driven back and had to bear off to sea to escape the dangerous coast which stretches far southward from Cape Henry. But now the wind had veered to a few points east of north and the Sea Gull was making fair headway. Soon her passengers could see every detail of the little village: the twenty-five or thirty log cabins thatched with reeds; the stockade inclosing the village; the dark, leafless forest behind; the bare spots on the river bank white with snow (for it was an unprecedentedly severe winter), and the throng of people on the bank eagerly awaiting the arrival of the ship with every demonstration of joy.

Arrived in front of the village, the sails were reefed and the anchor was dropped. The ship swung in almost against the bank, so much deeper was the water then than now, when the mud from the plowed fields has been washing in for nearly three centuries. So near she lay that with her boats and some planks a bridge was formed from the ship to the shore and lines were run out from stem and

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stern, and fastened to trees on the bank as moorings for the vessel.

Captain Newport went ashore and was immediately shaking hands with his friends and members of the council. Before he set foot on the shore he became aware that some evil cloud was overshadowing the little colony which he had left in fair circumstances six months before. Although the men were shouting and tossing their hats with joy, it was rather the joy of prison-worn captives at the opening of their dungeon doors than anything else he could think of. Then, too, there were not half so many as he expected. He hoped the rest were away at work in the woods, but he feared not.

As soon as possible he sought out one of the council, a stalwart man with a rough, heavy beard and a face browned and seamed by a life of exposure and warfare in all four quarters of the globe—in short, Captain John Smith—to learn what had passed in the colony since his departure. Newport and Smith were both members of the council, and as such had never agreed; but, although Newport was vain and incompetent and jealous of Smith, he knew the latter was honest and competent and would tell

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him truly how things had gone in his absence. And the story came straight and blunt from the mouth of the old soldier:

When the ships had departed for England the colonists had been reduced to live on boiled wheat and barley, mouldy and wormy from "frying twenty-six weeks in the ship's hold," as Smith said; for the voyage out—of a piece with the folly of the whole enterprise—had been made by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, and they had loitered months in the tropical waters of those islands. No well had been dug, and the water of the river was warm, brackish, and impure with vegetable matter. The site of the settlement was a low bank, the highest part no more than twelve feet above the river, and surrounded with marshes, so that in warm weather the night air was always laden with deadly malaria. One of the council, Bartholomew Gosnold (the first English seacaptain who had sense enough to sail straight across the Atlantic from England to Virginia), had strongly opposed the chosen site, well knowing the danger of malaria, of which he was among the first to perish. He had favored a location on a high bank twenty miles below Jamestown. Smith, being under arrest at the

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time, could not aid Gosnold in his protest. Their president, the vain, foolish, cowardly, jealous, greedy, selfish, and otherwise contemptible Wingfield, had weighed like an incubus on the colony for months, as Smith then said and afterward wrote, "ingrossing to his private, Oatmeale, Sacke, Oyle, Aquavitæ, Beefe, Egges, or what not," leaving the others to starve. At last the endurance of the colonists was worn out, and they deposed Wingfield and elected John Ratcliffe president; but the latter was little better than King Log. They lived on fish and crabs until September, when they managed to get some corn from the Indians. Instead of arriving in time to clear fields and plant crops in the spring and raise some provisions as they had expected, by ill luck and folly combined they were five months upon the voyage, consuming their provisions. Nearly all the men were unused to labor, and the necessary work in building their houses and planting their stockade in such a burning sun as they had never seen in England had broken them down. Then chills and fever from malaria and bowel complaints from bad food and water seized upon them and carried off more than half their number. Death had been more certain

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because many of them had for years lived dissipated and reckless lives. From the incompetence of the rest of the council Smith had to bear the brunt of everything. When he was at the settlement he was constantly urging the lazy fellows, who had never before done a day's manual labor, to the rude toil, always taking the heavy end of every task himself. Much of the time he was away, striving to get corn from the Indians. Returning from one of these expeditions, he found Wingfield and Kendall, another of the council, with some others, about to desert with the pinnace, a little vessel of twenty tons which had been left for the use of the colonists. Smith promptly fired upon them with cannon and muskets, killing Kendall and forcing the others to return or be sunk in the river. With the approach of winter the rivers were swarming with wild geese and ducks, which, with the Indian corn, gave the colonists good fare. Not satisfied, the council began to tax Smith with being slow to discover the head of the Chickahominy River. What they wanted with the head of that river it is hard to tell; but Smith, to satisfy them, set out to find it. Venturing too far alone, he was captured by the Indians and

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held prisoner six or seven weeks. By his courage and address he not only saved his life, but was enabled to obtain his freedom and greatly enhance his reputation and influence among the savages, much to the advantage of the colony. He had just returned from this captivity when the ship returned from England. On his return he found that things had gone very badly in his absence.

"And now, Captain Newport," said Smith in conclusion, "what sort of fellows have you brought us this time? Good, stout, honest laborers and mechanics, or, like the first lot, jail-birds and gentlemen, most of the latter little more honest and a good deal more lazy than the former?"

"Not what I could wish, I must confess," said Newport. "I fear too many of them are unruly gallants packed off by their relatives to escape ill destinies at home."

And so, to the misfortune of the colony, they were.

Among the seventy passengers streaming across that improvised bridge from the ship to the shore, eager to press foot upon the soil of the new world, was one who will soon become the central figure of this narrative. His name

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was Ralph Morton. He was hardly twenty years old, of medium size but strongly built and, unlike too many of those immigrants, with a constitution not undermined by any vice.

He was the fourth son of a Kentish gentleman who had been killed in the war with Spain about the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. His home was near the mouth of the Thames. Having in early childhood shown a great aptitude for learning, it was intended that he should be a physician. He had learned all that could be taught in the village school and from such tutors as could be obtained in his native village. His father's death left his mother in such straitened circumstances that she could not send him to college, so he was sent to London to live with his brother-in-law and pick up what learning he could from the libraries to which he had access and from such occasional tutoring as he could get. This brother-in-law, a native of Ralph's village, had married Ralph's only sister (several years older than Ralph) before he had determined to convert his country property into money and abandon the dull and unprofitable life of a country gentleman for the career of a London merchant, although in that

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age a gentleman was considered as losing caste by "going into trade."

Ralph learned Latin quickly, but he had little taste for Greek and spent little time upon it. The education of that time in England consisted almost altogether of the languages and theology. To the latter Ralph had a great aversion, and avoided it entirely. Most of the books of that age in the English language were devoted to theological controversy. The bulk of what Ralph considered worth knowing was in Latin, French, and Italian. There were also many valuable books of travel in the Spanish language which Ralph desired to read. With a good knowledge of Latin, enough French, Spanish, and Italian to enable him to read fluently was quickly learned. He could find about London enough Huguenot refugees and Spanish sailors from whom to learn the spoken French and Spanish. Thus equipped, he read everything he could find in the way of history, travels and natural {{SIC|science|science.}} The sciences, even mathematics, were then at a very low ebb in England, and little taught. Even the great Bacon was ignorant of geometry. But Ralph found a Genoese tutor in London, and made good progress in mathematics and astronomy.
{{nop}}

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Finally, being overcome with that irresistible desire for adventure which often seizes upon even the most studious of youths, he had become an emigrant to Virginia.

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{{sc|Captain Newport}} was not only a member of the colonial council, but as the medium of communication between the Virginia Company in London and the council at Jamestown he enjoyed particular importance. Even Captain Smith, so imperious with the rest, deferred much more to Newport than to the president of the council, and represented him to the Indians as his "father."

Newport very much desired to conciliate the great chief of that region, whom the English called King Powhatan. By the way, the name Powhatan was not only the name of the chief, but the Indian name for the whole region and its inhabitants, and for the river which the English called the James.

Newport did not like Smith's masterful way of acquiring ascendency over the Indians, but thought liberal and ostentatious presents the best way. Immediately on his arrival he sent by messenger some presents to Powhatan, and

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as soon as the pinnace could be got ready in a style to suit his ideas he set out to visit the great chief, taking with him Captain Smith and Matthew Scrivener (who had just come over and had immediately been elected a member of the council), and a party of forty men, of whom Ralph Morton was one.

Powhatan's residence was at Werowocomoco, on the Pamunky River (since called the York), only twelve miles from Jamestown overland, but Newport concluded to go by water. Arrived near the Indian town, Newport's heart failed him as he thought of trusting himself among the warriors of the redoubtable chief. Smith, to reassure him, landed with twenty men (among them Morton) and proceeded to Powhatan's village, which was some distance from the river. There were some small but deep and miry creeks to cross, over which the Indians had made frail bridges composed of poles laid in crotches stuck in the mire. These Smith suspected to be traps, but was reassured by making some of his Indian guides go over them first.

Arrived at the village, two or three hundred savages conducted the Englishmen into Powhatan's presence. The chief had arranged his

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greatest pomp for the occasion. He was seated on a bed of mats with a leather pillow embroidered with pearls and heads made of bits of shell. He was attired in a robe of furs. At each side close by him sat one of the fairest of his harem, and farther away twenty of his women, their faces and arms stained red with pocone root, and about their necks great chains of shell beads. As an emblem of his hospitality, forty wooden platters, full of cornbread, were arranged in two rows, one on each side of the door. Powhatan caused a proclamation to be made that on pain of death none was to molest any of his guests. The acquaintance begun between Smith and the chief during the former's captivity was renewed in a long conversation. Then the chief entertained his guests with the dancing and barbarous dramatic performances of his women, and with a feast, and gave them lodging for the night.

The next day Newport, being informed that all was well, came ashore. The party spent three or four days at the place. Usually the Indian chiefs would not allow their men to trade with the whites until they, the chiefs, had done their trading, but this time Powhatan

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would not trade until the last. Then he said to Newport, through Smith as interpreter:

"It does not befit my greatness to haggle with you about each separate trifle. Lay all your goods in a heap, and I will take what pleases me and give you what I think it is worth."

"A right royal trader is this," said Smith, with a twinkle of the eye. "He will please himself, I assure you, but the trade he will make you will little pleasure or advantage ''you.'' Rather put the boot on the other leg. Tell the cunning old rascal to measure out twenty hogsheads of corn and you will give him such trinkets as you think is right."

"Nay, nay," said Newport. "Rather let us outbrave the barbarian with the greatness of our generosity, and so bewitch him with our bounty as we may have what we list of his."

"Not at all," said Smith. "You will find the savage's desire unsatiable. You will give him such a conceit of himself as will make him think himself everything and us nothing."

But Newport gave the chief his way, and the latter helped himself liberally to the English goods, and gave in return about four bushels of corn.
{{nop}}

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Newport, who had expected enough to supply his whole colony, looked aghast.

"Corn were better cheap in Spain," said Smith, dryly.

Then, as if carelessly, he let the chief see some bright blue beads, and in answer to the chief's inquiry informed him that such ornaments were only for great kings, and that he would not part with them, as he wanted to keep them for the kings of the Monacans and Massawomeks, mortal enemies of the Powhatans. In the end the old chief became so determined to have the beads that he gave about two hundred and fifty bushels of corn for them.

Leaving Powhatan, Newport's party visited Opechankanough, Powhatan's brother, who ruled over the Pamunkies, and supplied him and his harem with these royal blue beads for a large amount of corn, and then returned to Jamestown with their supply.

The new corners were quartered in the cabins with the first settlers, whose number had been so thinned by death. For a while they were quite comfortable, in spite of the extreme cold weather. But one night some of the roystering gallants got to throwing firebrands around, and set fire to one of the thatched roofs. In a

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few minutes the little village was in a raging conflagration. Every house was burned, and the stockade was destroyed in many places. Some even lost their bedding in the confusion. Ralph Morton was well supplied with blankets, and had presence of mind enough to get them out of the burning cabin, and to carry them and his little chest down to the water's edge to escape the intense heat. But his little shelf of books was destroyed. The chaplain of the colony, Mr. Robert Hunt, had a considerable library, which was destroyed, to his great grief, and not a little to Ralph's sorrow, as the good parson was almost as much pleased to loan the books to Ralph as to use them himself. Fortunately, most of the corn remained still in the pinnace, and most of the stores in the ship, or the colony would soon have starved outright.

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{{sc|With}} as much promptness as possible Captain Smith (the rest of the council seeming paralyzed by the catastrophe) got the men at work to rebuild the houses and palisade. Chopping was new and at first very severe work for Ralph, but he was wise enough not to overwork till he was somewhat inured to the toil. His hands soon became so stiff and blistered that each morning when he grasped his axhandle anew it seemed that the torture was more than he could bear. There were two young gallants of the "first supply," whose jeweled fingers had never held anything rougher than a bridle-rein and were much more dexterous with cards than with any useful tool. Almost every blow these fellows dealt with their smarting hands was accompanied with an oath. Captain Smith, although bred in camps, being a man who had religion much at heart, was much offended at this profanity, and at last told the offenders that for

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every oath they should have a can of cold water poured down their sleeves. He carried out his threat, or at least a part of it, and the two gallants swore no more above their breath. In a few weeks, such was their spirit, they became pretty fair woodsmen, and loved almost as much to make the tall trees come thundering down as in England they had loved to ride to the death of the fox. But there were few of their spirit among that band. Ralph was industrious and determined, but he had not the high and reckless spirit of the two gallants.

At first the shelterless men suffered much at night from the cold. Ralph and a chosen comrade, out of work hours, soon constructed a shelter of brush, and provided a good bed of leaves gathered in the woods. They had to watch closely to keep their blankets from being stolen.

Toward spring a bed of sand heavily charged with powdered iron pyrites was discovered near the village. The glittering stuff was supposed to be gold, and immediately the little colony went wild. Fortunately their cabins had been rebuilt or they would have neglected that necessary task to gather gold. There were three or four of the "first supply" who

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had come out as refiners, and these were the craziest of the lot. There was no talk but of digging gold, washing gold, refining gold, and loading gold. There were only two men in the community whose heads were not turned. They were Smith and Morton. The latter had learned something about minerals, and pronounced the stuff sulphuret of iron, much to the disgust of the self-styled refiners.

Captain John Martin, one of the council, was the discoverer of the "mine," and the leader of the gold-liunters. One day Smith broke out upon him:

"I tell you, man, I am tormented as never before to see all necessary business neglected to load your crazy ship with this gilded dirt. I applaud not your golden inventions; not because you do not admit me to a sight of your trials and golden consultations,—you and these loud-mouthed refiners, who I doubt ever refined anything,—but because in all this time they have not been able to show me a more substantial token, and turn out something which looks as if it might make a sovereign or a golden ring, instead of mere dross. I am not enamored of such dirty skill."

At last the ship was laden with the glitter-

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ing dust, and fourteen weeks after her arrival she departed. With her departed two of the council, Wingfield and Archer, who had arrogated to themselves a number of pompous titles, but were despised by the colonists, who gladly saw them go.

Through Newport's sloth, the ship had lain so long that her crew had eaten up a large part of what was intended for the colonists. Smith had been a careful trader with the Indians, but Newport was a reckless prodigal, and loaded them with gifts until they scorned to give anything in trade. But before this the sailors and soldiers had been allowed to trade freely with the Indians, and they embezzled much of the stores in illicit traffic. Some favorite of the company had set up a tavern for the sale of victuals and drink, and, as one colonist wrote home: "Those that had either money, spare clothes, or credit to give bills of paiment, gold rings, furrs, or any such commodities were ever welcome to this removing tavern, and we might buy our owne provisions at 15 times the value." This tavern seems to have much resembled the sutler tent of a modern army.

Smith and Scrivener did their best, but the

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majority of the council seemed possessed by the demon of folly, and overruled all wise counsels. Through exposure while houseless, but much more through their folly and recklessness, nearly half of the colonists died between the arrival of the Sea Gull and that of the Phœnix.

Ralph Morton, by his prudent care of himself, kept in good health. The colonists were made to labor on the public works only six hours a day, and Ralph soon became inured to this. Much of his spare time was spent in learning the language of the Powhatans. He first learned what he could from Captain Smith, and especially that key to learning of those who understand nothing of the learner's language, the question, "What do you call this?" in the Powhatan language, "{{lang|pim|Kakatorawines yowo?}}" Then he took for his teacher an Indian boy whom Powhatan had given as hostage to Newport on the latter's visit to Werowocomoco. This boy's name was Namontack, and he was a shrewd and intelligent fellow.

The colonists succeeded in getting about thirty acres cleared and planted in good season with Indian corn. Near the end of cornplanting the Phœnix arrived, bringing about

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fifty new immigrants. When she had parted eompany with her consort off the capes she had been blown far southward and had put into a port of the West Indies for repairs. Being in bad condition, these repairs took considerable time, but she reached Jamestown without the loss of a man. Her arrival cheered the unfortunate colony considerably. Captain Martin desired to lade this ship with his supposed gold, but Smith prevailed and had her loaded with cedar.

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{{sc|On}} the second of June, 1608, the Phœnix left Jamestown for England, taking with her John Smith and a party of fourteen men (among them Ralph Morton), who went to explore the Chesapeake by order of the Company, who hoped to find a passage to the South Sea.

At the capes of the Chesapeake Captain Smith's party left the Phœnix and set out on their voyage in an open barge of three tons, rigged with a mast and sail. They sailed up the eastern side of the bay, first visiting the Indian village of Accomac, where they were very kindly treated. While exploring some little islands in the bay they were caught in a violent storm of thunder and lightning, with such gusts of wind that they were well-nigh shipwrecked.

Returning to the eastern shore of the bay, they put into a little river called Wighcocomoco to obtain fresh water. As they came near the

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shore the savages gathered on the banks with demonstrations of furious hostility, but in a little while became very friendly. The water found there was muddy, warm, and brackish, and far from refreshing. However, the party filled their water-vessels with it and set off to visit some small islands in the bay.

Again a violent storm burst upon them with such a gust of wind that their sail was rent and their mast carried overboard. Managing with difficulty to land on one of the little islands, hardly more than a mud bank, they were forced by a remarkable succession of storms to remain two days. Smith called the little group of islands "Limbo," as being something between purgatory and the infernal regions. Such a name applied by an old campaigner inured to all hardships is very suggestive of what the party endured during those two days. They utilized the time to some extent by patching up their sail with such parts of their shirts as they could spare with least inconvenience.

Sailing back to the mainland on the eastern shore of the bay, the party entered the little river Cuskarawaok. There they found the natives so persistently hostile that Captain

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Smith ordered his men to give them a volley. Some of the savages were apparently wounded, and their consternation was great. They tumbled into the grass and wriggled away like snakes.

Going ashore, Captain Smith and his party entered some of the houses of the natives and left there some small pieces of copper, some beads, and two or three little bells. This combination of bullets and presents seemed to have a mollifying effect on the savages, as the next day they were very friendly, crowding around Smith and his men, and offering them all sorts of services. All the Indians encountered on this voyage told the whites about the Massawomeks, a fierce and powerful tribe who dwelt beyond the mountains to the west, but made numerous forays upon the Indians of the tidewater region, carrying off many women as captives. They importuned Smith to assist them in driving off the Massawomeks, and Smith promised to do so after he had attended to some other matters. The natives of the low country about the Wighcocomoco were small and low of stature.

The water was so poor on the eastern side of the bay that Captain Smith determined to

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cross over to the western side, the bold shores of which could be dimly seen through the haze of distance, low upon the horizon. They found the western shore rough and barren, but with plenty of good water. Sailing up this shore, they came to a broad estuary, the mouth of a navigable river, which Smith called the Bolus, from the resemblance of the earth on its banks to a drug then in use for making a bolus. This river was afterward called the Patapsco.

The explorers were detained here three days by bad weather and strong north winds. Their bread had been wet during storms they had encountered, when their boat was at times nearly tilled with water. They had no luck in killing game, and had neglected to bring along any kind of apparatus for catching fish. The bad and scanty food and the exposure to the storms in their little open boat caused several of the men to fall sick. Nearly all of them importuned Captain Smith to return to Jamestown. Ralph Morton, still well, cheerful, and courageous, was almost alone in sustaining the captain in the resolution to push on and complete their explorations of the bay. Smith strongly objected to returning. He reminded

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his men how the company of Ralph Lane, in their explorations of the Roanoke River, had urged their leader to go forward, saying that they had still a dog, which, boiled with sassafras leaves for sauce, would richly feed them until they could finish their journey, although they had not a mouthful of bread.

"But we have no dog," said one of the men.

"But we have plenty of bread," returned the Captain, "albeit somewhat mouldy. I charge you, gentlemen, to remember that, in setting out, you were suspicious of my tenderness, thinking I would be for turning back, while you would be all for going on. I have shared with you the worst thus far. It is unlikely worse is to come. This is my second summer in Virginia, and I never saw such a continuance of storms as we have weathered. You may expect a long period of fair weather now. For what is to come, whether it be weather, or diet, or whatsoever, I am contented to take the worst. Do you lack shelter at night? Take my blanket. Is the bread bad? Take the best and leave the mouldiest for me. As for your fears that I will lose myself in these great, unknown waters, or that we shall be swallowed in some stormy gust, abandon

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them; they are childish. I have found and fought my way through the wildernesses of all four quarters of the globe, and am now hale and sound. It would be a shame for you to force me to return now, when we are scarce able to say where we have been, and have not yet heard of that we were sent to seek. Regain, therefore, your old spirits with which you set out, for return I will not until I have seen the Massawomeks, found Patawomek, or the head of this water which you conceit to be endless."

But the pitiful complaints of the sick men finally prevailed on Smith to turn the head of the barge southward when they left Bolus harbor. At their first landing to pass the night they killed a deer, which greatly bettered their fare and revived their spirits. The weather was now very pleasant.

Proceeding southward, the party soon came to the mouth of a river or estuary, seven miles broad, which the Indians called Patawomek. By this time the sick men were better and the others had recovered their spirits and were willing to explore this great river, so they sailed up it for days, finding no current to impede them. They found the Indians on its banks uniformly friendly. Though not of

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the tribe of Powhatan, they had been subjugated by that chief. Their native language was not the Powhatan language, but as in every village were persons who in their youth had lived as hostages with the great chief and learned the language of his tribe, Smith and Morton easily communicated with them.

At last, after passing a considerable branch coming in on the northeastern side, they found the river quite narrow, and soon came to some rapids over which they could not get their barge. Passing the night at the mouth of a creek about a mile below the foot of the rapids and the head of tidewater, Smith set out on foot in the morning with eight men to explore the river for some distance above the rapids. Ralph Morton was among the six left with the boat. Smith instructed them not to wander away from the boat. However, as Ralph had developed considerable skill in marksmanship, and had shown himself careful and trustworthy, Smith gave him permission to go out a short distance for a hunt, cautioning him to look out for Indians.

Ralph shouldered his musket and strolled off up the creek, with eyes and ears alert for game or Indians. He was strong and nimble

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of foot, and he went much farther than he intended. As he ascended the creek the region became picturesquely hilly, and in some places cliffs of dark rock towered up far above the rippling waters. He saw no game worth shooting at within good range. At last he heard the cry of a wild turkey-gobbler (which he had learned to distinguish) up on the hill away from the creek. Cautiously going toward the sound, he soon came in sight of a fine gobbler, strutting up and down a fallen log in a little open space within fair range. Ralph took careful aim and fired, putting a hall through the base of the turkey's neck.

Picking up his game, he turned back toward the creek, but as he was rather tired he concluded to rest a little, and sat down on a dike of quartz which barely projected above the thin soil. The sun was getting high, and a beam came down through a rift in the foliage high above, falling upon the dike near Ralph. He gazed idly at the bright spot on the ground. At last he became aware of a tiny sparkle between the white fragments of quartz. He soon became curious about it, and on examination found it came from a scratch on a lump of something the upper surface of which was

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visible above the earth. With the point of his knife he pried out the lump, which was of the bulk of an orange, but of irregular shape. Ralph was surprised at its weight. He scratched it with his knife. There was no further doubt. Its luster and weight proclaimed it solid gold. For a few moments Ralph was almost stupefied with his emotions. Then he fell eagerly at work scraping away with his hands and the blade of his large sheath-knife the thin earth that covered the quartz ledge. In doing so he came upon several other lumps of gold, one a little larger and the others smaller than the first one. He cut a stout sapling, and sharpened the end of the stick to make a crowbar, with which he pried away a few pieces of the quartz, which was much fissured. After a while he exposed the top of a piece of gold that was four or five inches across, but it was immovable, and he could not tell to what depth it extended.

Being very weary, he stopped work, and as he rested he reflected. His first impulse was to rush away and inform his companions of his incredible discovery. But after a while he thought he would keep it secret. If he could form some scheme to get control of all this

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wealth, how much more good he could, and he thought he would, do with it than would that dissolute and worthless crowd at Jamestown, or that company of selfish merchants in London. He found that the lumps he had already procured weighed fifteen pounds or more, and he reflected that such an amount was about all he could carry with him and keep concealed on his person, and even that amount would be very burdensome. He quickly calculated the probable value of fifteen pounds of gold, and found it was enough, if he could get back to England with it, to charter a hark and come over and get the rest of the gold, however much there might be.

It required no small resolution to leave that glittering mass of untold value there in the earth and go back to Jamestown, but at last Ralph carefully replaced the loose earth upon the golden mass, gathered some stones and placed over it, scraped up some dead leaves from some distance away, and scattered them over the rocks, hoping to conceal the gold from any straggling Indian who might pass the spot. Then, stowing away his nuggets in his clothes as best he could, he set out on his return to the boat, which was about three miles away. With a

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pocket compass lie carefully took the bearings of his mine from the creek. On a largre tree near the bank of the creek he cut some marks and took some mental notes of the surroundings, which he reduced to writing at the first opportunity.

He did not care to look for game, but when within about half a mile of the boat another turkey offered so fair a mark that he shot it. Tying the necks of the two birds together, he slung them over his shoulder and was soon among his companions, who were becoming uneasy at his long absence. Having some needles and thread with him, with a strip of tanned deerskin which he had procured from the Indians he made him a belt with pockets to contain his gold. As soon as he could do so without being observed, he put his gold in the belt and fastened it about his waist under his clothes.

Smith and his companions returned toward evening and reported that above the rapids the river ran through a rather narrow valley, and was in some places skirted by high cliffs, and that it was not navigable. In that region there was much mica in the rocks and earth, in small, glittering particles. It looked so much like

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silver that even the cautious Smith was half deceived and had gathered some of it to send to England for assay. Morton pronounced it mica, and Smith said with a sigh: "Well, it may be. I would we had some with us who knew a mine from spar."

As the tide was beginning to ebb, the party, to take advantage of it, started down the river that evening. Smith saw some Indians painted with some substance which, as he said, "made them look like blackamoors dusted over with silver." They told him where they got it, and he went to find the "mine." About thirty miles below the rapids a small but navigable river which the Indians called the Quijough empties into the Patawomek. The party rowed as far as they could get the boat up this river. Then Smith with six men set out on foot, leaving Ralph Morton with the other men in charge of the boat. The deposit of ''matchqueon,'' as the Indians called the mineral, was seven or eight miles from where Smith left the boat. In due time he returned with a considerable quantity of the stuff, which he thought was antimony, but Ralph believed it to be plumbago.

Proceeding down the river and bay to the

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mouth of the Rappahannock, Smith intended to explore that river, but as the tide ebbed, their barge grounded on a bar. While waiting for the tide to come in, Smith amused himself by spearing with his sword the fish lying in the shallow water among the reeds. He caught many fish, among them a stingaree, which gave him a wound which made him so extremely sick that his party expected him to die. In a few hours he felt better, but was so far from well that he concluded to goto Jamestown. The party arrived there on the 21st of July. They found many of the colonists sick, and as their chronicler wrote: "All unable to doe any thing but complaine of the pride and unreasonable needlesse crueltie of the silly President, that had riotously consumed the store; and to fullfill his follies about building him an unnecessary pallace for his pleasure in the woods had brought them all to that misery."

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{{sc|Resting}} at Jamestown only two days, Smith set out in his barge on the 24th of July, to finish his exploration. He took a party of twelve with him, the majority of whom had been on his first expedition. Ralph Morton disliked either to leave his gold in Jamestown or carry it on his person; but he had been so useful to Captain Smith that the latter was bent on having him of the company. So Ralph put the gold in his chest, which was strong and well-locked, and left it in charge of the young man he had chosen for his comrade. As no ship was expected in for several weeks, he knew he should not, by going with Smith, miss an opportunity of returning to England.

Descending the James River, the party was detained two or three days at Kecoughtan, an Indian village near the mouth of the river. After dark one evening Smith fired a few rockets. These missiles, rushing on their fiery course into the sky, greatly frightened the

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savages, who supposed the whites to be some sort of gods. They implored Smith to destroy the Massawomeks.

The explorers sailed directly up the bay until they saw it divide. They explored two of the branches on the western side without finding any river of importance. Then, in crossing, the party encountered a fleet of seven or eight canoes, full of Indians, who appeared to he preparing for fight. An epidemic had fallen on the explorers, so that only five of them could stand. The others lay under the shade of the tarpaulin. Smith set up their hats on sticks to look like men. He then fired two or three muskets so that the bullets went skipping over the water close to the canoes. The noise and the long range of the bullets frightened the Indians, who pulled their canoes in to the shore with all speed. They landed and awaited the approach of the barge, whose great size seemed to awe them somewhat. Smith made signs of friendship, and at last two of the Indians ventured to come on board the barge. Their fellows followed them within bow-shot, to assist them at need. Each of the two ambassadors was presented with a bell. They then returned and brought on board the whole Indian party,

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who gave the whites venison, bear-meat, and fish, in return for a few beads.

The Indians proved to be the renowned Massawomeks. They were of the same tribe which the French called the Iroquois and the English afterward knew in New York as the Five Nations. Although esteemed by the other Indian tribes as so bold and invincible that they "made war with all the world," they dared not encounter the English muskets. Their canoes were not dugouts, like those of the tidewater Indians, but were made of birchbark. As they did not understand the Powhatan language, the communication between the two parties was by signs. They signified that they had lately attacked the Tockwoghes, a tribe living in that neighborhood, and showed some fresh wounds they had received.

Smith purchased some of their hows, arrows, and targets, which were of a peculiar pattern. Night coming on, the Massawomeks retired to camp, and the whites saw them no more. They were evidently not fond of the company of such mysterious beings as the whites seemed to be.

Entering the river Tockwogh, the explorers encountered the tribe on which the party of

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Massawomeks had lately made an attack. One of this tribe could speak the language of Powhatan, and a friendly parley ensued. When the Tockwoghes saw the well-known and dreaded weapons of the Massawomeks in the hands of the English they supposed the weapons had been captured in battle, and their admiration of the whites was greatly increased. They welcomed the explorers with the greatest hospitality. Their town was palisaded with considerable skill as a defense against the attacks of the Massawomeks. Smith found among these Indians some articles which had evidently come from the French traders on the St. Lawrence, having passed from tribe to tribe in exchange.

Finding the mouth of the Susquehanna, the explorers ascended that river until they came to a place where the stream, although very broad, was too shallow to float the barge. On this river the explorers found a tribe of Indians called the Susquehannocks, whose great size astonished Smith. They were mild and friendly. They, too, had suffered much from the forays of the Massawomeks.

Sailing down the bay our party explored the Patuxent River and then entered the Rappa-

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hannock. At an Indian village near the mouth of the latter river the party found one who seemed to them like an old friend: an Indian named Mosco, whom they had first encountered far up the Patawomek, and who had been their guide to the mine of the substance which Smith supposed to be antimony. Learning that the party proposed to go up the Rappahannock, Mosco at first endeavored to dissuade them, by telling them of the fierce and implacable nature of the Indians far up the river, but afterward attached himself to the party, and accompanied them on all their explorations of this river. He was quite useful.

The explorers found that the Rappahannocks were indeed a fierce and treacherous tribe. Smith's party had several fights with these savages. The latter would ambush themselves on the margin of the river by holding before them branches of trees which they had broken off. In one of these encounters Ralph Morton, who had left the boat and gone out for a parley, received a severe arrow-wound in the fleshy part of the right arm.

Leaving the Rappahannock, the party went to explore the south end of the Chesapeake.

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While they were out on the broad bay at night a sudden storm arose, and the barge was driven before a terrible gale, the waves sweeping over her, and the crew having to bail with all their might to keep from foundering. The frequent flashes of lightning illumined the black night, and by this light they were finally enabled to run into shelter at Point Comfort.

The next day the indefatigable Smith set off to explore the little bays of Nandsemond and Norfolk. This done, he had demonstrated beyond a doubt that there was no passage out of the Chesapeake into the South Sea, which passage the London Company was very anxious to have found, and which discovery was the principal object of all these explorations. A hostile encounter with the Nandsemond Indians ended in the two parties becoming good friends, and Smith loaded his barge with corn, obtained from the Nandsemonds by barter, and set sail for Jamestown.

Captain Smith, although of a very grave and serious disposition, showed his love of a practical joke by decking out the barge with pieces of colored cloth (brought along for barter), in imitation of Spanish flags. These being seen far down the river, the colony at Jamestown

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supposed that a Spanish pirate was coming, and were greatly frightened. They had from the first settlement feared a visit from the Spaniards.

Thus on the seventh of September ended those remarkable explorations, in which a small party had made voyages aggregating three thousand miles, in an open boat, in an unusually stormy season, exposed without shelter to the fierce heat of the midday sun and the chill of the rainy night. At the end of his voyages Ralph Morton, at twenty years of age, felt himself a veteran.

During both of these voyages Ralph took observations from which he drew a map, a copy of which he gave to Captain Smith, who sent it to England. Long afterward Smith had much credit for the remarkable accuracy of the map, considering the circumstances of its production.

The party, on reaching Jamestown, found the colony doing somewhat better than before under the presidency of Scrivener, the wretched Ratcliffe having been deposed and imprisoned for his lawless excesses. On the tenth of September Smith was elected president, at the request of the Company, and things mended still more.
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About this time Newport arrived from England with orders from the Company not to return without a lump of gold, the discovery of a passage to the South Sea, or finding one of the lost company sent out by Walter Raleigh, all of which conditions Captain Smith laughed to scorn. Newport brought a boat, built in sections, to be carried around the falls of the James, in the effort to discover a passage to the South Sea. He spent some time in a fruitless effort to explore the upper James, and still more in an expedition for the silly ceremony of crowning; Powhatan as a vassal king of King James. Smith, railing at the folly, was compelled by the Company to assist in it. Newport's evil influence was again felt so much that Smith was eager to load his ship and pack him off to England.

Under ordinary circumstances it would have been impossible for Ralph Morton to have obtained permission to go to England. Most of the colony would have gone in a body if Smith had allowed them. However, Ralph's wound became much worse. His system was in that condition popularly known as "the blood out of order," which is common to people the first year of their residence in a strange climate.

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His arm was much swollen and inflamed, but, though it had an alarming look, it was not very painful, and he made more ado about it than was necessary. He was unable to work, and spent most of his time with Namontock, learning the Powhatan language, of which he composed a vocabulary and grammar. Being very frugal and careful, he had some money left, with which he offered to pay his passage home, saying if he did not get better surgical treatment for his wound than he could get in Jamestown, it might kill him. On one account Smith was willing to let Ralph go. He knew that Ralph's brother-in-law was a member of the Company and a personal friend of the Treasurer. He desired to send a letter to the Treasurer, stating plainly the bad management of the colony. He meant to score Newport severely, and so he did not wish to intrust Newport with the letter. Knowing that Ralph quite agreed with him in his opinion of the way things were going, he resolved to make the young man his messenger.

So it was that one Indian-summer day, about eleven months after Ralph first set foot in Jamestown, he left it forever, with his little chest and its precious contents.
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That winter voyage was a stormy one, although not a very long one, as the storms came from the west. On the tossing ship, amid the howling tempests, the young adventurer had no fears. His fancy saw a destiny for him too great to be swallowed up in a tempest. Caesar said to the frightened boatman in the storm: "{{lang|la|Quid times? Cæsarem vehis et fortunas suas.}}" Ralph Morton could say with equal confidence that the little ship carried greater fortunes than those of Caesar, for he was about to influence the world's history more than did Caesar. And it is doubtful if Caesar did change the current of history much beyond his lifetime. Gaul and Britain would have been conquered without him, and perhaps at the expense of the same lives and treasure which he squandered in his struggle with Pompey, and his partisans spent in their struggle with Brutus and Cassius.

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{{sc|Arrived}} in London, Ralph quickly disposed of his gold to the goldsmiths for about seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling. He then sought and found a vessel which he could charter for a voyage, a small bark of thirty tons, whose captain and owner was ready for a venture. When Ralph told him he wanted to go to Virginia for a cargo of sassafras wood and furs, the captain honestly advised him to get a larger vessel, as his little bark could not carry wood enough for a profitable voyage. But Ralph could not afford to hire, and did not need, a large vessel. The captain agreed to furnish the crew and make the voyage for three hundred pounds, provided he should make it in four months, which he was sure he could do with fair winds, as he knew the "short route." He wanted seventy-five pounds a month added for every month of the voyage beyond four, but Ralph feared if he made such a bargain the captain would purposely prolong the voyage.

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Finally the captain agreed to make the trip for three hundred and fifty pounds, two hundred to be paid in advance for furnishing the vessel. Considering the great value of money at that time, when the ordinary wages of a seaman was eightpence a day, and everything else in proportion, Captain Nelson did not make a bad bargain.

As before said, Ralph's brother-in-law, John Somers, was a personal acquaintance of the Treasurer of the Virginia Company, as well as a member of the Company, and through his influence Ralph readily got a license to make a voyage to Virginia to trade, on condition of giving two and a half per cent. of the value of his cargo to the Company.

Ralph's next oldest brother, Henry, had been a soldier since the age of eighteen, at first in the war between England and Spain, and afterwards fighting for the Dutch against the Spaniards in Flanders. He was now at home, and Ralph engaged him to make the voyage to Virginia. Ralph's brother next younger than himself, Charles, was now nineteen. Ralph engaged him, also, promising to pay him well, although Charles would have been glad to go to America without promise of pay.
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Captain Nelson furnished his bark himself. Ralph, besides his private provisions and outfit, laid in a stock to traffic with the Indians: small mirrors, small, cheap pocket-knives, glass beads, red cloth, sheets of polished brass and copper which he cut in small pieces, fish-hooks, etc. So energetically did he work that by the twentieth of March, 1609, the bark was ready to sail. Dropping down to the mouth of the Thames, they waited there a few days for a fair wind, Ralph fortunately being able to spend the time at his home.

The voyage out was a good one. Captain Nelson knew his business, and the winds were not contrary, so that in forty-eight days after leaving the Straits of Dover our adventurers passed between the Capes of the Chesapeake.

Entering the Patawomek (afterwards known as the Potomac, which name we shall hereafter use), Ralph stopped at the several Indian villages, bought what furs and skins the Indians had, and told them he would be back in ten or twelve days, and would take all they could provide by that time. The last village to be passed on the river was that of the Nacotchtanks, about ten miles below the mouth of the creek on which was the gold mine. Ralph

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particularly wished to gain the friendship of these Indians and impress them with his power. So, after trading with them, he gave their chief some particularly fine ornaments (in the chief's opinion) as presents. On the vessel was a small cannon. This was carefully aimed at a tree near by on the river bank and discharged. At the thunderous sound the Indians, who were gathered on the bank, fell upon their faces, and it took several minutes to persuade them that they were neither hurt nor going to be hurt. When they saw how the cannon-ball had shattered the tree like a thunderbolt, they were little less astonished than at the sound. Ralph felt confident that the Nacotchtanks would not molest him.

Leaving this village, before night the vessel anchored in the mouth of the creek, which Ralph, in memory of the cliffs he had seen along it, named Rock Creek. That night he hid in the bushes a small shovel and a pick. The next morning he gave directions to the captain to set the crew at work cutting such sassafras trees as grew near the river or creek for loading the bark. By the help of small boats the timber could be floated on the river or creek to the side of the vessel for load-

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ing. He had brought along a stout ass, which he told Captain Nelson could be used that day in dragging the wood to the water's edge. By the way, sassafras wood was then in great demand in England for cabinet-making.

In good season in the morning Ralph set out for his mine, leaving his brothers to assist in loading the vessel. He was armed with his musket, sword, and pistols. He carried the pick and shovel before-mentioned, and in a large leather pouch, slung over his shoulder with a stout strap, he carried, among other things, a small sledge and two gads or steel wedges with which miners split rock.

He found the place he sought with little difficulty. It had not been molested. After a short rest, for his journey and his burden had tired him, he set to work. With the shovel he removed the dirt from the ledge for a space of five or six feet square, and put it carefully in a pile. Then with his pick and gads he attacked the quartz dike that surrounded the gold. The quartz was much cracked and fissured, and its removal was not difficult. He soon uncovered three masses of gold five or six inches thick, and eight or nine inches in length horizontally. They were shaped like human heads. Digging

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down a foot or more lie found that the three masses were attached below by necks to one still larger mass. These heads were separated from each other by a few inches of broken quartz. He also found another lump of about twenty-five pounds' weight attached by a slender neck to the mass. This neck he cut through with his knife and a gad, and put the lump in his pouch. He also found a number of detached lumps, varying in size from a pigeon's egg to an orange.

At noon he built a little fire at which he broiled some meat, and made a dinner of meat and bread he had brought in his pouch.

By careful measurements and calculations he determined that he would have to cut each of the three masses or heads in two before he could handle them alone. He must work alone, for he concluded to keep the mine a secret, even from his brothers, for a time. At first he had thought of sharing the mine with them, but as the possible vastness of the wealth occurred to him, certain vague plans began to outline themselves in his mind—plans for changing the face of a considerable part of the world—plans in which he wanted no equal

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partners, for he knew not how far he could trust even his brothers.

When the evening sun was about two hours high, Ralph hid the small pieces of gold and his gads under the stones, and his pick, shovel, and sledge in the creek, and started for the vessel. That large lump of gold was all he wanted to carry over that rough path.

The next morning he took the ass with him, provided with a pack-saddle. He also took a box, a short saw, a thin, flat chisel, and a small crowbar. Arriving at the mine, he set to work with the saw to split one of the heads perpendicularly. He placed a cloth so as to catch the sawdust and save it. When he had cut down to the smallest part of the neck he cut one-half of the head loose with the chisel and sledge. Then he brought forth the box. He knew that if he filled a box with gold the extraordinary weight would betray the nature of the contents. So he had made a number of strong boxes about two feet long, one foot wide, and six inches deep, each with three compartments, the middle one about six inches wide. Into the middle compartment he placed the great mass of gold and blocked it around tightly with pieces of wood. Each of the three

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compartments was provided with a false floor about an inch from the top. This little space Ralph intended to fill with the micaceous earth so that he could open the box and allow anyone to inspect it and find it apparently filled with the earth.

Ralph was young and strong, but he found it a hard lift to place the box with the gold on the ass. This done, he tied the box firmly to the pack-saddle, put in his pouch the little lumps of gold he had found the day before, and started for the vessel. Altogether, it was the hardest day's work he ever did in his life.

In the three succeeding days he finished splitting the other two masses or heads and cutting them loose from the underlying mass, bringing home a piece with him each day. By weighing them in his room in the bark, he found that the six large pieces and the several smaller ones would aggregate a weight of more than one thousand pounds avoirdupois. This Ralph concluded was quite sufficient for that trip, and as it would require great labor to cut any more pieces from the underlying mass, he determined to let it alone. So at the end of the fourth day he put back into the hole the rock he had removed, spread the dirt over it, and

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covered the whole with dead leaves. The fifth day he made two trips and brought in the remaining two pieces. The tools he hid in the mud of the creek.

The next day he collected a sufficient quantity of micaceous earth and prepared his boxes for inspection. That all this time he had been hunting for gold he did not conceal from Captain Nelson and his brothers, but he did not announce having found any.

While at work alone lie was naturally considerably apprehensive on account of Indians, partly because he feared to have the Indians discover his mine, and partly from a natural fear of an encounter with the savages. But he remembered how, when Captain Smith was captured he had kept at bay two hundred savages until he had mired and was unable to fight (at least, Captain Smith said he did, and there was no one to dispute him), and Ralph felt confident of being able to stand off, if not two hundred, at least eighty, which he knew was about the fighting-strength of the Nacotclitanks and greater than the ordinary number of a Massawomek war-party. He was in little danger from the latter, for they always came in canoes, and did not wander far from the shore.
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After Ralph had finished getting his gold on the vessel, he remained three days longer, for appearance's sake, to allow the vessel to be loaded with sassafras and cedar wood. Then the bark dropped down the river, stopping at each Indian village to trade for peltries. The last village left behind, the vessel bore away for the Capes, and Ralph heaved a sigh of relief when he passed between them and was on the broad ocean and bound for England.

The voyage home was uneventful, the whole expedition being made in very little more than four months.

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{{sc|Arrived}} at London, Ralph left his brothers to dispose of the cargo. When the Company's agent came on board to inspect the cargo Ralph opened one of his boxes and showed the agent the glittering earth. The Company had received some such earth before from which the most skillful metallurgists they could find had failed to extract a grain of precious metal; therefore, when Ralph offered the agent a sovereign as the Company's probable two and one half per cent profit on the contents of the six boxes, the latter took the coin with a smile of pity for the deluded young man.

Ralph hired a house in London and had a furnace built in it, in which to melt the gold, with crucibles capable of containing each two hundred pounds avoirdupois, and cranes with which one man could handle a crucible. He procured some moulds of a size to run bars of about seven hundred troy ounces each. On the bottoms of the molds were engraved the

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words: "{{lang|es|Casa de moneda real. Ciudad de Mégico}}" (Royal mint, city of Mexico), to make it appear that the gold came from Mexico.

Working all alone, he cast the gold into bars, some of which he sold to the London goldsmiths for ready money, but the rest he carried over to Amsterdam and deposited in the new bank in that city, there being at that time no bank in London.

As soon as possible, Ralph went to the officers of the Virginia Company, and proposed to buy of them a grant of land, to be bounded by the are of a circle whose radius was five miles, and whose center was at the head of tidewater on the Potomac, that part of the circle only lying on the left bank of the river. For this he proposed to pay the Company fifteen hundred pounds.

"Why would you choose that particular spot?" asked the Treasurer. "Captain Smith says the cliffs there look in spots as if sprinkled with silver."

"Captain Smith sent you a load of that glittering earth; how much silver did you get out of it?" retorted Ralph.

"Not a grain, I confess," replied the Treas-

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urer. "Not a grain of gold or silver has come from Virginia."

"The spot I ask." replied Ralph, "lies at the head of navigation of a broad river, and such I deem a fit place for a city. Then, too, just above is a goodly water-power, which I am resolved to make not only turn mills to grind grain, but to saw boards, turn lathes, and do much other work now done by man and beast."

The Treasurer thought the young man a visionary.

As Ralph was to take out a colony at his own expense, and as the Jamestown colony had already cost the Company many thousand pounds, the only return for which had been two or three cargoes of cedar-wood, and little prospect of a betterment, the Company were not loth to take fifteen hundred pounds sterling of good gold and give Ralph a grant in feesimple of the soil, waters, forests, and minerals (though they objected somewhat to this item), with the power of lieutenant-governor in the local government of the colony, the general government subordinate to the Virginia Council.

Ralph's scheme had by this time developed,

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not merely into establishing a colony, but founding a nation in Virginia.

One of Ralph's first cares was to supply his mother with money sufficient to satisfy all her wants, and the next to induce his oldest brother, James, to give up everything else and act as his agent, in conjunction with John Somers and Edward Morton, Ralph's third brother, now just ready to enter business as a London merchant. As soon as possible he bought a staunch vessel of two hundred tons, called the Flora, and induced Captain Nelson to sell his bark and take command of her.

Meanwhile Ralph and his agents were engaging emigrants for his colony. The first lot he determined should all go out as his employees, or the families of his employees. With the exception of three or four mechanics, they must all be laborers, most of them agricultural laborers.

The next and most difficult consideration was the religious one. Ralph determined there should be full religious toleration in his colony. The times were, above all others of history, those of the fiercest intolerance and bigotry, of which England was a religious hot-bed. Ralph Morton was philosopher enough to see

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that all the so-called Christian creeds of the age (and ten times more the practice of the sectarians of those creeds) were bloodthirsty and paganistic—a bitter mockery of the teachings of the Prince of Peace.

Perhaps the least intolerant of the people of western Europe of that time were the English Catholics, among whom was only a small class of fanatics. It would do to admit the moderate Catholics to the colony, but for some reasons it would be unwise to have a majority of them. Next to the Catholics the Church of England people were least intolerant. Reference is here made to the body of the Episcopalians, not to the officials of the government. The intolerance these officials showed was rather political than religious, rather aimed at sedition than heresy.

Although the Church people in authority sternly, even cruelly, repressed the Catholics, it was for two strong reasons: first, the diabolical plots of a few fanatics, mostly Jesuits—plots which the great body of English Catholics abhorred and of which they were innocent; and, second, the clamors of the great and growing body of Puritans, a sect or variety of sects of fanatics who, although they did much

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to restore English political liberty when it was at its lowest ebb, carried religious intolerance to its utmost extremity of virulence and violence. These intractables Ralph resolved to shut out from his colony as long as possible. But as a large portion of the laboring class of England, especially the rural class, were adherents of the established Church, and rather indifferent ones at that, it was not difficult to procure colonists among whom religious toleration could be sustained.

The disasters of the Jamestown colony had been kept as secret as possible, and great numbers of English people were willing to go to America. The Virginia Company could have found {{hinc|ship-loads}} of honest laborers, but they thought a dissolute "gentleman," or even his footman or valet, was more worthy than an industrious peasant. Ralph Morton had no such class prejudice. He wanted educated persons for teachers, clerks, physicians, etc., but for the rest, no man who was unwilling to do six days, good hard manual labor a week.

The time of sailing was fixed so that the colony should arrive at their destination at the end of the winter, yet early enough to clear ground and plant corn and vegetables.
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Ralph again took with him his brothers, Henry and Charles. Besides the Mortons and the crew of the vessel, there were forty-four men, twelve women, and eighteen children. It was not until the third voyage that any women had ventured to go to the Jamestown colony, but Ralph had sufficient confidence to take along the families of twelve of his men whose wives were willing to go. Among the men were two carpenters, one mason, one shoemaker, and one blacksmith.

The Flora sailed from the mouth of the Thames on the twentieth of January, 1610, and arrived at her destination on the Potomac the eighteenth of March. Ralph stopped at the village of the Nacotchtanks and purchased of them a piece of ground bounded by the Potomac and the Eastern Branch, of a day's journey in compass. He paid for the land in red blankets, which the Indians much fancied, and hoes, of which he showed them the use, and gave them a grindstone on which to sharpen them.

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{{sc|The}} site for the town was selected a few hundred yards above the mouth of Rock Creek, where the ground is high enough to be free from malaria, while the hill is not inconveniently steep. Springs of pure water were near at hand.

Several tents had been brought, and with these and tarpaulins and boards convenient shelters were soon set up on a little clearing made for the purpose. Then began the work of felling trees for house-timber. Of course, the first land to be cleared was the space for the village. After that the trees were felled on a spot near the mouth of the creek well adapted for tillage, so as to be clearing a field with the same labor that procured building material. It was decided to build the first square of the village of thirty cabins, fifteen by twenty feet, around a square, three hundred feet on each side. The intervals between the houses were to be filled with a stock-

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ade. All the doors and windows were to be on the inside of the square, while in the outer walls were to be no openings except loopholes for muskets; for it was determined to make the village a fort, trusting nothing to the savages. Though the Nacotchtanks were at present friendly, the Massawomeks might come, and Ralph Morton knew that barbarian nature is fickle and inconstant.

The cabins at Jamestown had been thatched with reeds, and thatch was quite a common roofing for English country-houses, but Ralph had seen in the Jamestown conflagration the dangers of such roofs. It was decided to make the roofs of "shakes," or shingles, about three feet long, split from straight-grained timber. A supply of froes had been brought over for splitting shakes. In fact, Ralph's forethought had supplied everything. His experience in logging at Jamestown enabled him to invent a truck for hauling logs. It had two wheels, placed much closer together than those of an ordinary wagon, so as to pass more easily between trees and stumps. The axle was like the drum of a windlass, so that a log could be loaded by drawing it up with a chain wound up by turning the axle with spikes. The chain

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was fastened to the log between the large end of the log and the middle, leaving the small end to drag on the ground.

The larger logs were split in two, thus economizing material and making the work of raising the logs upon the walls lighter. It was found that they could he split more easily with a charge of blasting-powder than with wedges.

The cabins were supplied with stone fireplaces, building stone being close at hand, very broad, as wood was plentiful. The chimneys were made of sticks, thickly covered with clay, to keep them from burning. As glass was then scarce and dear, the colony used little of it in their windows, which were mostly made of oiled muslin. In that age people procured light in their houses mostly by leaving the doors open, except in stormy weather.

Ralph Morton supervised the work with constant care and good judgment, apportioning the labor of felling trees, cutting and notching the logs, splitting the shakes, raising the logs, etc., among the men, so that no strength would be wasted. For hauling the material there were two span of horses and two yoke of oxen, with two wagons and three logging trucks. As many men as could work without getting in

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each other's way were put upon one house, to finish it as soon as possible.

Until the first house was finished, the women and children slept on board the vessel; afterward they slept in the houses. Until houses enough for all to sleep in were finished a guard of three men, assisted by three mastiffs, was kept at night. It was observed that the Indians were much afraid of these great dogs. Four small cannon were planted, one at each corner of the fort.

The sailors were kept at work while the vessel stayed. A good many of the Indians also assisted in such work as they could do. It has been supposed that Indian men cannot be induced to do manual labor, but this is not the case. They assisted in loading the ships of the first English traders with sassafras wood, on the Atlantic coast; in the far Northwest I have seen them working as lumbermen, and in the far Southwest as railroad graders; but they will not work continuously. Three consecutive days is the very longest time they will labor. Morton would riot trust the Indians in the village at night. He made them withdraw to their camp before dark. As the Indians learned the great value of hoes in cultivating their

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oorn, their women were glad to help the white men clear their fields, taking hoes in payment. A squaw would willingly work three days for a narrow hoe that cost Morton fifteen pence. The Indians had heretofore used the shoulder-blades of elks and bears for hoes and shovels.

The Indians also supplied the colony with fresh meat in exchange for ornamental trinkets. Seines had been provided with which plenty of fish were easily taken from the river near by.

When the houses were completed and the stockade was built, work was directed to clearing and planting a field. Indian corn, beans, peas, pumpkins, and Irish potatoes were planted. The last vegetable was as yet little known in England, but Ralph Morton was quick to see its value as a food-plant, and had brought some tubers for planting.

The Flora remained with the colony about six weeks, that the sailors might assist in building the houses and loading the ship. Part of a cargo, consisting of stave-bolts split from the best white-oak trees, sassafras, and cedar, was loaded, and the vessel returned to England for another load of colonists and goods.

Besides the horses and oxen, there had been

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brought out three good cows, half a dozen young pigs, and a dozen chickens.

As the settlement was now in fact a village, it needed a name. Ralph proposed to call it Columbia, but his brothers importuned him to call it Mortonia, and so it was named.

Soon after his arrival, Ralph visited his mine, and found if undisturbed. He did nothing more about it until the houses were built and the field was planted. Then he set men at work to build a house over the mine. The foundation of the building was made of large stones laid in cement. This foundation was raised to a level, it being on a steep hill-side, and the rest of the building was made of logs about a foot thick. The roof was of shed form, sloping with the hill, made of two-inch oak-plank firmly spiked on. The small door was of heavy oak plank. There was only one window, narrow, and guarded with iron bars. The room was about fifteen feet square and eight feet high. A large number of men were kept at work on the building, to finish it as soon as possible. During the time it was being built Ralph slept every night over the mine on a bed of pine boughs, bear-skins, and blankets. The workmen had a camp near by.
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Of course, the men were curious to know what the building was for, and it was hinted that it was for a prison; then they were curious to know why a prison should be built there, nearly three miles from the town. The whites considering it a prison, and the Indians being informed that it was "bad medicine," no one was likely to try to get into it, and Ralph's object was to prevent anyone from discovering the mine inside.

Henry and Charles Morton had been informed of the existence of the mine, under the strongest bond of secrecy. Ralph had refused to inform his other brothers and John Somers of the source of his wealth, but let them infer from the legend on the gold bars that he had been in at the capture of a Spanish West Indian carrick, something which most Englishmen still considered by no means a reprehensible proceeding, although there had been peace between England and Spain for several years.

The spring and summer passed without any such epidemic as Ralph Morton somewhat apprehended. There was some mild, temporary sickness from change of climate, and some from ordinary causes, but there had been no

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deaths. The location was high and healthful, the water pure and cool, the food good and plentiful, and everything had been ordered with so much forethought, that not only was disaster, but even discomfort, avoided. The crops ripened and added to the colonists' store. Of course, in the crude, freshly-cleared soil they were not so good as the next year's crops should be, but they were fair.

During the latter part of the summer the colonists had leisure to build another square of cabins for the new immigrants whose arrival was expected, and to provide a large supply of stave bolts, sassafras and cedar for loading the Flora as soon as she should arrive and discharge her cargo.

In August, Ralph and his two brothers went to work in the mine to get out more gold. The quartz about the mass of gold was dug out all around for a depth of two feet or more. It was then found that the gold filled a crevice in the quartz, in a solid sheet about six inches thick, and from six to eight feet long, the length in the same direction as that of the quartz dike. A small hole being dug to a depth of ten feet, it was found that the mass extended still farther downward. Ralph was

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then assured of wealth enough to carry out his design of founding a nation. It was much labor to saw the blocks of gold out of this mass. A thousand pounds avoirdupois was got out and cast into bars in the moulds with the Spanish legends which, with the crucibles, Ralph had brought with him.

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{{sc|The}} Flora arrived again about the middle of September, bringing ninety-two immigrants, of whom eighteen were women and twenty-four children. Among the men were two carpenters, one blacksmith, and one tailor. There was also a young physician. Hitherto Ralph Morton had acted as physician to the colony. There was, too, a clergyman, a young man who, without powerful connections, had despaired of getting a "living" in England, and had concluded to trust Providence in America. He had been informed that he could expect no tithes nor anything for his religious services except voluntary contributions, but that he would be paid a fair salary for teaching the children of the colony as long as he chose, if he would agree to teach until another teacher could be procured. His theology was of a somewhat mild type, rather inclining to a doctrine of love than delighting to deal damnation to heretics, as was the fashion and the passion

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of the times in theology. Ralph Morton was very glad of this, and encouraged the pastor all he could. It must not be supposed that the colony had gone without religious services all this time. In such a body of Englishmen at that time there were always to be found men able and willing to lead in such services as reading the liturgy and the Bible, singing psalms, and praying. A leader in all things else, Ralph Morton was a very modest follower here.

Among the first immigrants to the Jamestown colony were half a dozen tailors, several perfumers and barbers, and four goldsmiths, jewelers, and "refiners." With the exception of the one tailor, there were no such people in the Mortonia colony. But there was one artisan on the Flora many years ahead of any of his guild in any other colony of America—a printer.

The reason of his coming thus early was that Ralph Morton had determined to reform the English language in spelling and grammar, at least so far as it was to be used in his new nation. In his study of several languages he had often cause to wonder at the perverse folly of people in retaining so tenaciously the bewildering irregularities of their grammar, when

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regularity would have been so much easier and better. He determined to make the conjugations of all verbs, the comparison of all adjectives, and the plurals of all nouns quite regular in all the printing done in his new nation.

The spelling of English of that day was a marvel of confusion. There was no dictionary or other authority or standard of spelling. Although the spelling of a large number of words was somewhat fixed in a barbarous and bungling way, most words were spelled according to the caprices of the writers, and it was no uncommon thing to find the same word spelled two or three different ways in the same paragraph. Then, too, the u's and the v's took each other's places in the most bewildering manner.

Ralph had made a very careful study of the sounds of the language. He saw how utterly inadequate to represent all those sounds were the twenty-six letters of the Roman alphabet. The only hope of a rational spelling was to invent new characters. So he invented eleven new characters, both print and script; six vowel and five consonant letters. The new vowel letters were mostly small changes in the old letters to represent the cognate sounds of

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those old letters. In the old vowel letters the principal rule was to use each one to represent that sound which it most frequently represented in the common spelling. Then each letter must always represent one and the same sound, and each sound he invariably represented by the same letter. This would give order, system, and regularity instead of the present disorder, confusion, and chaos. The letters ''q'' and ''x'' and the long's were rejected as useless.

Ralph had ordered from Venice (where were then the best type-cutters) the dies for his new characters in all ordinary sizes of type. The type were to be cast in Holland, for greater convenience of shipping. In this cargo was only a hundred pounds of the size now called great primer. This was intended for printing elementary reading-books. Ralph had spent considerable time in his ocean voyages writing two well-graded reading-books for beginners, lessons of short, familiar words and simple ideas. No such sensible books then existed. With the type was a press. There were also all other necessary materials for printing, including plenty of paper. The printer, who was also a bookbinder, was immediately set at work on a child's primer.
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The greater part of the colonists now in Mortonia and those to come spoke some uncouth dialect of English, and few of them could read, so they were not likely to make objection to the innovation. The only objections came from the teachers and the few educated persons; but these were so much under Ralph Morton's influence and so dependent on him that they yielded, and when they became accustomed to the innovation were its most zealous supporters.

As before said, the first colonists were all employés of Ralph Morton. He had paid them from the day of their embarking such wages as they were accustomed to receive in England, considering the food and lodgings furnished them. On the arrival of the second company, however, Ralph called them all together and proposed to them to form a new commonwealth, better than the world had ever seen before. The opportunity, in a virgin world, was before them; the means, he solemnly assured them, he held in his hands; he would devote all those means and his life to establishing such a commonwealth—a commonwealth not a mockery of the name, as England was, where the rich idlers revelled in luxury on the proceeds of the toil of the wretched and

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drudging poor. In an ideal republic, after it was established, the governor should be chosen by the people for a stated term and be removable. But this commonwealth was first to be established, and for such establishment, and to insure the proper application of the vast means he held ready, it was necessary that he should be governor for life. What he had already done in bringing them all over free and maintaining them so far was but a grain of sand on the seashore to what he would do. But they must adopt the system of government he proposed. He was willing to spend his wealth and his life for no other. He had drawn up a constitution and a code of laws. The code might be added to and altered by the representatives of the people or the people themselves, but the constitution was not to be altered without the consent of the governor.

Ralph Morton had spent much thought on a model commonwealth, and brought to the task a wide knowledge of history in all ages, a mind of powerful grasp, deep insight, and long foresight, and an unselfish devotion to the good of his fellows. It was the sudden springing up of ideas inspired by this devotion that led him to conceal the existence of the mine,

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and not the cunning and calculating selfishness which such a course might seem to indicate.

One of the books which had given Ralph Morton many ideas of a model commonwealth was Thomas More's Utopia. This book has long been misunderstood and misrepresented. It has generally been spoken of as the scheme of a mild lunatic for upsetting all the good old order of society, and instituting in its place something as impossible for human beings with their sinful nature to attain (without first dying) as it would be for those same gross mortals to live (without first dying) in the Elysian Fields above the sunset clouds. In fair truth, More's book contained only the sane, wise ideas of a man centuries ahead of his age, a lover of humanity more than of self. One by one, as the centuries wore away, his wild imaginings, as they seemed to be, became the accomplished facts of history. Human nature was found to be capable of better things than bigoted theologians or sneering cynics thought possible. That great seer's splendid visions yet unfulfilled are no more impossible than what has been accomplished. But let us hope that the accomplishment will be accelerated, so

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that a work equal to that of past centuries may he done in a few future years.

Thomas More spent his childhood in the household of Cardinal Morton, a brother of one of Ralph Morton's ancestors (which fact perhaps helped to attract Ralph's attention to More's work), where his precocious ability was a constant marvel. At Oxford his career did not belie the old Cardinal's prophecy of his future greatness. One of the most religious of men, even to asceticism, bigots called him a freethinker. Entering Parliament at twenty-six, he was instrumental in the rejection of a heavy subsidy demanded by Henry VII. Leaving Parliament, he became a prominent lawyer. Under Henry VIII he was a trusted counselor and a diplomatist. It was in one of his diplomatic missions to Holland that, as his story goes, he met the ancient mariner, a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, who had discovered, in the depths of the virgin continent, the republic of Utopia. In Utopia human virtue (which theologians esteem as naught) had attained the true ends of society—liberty, equality, fraternity, and security. In England, More truthfully said, "the whole of society is but a conspiracy of the rich against the poor.

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The rich are ever striving to pare away something further from the daily wages of the poor by private fraud, and even by public law, so that the wrong already existing—for it is a wrong that those from whom the state derives most benefit should receive least reward—is made yet greater by the law of the state. The rich devise every means by which they may, in the first place, secure to themselves what they have amassed by wrong, and then take to their own use and profit, at the lowest possible price, the labor of the poor. And so soon as the rich decide on adopting these devices in the name of the public, then they become law. The toiling poor are reduced to a life so wretched that even a beast's life seems enviable."

Turning from this pitiful picture of the English laborer of the sixteenth century, from the horrible social tyranny that found expression in every page of the English statute book, More tells us that in Utopia the aim of legislation is the true social, industrial, moral, and intellectual welfare of the whole community, of which the labor-class is the most important. As work was compulsory with all—no class of idlers, called "noble" and "gentle,"

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living on their stealthy robberies of the workers, as in England—the hours of labor could he shortened to nine, which would have seemed short indeed to the English laborer of that age. The hours thus saved from manual labor were devoted to the cultivation of the mind. To this end a thorough system of public education was maintained. In England few laborers could read. In Utopia every child was well educated. The physical side of life in Utopia was as attractive as the mental. While in England in More's day the common people dwelt in "low and homely cottages and poor shepherd huts made at all adventure of every rude piece of timber that came first to hand, with mud walls and ridged roofs thatched over with straw," nests of squalor, filth, and pestilence, in Utopia the houses were spacious, well lighted, airy, comfortable, and clean. "The streets were twenty feet broad"—in English towns of that day they were not half that—"the houses backed by spacious gardens and curiously budded after a gorgeous and gallant sort, with their stories one after another. They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, for it is there much used, and sometimes also with fine linen cloth dipped

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in oil or amber, for by this means more light cometh in and the wind is better kept out." In More's days the window of the English cottage was literally a wind-hole in the wall.

In England the petty thief received the same punishment as the murderer—death for almost every crime. In Utopia the object of legal punishment was as much to reform the criminal as to protect society. In fact, More, in Utopia, anticipates all those reforms in the treatment of criminals which distinguish the nineteenth from the brutal and savage sixteenth century.

In Utopia was that complete religious toleration which was looked for in vain in Europe until the middle of the eighteenth century. In Utopia there was political liberty, a complete democracy, while England, under the Tudor tyrants, was fast losing the little political liberty she ever had. Under the cover of Utopia, More penned a scathing denunciation of the tyranny of Henry and his servile judges. And this, too, within the very court of the king and under the eye of his ministers. No wonder that the author of Utopia paid for his devotion to liberty and humanity with his head, on Tower Hill.

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{{sc|One}} of the most effective means by which the few and idle rich oppress the many toiling poor is by the monopoly of land. Ralph Morton's reading had shown him this truth illustrated by the history of all civilized peoples. But he had before his eyes in England so flagrant an example that it needed no reading to enforce the truth. That great robber, William the Norman, had parceled out the land of England among his robber favorites, who had subdivided them among ''their'' favorites, with the burden of some conditions; and so on downward went the division, the burdens all the while increasing till at last they fell with crushing force on the poor tillers of the soil and the equally unfortunate disinherited, driven altogether from the soil. So horrible an example of a great mass of people robbed of their natural rights seemed, by the force of custom and the decorous forms of law, so right and proper that only here and there, adown the

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centuries, could be heard a voice like Thomas More's protesting against it.

Morton was sure that, sooner or later, America would be parceled out among kings' favorites, just as Europe had been, and with like wretched results. He determined to prevent such results so far as was in his power. He could see no way to do it effectually while allowing private ownership of land. To limit the amount of land one man might own presented insuperable difficulties. How could a just limit be fixed? Twenty acres of agricultural land miodit be no more than one man and his family needed; but twenty acres in a city, or on which a city might grow up, would so enrich a man and make him master of his fellows that he could oppress and corrupt them by thousands. A thousand acres of mountain land, fit only for grazing, might be none too much for a family; but a thousand acres of good agricultural land would make a man a landlord with a horde of slavish tenants. So Morton's constitution provided that, in the Commonwealth, there should be no private ownership of land, including waters, forests, and mines, except the title he had acquired from the Virginia Company and the title he

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expected to acquire from the king to other and broader lands. This title he was to hold during his life as a means of insuring the carrying out of his views; but, although the ultimate title of the land rested in him, the practical ownership should be in the Commonwealth, from whom the citizens should hold the land. No agricultural land should be leased for longer than fifteen years at one lease, and no urban land for longer than fifty years. These leases could be renewed, so that a family could make a home and have a security for its continued possession—something which private ownership does not give to the nominal owner, as millions of poor men have found to their sorrow. The Commonwealth might, until it needed the rent for revenue, allow its members land rent free, but no more to one man than he and his family actually tilled or used without hired help.

The next great instrument for enriching a few at the expense of the many was, Ralph Morton saw, the traffic in merchandise. No other thing, except monopoly of land, could so encourage a selfish and greedy disposition as this traffic. Next to usury, it is the delight of that strange vampire race, the Hebrews. The

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merchant class in England had then acquired but little of the tremendous power it afterward attained; it needed the foresight of Thomas More or Ralph Morton to see the danger to an ideal society—a human brotherhood—in this traffic. So Morton's constitution provided that all traffic in merchandise in the commonwealth should be carried on by the public agency. A bureau of trade appointed by the governor should import and export all goods. Public stores should be established, with storekeepers and clerks appointed by the governor, in which goods should be sold to the inhabitants of the commonwealth, and their produce bought for resale or export. The people might exchange their commodities with each other, or sell them to private persons, but no person should buy to sell again. The profits on the purchase and sale of goods should not be excessive, and should be public revenue for public expenses.

In Ralph Morton's mind were vaguely outlined plans for making all sorts of machinery run by water-power do the work of millions of human hands. If a few men could obtain possession of the waterfalls, and by wealth, somehow acquired, could own the machines, they would become the masters of both the

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workmen who attended the machines and those who were displaced by them. So the constitution carefully guarded the waterfalls from private ownership and provided for the public ownership of factories run by water-power.

In these provisions for the public manufacture and sale of goods Morton builded better than he knew. Not even his genius, nor any other less than inspired, could have foreseen the evils which a manufacturing and trading age would produce: the evils of "shoddy" goods; of articles made for sale and not for use, and useless; of fatal defects glossed over by the manufacturers and hidden by lying salesmen; of goods deliberately damaged a dime's worth to the user that the manufacturer might save a cent; of deadly poisons in food, drink, and drugs—yes, in wearing apparel and the paper of bedrooms, the health of thousands ruined and their lives endangered that manufacturers and tradesmen might make a few cents from each victim. And the deepest pity of it all is that the most frequent and most injured victims are the poorest, most needy, and most helpless members of society.

As another guard againt the undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals,

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the law of primogeniture was abolished. A deceased person's property was to be equally divided between his heirs—his wife (or, if a woman, her husband) and children; if any of the children were dead leaving children of their own, such grandchildren to inherit their parents' share ''per stirpes'' and not ''per capita.'' If there were no wife (or husband) or descendants, the property to go to the parents or grandparents of deceased; if no such ancestors, it was to escheat to the commonwealth, for collateral relatives could not take. No person should leave more than ten thousand dollars (about two thousand pounds) to one heir. If his property amounted to more than that sum for each heir, the balance was to escheat to the commonwealth. As no person then in the colony (except the Mortons) expected to have two thousand pounds, nor even dreamed of having so much as to leave two thousand pounds to each of his children, no objection could be made by the settlers to this provision. This provision could not be evaded by a will or a ''donatio causa mortis''—death-bed gift.

Roads and bridges must be public property; no private toll road or bridge would be allowed.

A code of laws should be proposed by the

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governor as soon after his election as practicable, and adopted or rejected by a vote of the colonists at a public meeting. After that, laws were to be enacted by a Congress elected by the people; but no act of Congress should be a law unless approved by the governor, or, if vetoed by him, unless repassed by a two-thirds vote of Congress. To prevent too frequent changes of laws, Congress should have but one session in three years, unless called together by the governor on account of an emergency. As representatives would sometimes misrepresent the people, provisions were made by which the people themselves could initiate legislation, and certain classes of laws of a radical or fundamental character were to be submitted to a vote of the whole people.

It is needless to recite the details of the constitution relating to the necessary officers of the commonwealth, executive, legislative, and judicial, and their election or appointment.

The electors were to be every male citizen over twenty years old, unconvicted of felony, and all widows, being citizens, over thirty years old. Other women over twenty could vote for school officers. Morton considered these pro-

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visions an entering wedge for greater privileges for women. After the first day of January, 1612, any person not on or before that date a resident of Mortonia must reside in the colony five years to acquire the rights of a citizen and elector.

Any amendment to the constitution must he first passed by a two-thirds vote of Congress and then receive a majority vote of the electors of the commonwealth before taking effect; but no amendment could he adopted during the life of the first governor without his approval.

The Constitution was submitted to the members of the colony and adopted without change, without a murmur of dissent; and Ralph Morton was named governor for life.

The code of criminal laws Governor Morton proposed differed radically from the laws then in force in England, where most crimes were punished with death, although death in different forms, from beheading and hanging to burning at the stake and boiling in oil. Mutilation, such as cutting off the right hand and ears, slitting the nostrils, boring the tongue, and branding, was common. The so-called crimes of blasphemy, witchcraft, sorcery, and

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idolatry were punished by burning to death. The Morton Code proclaimed that the object of punishment was to protect, not to revenge, society; that where possible it should contemplate the reformation, not the destruction, of the criminal; that savage and bloody punishments and tortures were brutalizing to the whole people and worthy of savage and heathen, not of civilized and Christian, people. No crime except murder and arson of a dwelling at night was to be punished with death, and that death in no form except hanging. Other crimes were to be punished in proportion to their enormity. The code was silent as to witchcraft, blasphemy, sorcery, and idolatry. Though the people wondered at so mild a code, they adopted it by a large majority. In the minority was the clergyman. Mild as he was, he thought it well to burn some people.

Foreseeing the danger to the colony from the savages armed with firearms, the Morton Code provided that any person convicted of furnishing to an Indian any firearm or gunpowder, or teaching any Indian the use of firearms, should suffer imprisonment at hard labor (in chains until a prison should be pro-

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vided) for three years, and then be banished to the West Indies. If he returned he was to suffer death. Severe penalties were provided for selling swords, or knives with blades more than three inches long, or with sharp points, or axes, or hatchets to Indians. Every firearm in the possession of a resident of the colony was to be registered, and he might be called on to produce it at any time. The sale of gunpowder was to be recorded like the sale of poison.

The Morton Code provided for public schools for all the children of the colony, making attendance compulsory. All teaching in these schools was to be in the English language.

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{{sc|Houses}} had been provided for the shelter of the new-comers, and were ready for them on their arrival. A schoolhouse, by far the largest and best house in the colony, was immediately built. The walls were of hewn logs, chinked with stones and mortar instead of sticks and clay; and an abundance of glass windows were provided.

Those who wished to go to farming on their own account immediately had land allotted to them, ten acres to each man. It was so arranged that even those who had no means could go to work on their fields and find support until they could raise a crop. As making the land ready for cultivation would add considerably to its value, it was arranged that the farmer should be allowed a certain amount per acre, to be paid by the Commonwealth, for the land he cleared. Then, he could sell to the Commonwealth for shipment to England all the stave-bolts and charcoal he could make and all

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the sassafras and cedar timber lie could cut oil his land and bring to the river's edge. Thus, while clearing his field he could be earning a living. If this should not he sufficient, he was to have some credit at the commonwealth store. This store was stocked by the governor as a gift to the commonwealth to begin with.

In the last cargo, no horses, but ten yoke of oxen had been brought over, oxen being better adapted for rough work in a new country than horses, as well as being cheaper in price and less expensive to feed. Six yoke were sold, one to each farmer who was able to buy, and the rest were kept to be hired to those who needed to use them, and for public use.

Half a dozen goats were brought over. It was not deemed advisable to try sheep-raising until larger clearings should be made, but the bold and active goats could avoid and beat off the wolves. Some young pigs and some geese and ducks were also brought on the last voyage.

As it was observed that crops did not grow at the extreme edge of a clearing, Morton persuaded the farmers to make their clearings four

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together, each four at the place where the corners of their four lots joined, so that the open spaces would be larger than if each farmer made a separate clearing. Thus also four men could work near each other with more security against savages.

Charcoal has been mentioned as one of the products of the colonists. Though at this time pit coal (or sea coal, as it was then called) was considerably used in London, it was unpopular, and its use had been prohibited by parliament. Charcoal was then and for a generation later universally used for smelting iron. Wood was becoming scarce in England, and timber for shipbuilding was in great demand. The use of any wood fit for shipbuilding in making charcoal was prohibited. Under these circumstances charcoal could he profitably made for export by the colonists of Mortonia, where wood was a thing to be gotten rid of in clearing fields. Some men skilled in making charcoal came in the "last supply," and the art was easily learned by all.

The colonists learned from the Indians to expedite the clearing of land by girdling the large trees: that is, cutting off a wide ring of bark around the trunks. A well-girdled tree

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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

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rapidly improving both in the workmanship and size of their vessels.

James Morton was to make his headquarters in Bristol, then the second city in England. Edward Morton was to go to Holland, with headquarters at Amsterdam. Numerous agents were to be appointed to procure emigrants in Holland, Denmark, and Germany. The agents were to receive a premium for each desirable emigrant furnished, and suffer a penalty for each emigrant they sent of a prohibited class. No criminals, beggars, or habitual paupers were to be sent, no cripples nor permanent invalids unless they belonged to the family of some emigrant to Mortonia, bound for their support. No person over fifty years old would be accepted unless such person was the parent of some emigrant to Mortonia bound to the parent's support. No person suffering from, or known or suspected to be infected with, smallpox or other plague was to be shipped.

There were at that time in Holland a number of English emigrants called Brownists, who had left their native land because they could not make all England adopt their religous notions, and had been roughly used for their sublime efforts to do so. Not understanding the Dutch

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language, they could not hope to bring the Dutch nation into their narrow theological path, so they lived quietly in Holland, a little theocratic community, ruled absolutely by their preachers in all such minor matters as the rather liberal Dutch government did not meddle with. Morton's agents in Holland were instructed not to send any of these men to Mortonia, as the governor knew well what firebrands they would be in his colony.

The Indians still supplied the colonists of Mortonia with most of their meat. It was strictly forbidden to private members of the commonwealth to trade with the Indians. Such trading was to be done by the officials and public storekeepers as public business. Morton adopted the close dealing of Captain Smith rather than the lavish prodigality of Newport. He did not think equity required him to give an Indian beads which cost ten shillings in London for a pelt worth ten shillings in London, or anything on that basis. It was sufficient if he gave the Indian for the skin what the savage thought the skin worth, in beads of a value estimated by the savage rather than by the white man. It may be thought that the Indian was like a child or a

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weak-minded person, incapable of estimating values, and not to be allowed to cheat himself; but Morton found him quite shrewd enough in his own sphere, and knowing quite well what a thing was worth to himself, if he did not know what it was worth to the white man.

At the approach of winter great numbers of wild geese and ducks came down from the north, and the colonists were able to kill a great many of these fowls. They found also in this new world great quantities of wild fruits, which added much zest to their fare. Beginning about the end of May, there were strawberries, then, in succession, dewberries, raspberries, blackberries, plums, grapes, and, lastly, persimmons (or putchimins, as they were then called), lasting until far into the winter. Nuts in variety were also plentiful.

When the Flora sailed she took back letters from most of the colonists to their relatives and friends in England. Few, if any, failed to extol the conditions of life in Mortonia and urge others to come.

As soon as possible, the governor set a number of men at work to build a mill. It was found that Bock Creek had sufficient volume and fall for an ordinary mill, and that one could

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be built more easily here than on the river. But Morton intended to build much greater mills, to be run with the great power which the falls in the river could furnish. The mill was made both for grinding grain and sawing lumber. Saw-mills were then unknown in England. One which was built near London in 1633 was torn down by a mob of workmen, who feared that the innovation would deprive them of work. The people of Mortonia, however, saw such a vast amount of work before them waiting to be done, that they welcomed any help from water-power. Morton had carefully designed the machinery of the {{hinc|sawmill}}, and had it made in England. Soon the rocky hills of the lonely creek resounded with the hum of machinery and the growling of the great saw tearing its way through the logs, doing the work of many men in the old way. The contemplation of this work afforded the liveliest pleasure to Ralph Morton.

In March, 1611, the Flora arrived for the third time at Mortonia. A majority of the immigrants she brought this time were women and children. All the colonists who had come on the other two trips leaving families in England had them brought out on the third voy-

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age. Also some unmarried women came, some of them as dependent relatives of the other immigrants, others induced to come with the understood if not avowed object of finding husbands in America.

Soon the newly-acquired ships of the governor began to arrive, bringing a great many immigrants. With increased force, men were set at work to dig a long mill-race, bringing water from above the "Little Falls" of the Potomac to the head of tide water, where, with a great volume and ample fall of water, large saw-mills were built. Logs could then he run down the river from above by the current, brought from below on the river by towing or the incoming tide, and floated out of Rock Creek. Lumber then became an important article of export, selling at a good profit in the English markets in competition with handsawn lumber. It was more than thirty years before the colonists of Mortonia had any competition in mill-sawn lumber, and then it came from the shrewd Puritans of New England.

With abundance of mill-sawn lumber, a new style of architecture replaced the log cabins chinked with sticks and clay. Frame houses, much better looking and more cleanly than the

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cabins, became the ordinary dwellings. An improvement in dwellings is certain to improve the character of a people. The inside walls of these houses were of lath and plaster, the laths fastened to the frame with pegs, nails being then hand-made and expensive, a small size costing in London five-pence a hundred, and five-pence was about half a day's wages of the workman who made them. Nails were mostly made, however, by women and children.

In Mortonia, as in every community not purely communistic, a currency was necessary, although a less amount was necessary in Mortonia than in other communities of its population, owing to the traffic being conducted by the public agency. The colonists could take their produce to the stores and in exchange get credit on the store books, on which they could purchase goods; but still some money was necessary. Morton had no authority to coin money. Partly for this reason and partly because he had some ideas of his own, centuries ahead of his age, on the subject of currency, he determined to make money of paper bills. He saw that in civilized commerce money is only a set of counters with which an instantaneous, authentic, and indisputable account of

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exchanges is kept, and as such the intrinsic value of the material is of no consequence whatever, except as a guaranty of the authenticity of the counters. If such authenticity could be attained by any other means than the intrinsic value of the materials, the object of these counters would be equally well attained. The use of mere lumps of gold and silver, in whatever shape, in exchange for other commodities, is simply barbarous barter, not civilized commerce. The use of a well-authenticated paper currency would render possible a much needed increase in the volume of the world's currency. The great amelioration in the condition of the people of Europe which took place in the sixteenth, and was still taking place in the seventeenth, century, was attributed by every philosophical man to the increase of the volume of currency by the influx of gold and silver from America. Buyers, whether of merchandise or human labor, grumbled at the rising prices, but a gleam of prosperity was taking the place of the night of abject poverty among the common people. It was not the natural utility of gold and silver that did the good work, for as metals they minister little to man's needs. It was their artificial value as

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counters in a game which could not well or briskly go on without counters. But men were in danger of overlooking—and did overlook—the fact that this value was artificial, and deluded themselves with the idea that it was natural. They made a fetich of gold—a master, not a servant, of society.

Morton decided to make a radical change in the denominations of the currency. He had often noted the cumbrousness of accounts in English currency, and the labor of making calculations in it, owing to the irregular ratio of the denominations to each other. He conceived that a currency in which the denominations bore a decimal ratio to each other would render calculations in money infinitely easier. Then, too, the English pound was too large for a unit, and the shilling was too small. There was in circulation in European commerce a silver coin called in Dutch and Spanish ''daler,'' in English ''dollar.'' Its value was somewhat less than that of the English crown or five-shilling piece. This was a convenient size for a unit, and Morton adopted it as such. The tenth of it he called ''dima,'' from the Latin ''{{lang|la|decima}},'' and the hundredth part ''cent,'' from ''{{lang|la|centum}}.''
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Morton thought pieces of paper currency of less than half a dollar would be inconvenient, while, as the monetary transactions of the colony were not large, a five-dollar bill would be the largest needed, with one dollar and two-dollar pieces between the extremes. Before leaving Europe for the last time he had made arrangements to have plates engraved for printing bills of these four denominations. The plates for the backs were engraved in Amsterdam, and those for the faces in Antwerp, as a precaution against a spurious issue. The bills, in numbers as needed, were printed in Mortonia under the supervision of the governor, and signed by him and countersigned by the treasurer.

Until authority was obtained to coin money, English shillings, sixpences, and copper coins were imported and used for change. The two kinds of currency could be used together by counting the penny as two cents, and twenty-four pennies, four sixpences, or two shillings as half a dollar.

Among the importations in the spring of 1611 were several swarms of bees. These multiplied rapidly, and repaid a small amount of labor with a large amount of luxury. Many

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of the swarms escaped into the woods, and in after years the frontiersmen of Virginia were surprised to find stores of honey in the hollow trees of the forest solitudes.

It was somewhat difficult for ships to ascend the Potomac to Mortonia, although the river had no perceptible current, because, if the wind was not quite favorable, very short tacks had to be made. To remedy this evil Ralph Morton invented a vessel propelled by horse-power. The hull was narrow and the bows were sharp. The lower deck projected several feet beyond the hull on both sides and only about two feet above the water, as it was not expected to encounter large waves. Ten horses hitched to the outer ends of long sweeps supplied the power. The inner ends of the sweeps were attached to a cog-wheel about ten feet in diameter, turning horizontally. This wheel worked in small cog-wheels which turned two shafts attached to a large paddlewheel on each side of the vessel. These small cog-wheels could be put in or out of gear so that one paddle wheel could be stopped while the other was turning, thus facilitating the turning of the vessel. One of these boats would not only run at a rapid rate, but would

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tow a ship up or down the river against wind and tide at a fair rate.<ref>I have seen a ferryboat which ran diagonally across the Mississippi, a distance of five miles, driven by the power of two horses in a tread-mill, make good speed against the current. Ten horses on sweeps would furnish six or seven times the power of two horses on a tread-mill, or sufficient to run a large boat against a current of four or five miles an hour at a fair speed.</ref>

What gold Ralph Morton needed to pay the expenses of his enterprise was taken out of the mine by his own labor and that of his brothers. To lessen this labor a horse-power was set up outside of the building which enclosed the mouth of the mine. By this power were run drills to cut holes for blasting, winches to raise the rock and metal to the surface, and saws to cut the metal up into pieces small enough to be melted in crucibles. In the quartz contiguous to the mass of gold were pieces of gold so small that Morton did not consider it worth while to extract them, but so large as to be readily discerned. If these pieces were thrown to public view, public discovery of the mine would ensue. So a building was constructed in which to lock the telltale pieces, while the barren pieces of quartz were rolled down into the ravine.

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{{sc|With}} ten good ships bringing over immigrants who, as the passage was free, were readily obtained by Ralph Morton's active agents, it may be readily seen that the forty square miles or less of Morton's grant would in a very few years overflow with inhabitants, most of whom must be agriculturists. The land between Rock Creek and the Eastern Branch is mostly level and arable, but above Rock Creek much of the surface is hilly and stony. Morton intended to obtain from King James a charter to a considerable territory, buying out the Virginia Company's claim, but was waiting for a favorable time. While waiting, events entirely changed the direction in which he intended to acquire territory.

Learning from a Massawomek whom the whites had taken prisoner while he, with a war party, was on a raid against the Nacotchtanks, that beyond the mountains to the west was a

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fair country with a very large, deep river flowing for an unknown distance westward, Ralph Morton determined to learn something about the region and the river. In the latter part of the summer of 1614 Henry Morton was sent with an exploring party to find the great river.

In about two months he returned and reported that he had followed up the Potomac to where it forked, the main branch coming from the south.

Following up this main branch for a day's march, and finding that it still led him southward, and that as far as he could see from a high hill the valley trended southward, he returned to the forks of the river and followed the northern fork almost to its source. Then striking westward, he passed over a high plateau. The river valley had made for the party a gateway through the loftiest ranges of mountains. He crossed three streams, of considerable size but not navigable, flowing northward, with ranges of high hills between them. At last he came to the great river. It was several hundred yards wide, and deep enough for large vessels. It flowed towards the southwest. From what he could gather from the

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Indians (he had picked up considerable of the language of the Massawomeks) the name of the river was Ohio. He had seen a good deal of fine agricultural country, but more that was hilly or mountainous.

From this account, Ralph Morton determined to explore the great river himself. In the latter part of March, 1615, Henry Morton was again sent out with a party, including some boat-builders. They took a number of pack-mules loaded with provisions and tools. Henry Morton was instructed to build on the banks of the Ohio a strong log-house as a defense against Indians, saw lumber, and build two flat boats.

About a month after Henry's departure, Ralph set out with another party, following the well-marked trail of the first party after leaving the Potomac. Arriving at the Ohio, Ralph found the house built and the boats nearing completion. When the boats were finished, he selected a party of twelve men, and embarked, taking along three pack-mules, and leaving several men at the block-house commanded by Henry Morton.

The little party descended the great river with the current, using their oars only to keep

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in the current. They kept to the river every night, except when it was foggy, taking turns on the watch. They landed, when practicable, on islands, to cook their meals, allow the mules to graze, and gather some grass for them. Some bales of husks had been brought along for fodder. For the food of the men they had a supply of corn-meal and sea-biscuit, using the meal first, and saving the biscuit for their land journey. They managed to kill a fair supply of game, which they found very tame in these green solitudes.

Ralph Morton had with him instruments for taking observations, and had sufficient skill in mathematics to determine latitude and longitude. The latitude and longitude of principal points and of the mouths of all large tributaries of the Ohio were determined.

Floating thus down the smooth current along a broad and beautiful valley for two weeks, the party came to where the clear waters of the Ohio flowed out into a mighty stream whose waters were turbid with yellow mud. It was not so broad as the Potomac in its lower course, but the strong current told that the volume of water was vastly greater than that of the Potomac. Morton had no

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doubt that this vast river was the Mesashapi (which he afterwards spelled Misisipi) which De Soto had explored, and beneath whose waters he had been laid seventy-three years before. The account of the expedition of De Soto had thrilled Ralph when, as a schoolboy, he had first read it in learning Spanish.

Morton thought it not best to descend the Misisipi. The land at the junction of the two rivers was too swampy for a landing, so the party pulled the boats up the Misisipi till they found high grounds on the eastern bank, where they disembarked. The boats were sunk in the mouth of a small creek to preserve them for possible further need. Then the pack-mules were loaded and the party set out by land due northward.

For a day or two they traveled through a rolling: region with considerable timber. Then they came out upon vast, grassy, treeless plains the like of which they had never seen nor heard of. The party traveled northward about a hundred and fifty miles, and then turned eastward. Traveling about eighty miles, they came to a considerable river flowing-southward. From its position Morton judged it to be one whose mouth he had noted while descending

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the Ohio—the Wabash. The valley of this river was considerably timbered. Some distance eastward of this river they entered a forest region again.

On this journey they saw immense herds of bison or buffalo—a constant wonder to them. They killed as many of the beasts as they wished. They met a few parties of Indians, but with such tact did Morton treat them—a mingled firmness and friendliness, and an overawing air of superiority—that not once did the savages venture to attack them. Some light tents were brought along on the pack-mules, constructed of thin cloth made waterproof, for shelter on rainy nights. Such careful provision had been made that for these strong and hardy men the journey presented hardly a discomfort.

When the party had proceeded eastward until Morton, from his observations, deemed they were not far west of their station on the Ohio, they turned southward until they struck the river. Ascending it, they soon saw, as they came around a bend, the red-cross flag floating over the block-house on the opposite shore far up the river. It was a sight which made the blood dance in their veins and their

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hats go up with huzzas. It was like getting home again. Arriving opposite the house, the party was soon discovered by their comrades at the station, and a small boat was sent to ferry them across. It took several trips to bring them over. The mules swam with their heads supported in the boat.

Ralph Morton found that the party at the house had been carefully managed in his absence. No collisions with the Indians had occurred, and a considerable quantity of furs had been collected by trade. Loading these furs on the animals, several of which had been left at the station, the tools were left in the house, which was locked up and then abandoned; and the united party, about twenty-five strong, set out for Mortonia, which they reached without the loss of a man in the whole expedition.

From the time Henry Morton returned from his first expedition beyond the mountains, the governor began to change his plans as to the territory he should acquire by charter, and his determination was fixed by what he saw on his long journey. At first he intended to obtain a charter for the territory bounded on the east by the Chesapeake Bay, on the north by the fortieth parallel, and on the south and west

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by the Potomac. But he reflected that this region was too much exposed to observation from England. He wished to make radical changes in government, and needed a degree of independence he could not have under the eye of king and parliament and exposed to their interference. He thought it quite probable that some time he might have to make forcible resistance to royal or parliamentary interference, and he did not wish for his theater a region exposed to the broadsides of the royal navy. He determined at last that the bulk of his new nation should lie beyond the mountains, where he could veil his operations from the jealous powers of England. One port he wanted, accessible from the ocean. Mortonia was just the place. The water was deep enough, but the channel so narrow that batteries on the shore could defend the place against a navy. He would acquire a narrow belt of land along the Potomac from Mortonia to the river's source, which would afford a pathway from the port to his transmontane realm. There was something in the idea of establishing this empire in the heart of the great virgin continent which appealed so strongly to the ardent imagination of Ralph Morton that he did not

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want to spend his life waiting for the peopling of the Atlantic coast before seeing the tide of empire pouring over the mountains and down the great river of the interior.

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{{sc|Very}} soon after returning from his exploring expedition Ralph Morton embarked for London. Arriving there, he first went to the officers of the Virginia Company and, after a long negotiation with them, obtained a grant of land extending along the Potomac from the Eastern Branch to the source of the river, and five miles in width, paying twenty thousand pounds for it. The company had expended much on the Virginia colony and received but a trifling sum in return. Such was the character of the colonists and the incredible folly of the officials that the colony was still suffering what Captain Smith called "strange miracles of misery." Morton's grant could have been obtained for much less money if the company had not still been haunted by the illusion of Virginia's gold—gold of which they never saw an ounce except Morton's twenty thousand bright sovereigns, and those he had paid the company for the first grant.
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The grant obtained, Morton sought the king. A new favorite, young George Villiers, was now nearest the royal ear, and though receiving much of the royal bounty, was greedy for more gold. A handsome present from Morton engaged him to induce the king's favorable notice of Morton's proposition to obtain a charter. James was in great need of money. Parliament, stingy even to the imperious Elizabeth, before whom the Commons crouched, withheld all supplies from the timid James, except on such conditions that he loathed to ask money of the Commons he despised. Morton was well aware of all this, and he boldly demanded terms in his charter which seemed, when demanded by an obscure young man, little less than presumptuous. But James, priding himself on his royal power, thought it no less—rather more—an exhibition of that power to create a vice-king in a new world out of an obscure gentleman than out of a great noble. And then, a man who could deliver a hundred thousand pounds sterling of gold was well worthy even of a king's respect.

Morton had less trouble in getting the extensive powers of government he sought than in obtaining; some smaller matters. The king of

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Spain had since the time of Columbus exacted one-fifth of all the gold and silver discovered in his American dominions, and Elizabeth had done the same with hers. James had a good deal of respect for Elizabeth, but vastly more for the king of Spain, and thought his example should he followed. But finally Morton evaded this condition by proposing, as if boastfully, to yield the royal treasury from his colony double the amount of gold yielded each year by the four times broader colony of Virginia. James had never seen an ounce of gold from Virginia, but esteeming himself very shrewd, thought that the reckless young man's proposal offered an advantage, and the royal trader closed with it. It is needless to say that Morton never had to pay James nor any of his successors an ounce of gold on this condition in his charter.

When it came to the name of the colony, James was about to propose a name in honor of some member of the royal family, but Morton desired the name "Aristopia"—the best place—to which the royal scholar assented.

The South Virginia Company had a charter for the region extending from the thirty-fourth to the fortieth parallel and one hundred miles

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from the coast. Ralph Morton asked a charter for the region (besides the five-mile belt along the Potomac from the Eastern Branch to the source of the river) extending from the thirty-eighth to the forty-first parallel, and from the crest of the highest range of the mountains of Virginia to the South Sea. This range, Morton assured the king, was more than a hundred and fifty miles from the coast. The American continent was then thought by the English to be very narrow, and the South Sea not very far beyond the mountains. Morton had taken care that no account of his expedition beyond the mountains should be sent to England. In view of the fact that the explorations of De Soto along the lower Mississippi and of Coronado and Cabeza de Valca in New Mexico had long been published, it is difficult to understand how the English notion of the narrowness of the American continent could survive, as it did. Powhatan repeatedly told John Smith that the stories of the great salt sea beyond the mountains were lies. How could a mind at all philosophical suppose that so great a river as the historians of De Soto's expedition described could be collected in a very narrow continent? More than one Eng-

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lish navigator had seen the vast volume of fresh water poured down by the St. Lawrence, which any schoolboy should have known could be drained only from a great continent. The Indians in the vicinity of the first English settlement at Roanoke, seeing the Englishmen very desirous of finding two things: gold and the South Sea, told them, with the design of sending them off on a wild-goose chase from which they might never return, that Roanoke River rose in a region full of gold; and that its source was a fountain so near the South Sea that the spray of the ocean dashed into the fountain. And this story was believed in England. So many wonders had been found in the new world that it seemed not incredible that a river should rise a few rods from the Pacific and flow into the Atlantic; or that a vast stream of ''fresh'' water could flow with a strong current from one salt sea into another.

The boundaries asked for by Morton were granted, with the proviso that if the crest of the main range of mountains was not a hundred and fifty miles from the Atlantic, then the eastern boundary of Aristopia should be a line parallel with the Atlantic coast and one hundred and fifty miles from it.
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The charter was drawn up in Latin. The preamble, or a translation of it, read thus:

"Whereas, our well-beloved and right trusty subject, Ralfe Morton, gent., of the county of Kent, in our said kingdom of England, being animated by a laudable and pious zeal for extending the Christian religion, and also the territories of our empire, hath humbly besought leave of us that he may transport, by his own industry and expense, a numerous colony of the English nation, to a certain region, hereinafter described, in a country hitherto uncultivated, in the parts of America now partly occupied by savages, who have no knowledge of the Divine Being, and in all that region, with certain privileges and jurisdictions appertaining unto the wholesome government and state of his colony and region aforesaid, may by our royal highness be given, granted, and confirmed unto him and his heirs."

Morton and his heirs and successors were constituted absolute lords and proprietaries of the region, to be held under the allegiance due to the king, in free and common socage, by fealty only, and not ''in capite,'' nor by knight's service, "yielding therefore unto us, our heirs and successors, two Indian arrows of

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those parts, to be delivered at the said castle of Windsor, every year, on Tuesday in Easter week; and also of the gold and silver ore which shall happen from time to time to be found within the aforesaid limits, so much as shall be double the amount of the fifth part of all gold and silver ore discovered in our royal province of Virginia." Morton's proprietorship was of the soil, mines, forests, waters, and the fish in them.

Morton was to have in the province religious power, "as any Bishop of Durham within the bishopric or county palatine of Durham," which was certainly extensive enough.

Morton and his heirs and successors were given power to make laws with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen of the province or their delegates or deputies, and ordinances for cases of emergency, "so, nevertheless, that the laws and ordinances aforesaid be consonant to reason, and be not repugnant or contrary to, but (so far as conveniently may be) agreeable to the laws, statutes, customs, and rights of this our kingdom of England."

Owing to the dangers which might suddenly arise in so remote a province, from savages,

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pirates, and other enemies, Morton, his successors, and their lieutenants were to have power to exercise martial law and military power "as full and unrestrained as any captain-general of an army hath or ever hath had."

To facilitate the peopling of the province, it was provided that all persons except those expressly forbidden should he free to emigrate to the province. The inhabitants of the province were to have all the privileges and rights of the subjects residing in England. They were to have the right to trade with all nations, and were to be burdened with no more customs duties than the other subjects of the kingdom of England.

Morton was to have power to establish ports of entry and levy import duties.

Morton and his heirs were to have power to convey "what estate of inheritance soever, in fee simple or fee tail, or otherwise, as to them shall seem expedient."

He was empowered to coin money of gold, silver, and copper, the gold and silver coins to be of the same fineness as those of the English mint.

He was empowered to grant titles of nobility, provided they were not the same as the titles

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of any of the nobility of Great Britain or Ireland.

It was provided that the new province should not be held or reputed a part of, or subordinate to, the land of Virginia, or any other colony alread transported, or thereafter to he transported.

It may well be supposed that when Ralph Morton gazed upon the fair and ample parchment, with its broad red seal, giving him such vast, almost royal powers, his heart swelled with exultation.

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{{sc|From}} the time Henry Morton returned from his first exploring expedition beyond the mountains the immigrants, already overflowing the five-mile radius around Mortonia, were directed up the Potomac to form new settlements; and when the governor returned from England the outmost settlement was more than forty miles above Mortonia. Now they were extended still more rapidly, for Morton acquired new vessels and extended his agencies in Europe.

The object was to push beyond the mountains, and small settlements were made along the Potomac a few miles apart, located at places where the best agricultural land was found. These settlements were made as compact as possible for safety from the savages, and each contained a strong block-house and stockade, with two or three small pieces of artillery. Each settlement consisting of twenty-five or thirty families constituted a township,

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with its local government of three supervisors, town clerk, justice of the peace, and constable. In each was located a store of the commonwealth. Each had its school and school officers. For teachers of these schools young women were brought from England, scions of "gentle" but impoverished families who preferred coming to America to the slavish life of a dependant or governess for some ill-tempered woman of rank or wealth.

Good roads were made to connect the settlements. The burden of making these roads was not laid upon the settlements, but the work was done by a body of laborers in the employ of the commonwealth, although really paid by the governor. Signals were arranged, to consist of three reports of a cannon, to give warning of an attack upon any settlement. At this signal the people were to retire to the forts and the attacked settlement was to receive all possible succor from its neighbors. No hostilities with the Indians had yet occurred, but the settlers were warned not to put any trust in the savages which might some time prove fatal. At the same time, the Indians were treated with justice and friendliness. Such land as the settlers of Aristopia needed

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was bought of the Indians at prices satisfactory to the latter.

It was not long before the chain of settlements extended from Mortonia bey ond the high plateau forming the watershed between the Potomac and the streams which flow northward into the Ohio, and descended to those streams. It was now decided to prepare to remove the capital of Aristopia from Mortonia to a point beyond the mountains. A new city (named Morgania in honor of a prominent official of the colony) was laid out on the middle one of the three large streams between the head of the Potomac and the Ohio. At this site was a fine waterfall with an ample volume of water to turn many mill-wheels. The valley was broad and fertile enough to support a large agricultural population. The ranges of mountains, or hills, which bounded the valley were full of iron ore and coal, although the value of the latter was little known at that time. But there was timber enough to make charcoal to smelt iron for a nation.

Soon after the site of this future capital was laid out and its settlement begun, a chain of trading-posts from the Ohio to the great river was established. The first one, called

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Onondio, was situated on the southeastern hank of the Ohio, at the mouth of a large creek in latitude 39° 40′. The second was on the same side of the Ohio, at the mouth of a river afterward called the Little Kanawha. The third was at the mouth of the Great Kanawha River. The fourth was on the north bank of the Ohio at the mouth of a river called the Scioto. The fifth was at a very beautiful location on the north bank of the Ohio, about a hundred miles below the mouth of the Scioto, and opposite the mouth of a considerable river coming in on the south side of the Ohio. The sixth was about a hundred and twenty miles farther down the river than the fifth. At this point were rapids in the river, which considerably impeded navigation. The seventh was near the mouth of the Wabash River. As the ground at the mouth of the Ohio was unfit for settlement and the point was considerably without the chartered limits of Aristopia, no post was established there. The eighth post was established on the eastern bank of the Misashapi (Mississippi) about one hundred and fifty miles (by the river) above the mouth of the Ohio and near the mouth of a considerable river. This post was named from the river,

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Kaskaskia. Another post, established a hundred miles farther up the great river, on the western bank, on a high and commanding place, was called Carondolet. Some twenty miles above the last post, the explorers found another mighty river pouring a turbid flood into the Misashapi on the western side. These posts were situated near the mouths of rivers navigable for long distances by Indian canoes. Facilities were thus given to the Indians for bringing in from an immense region their furs and peltries to trade. Thus the fur trade of Aristopia soon came to exceed that of Canada. Although the furs were not quite so good as those of more northern latitudes, the skins intended for leather, as those of the deer and elk, were of the best, while in the matter of buffalo skins Aristopia had almost a monopoly.

As a means of communication between these posts horse-boats were built, three or four of which plied between Onondio on the upper Ohio, and the post at the mouth of the Wabash. From this post to Kaskaskia the communication was overland, and the distance about a hundred miles, mostly over a prairie region. One horse-boat plied between Kaskaskia and

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Carondolet on the great river. As the people at the posts raised their own corn and vegetables, there was no great bulk of goods to be brought to them, and as they had only furs and peltries to ship away, there was no great weight to export, so that frequent trips were not necessary.

Though the colonists of Aristopia were not allowed to furnish the Indians firearms or other deadly weapons, they rendered them great assistance in getting furs and peltries by furnishing them steel traps.

When civilized people are brought into close contact with barbarism, as were the first European settlers of America, there is a great temptation with many of them to plunge into that barbarism and themselves become semi-barbaric. This was notably the case with a large portion of the settlers of Virginia. They did not congregate in communities and build towns, but scattered out on separate plantations. Very many of the younger sons of English "gentle" families, and many disbanded soldiers, unused to manual labor, but attracted by the free life of the new world, settled on the frontiers of the colony, and, raising only an acre or two of corn, depended for the rest of their subsistence

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on hunting and fishing, and procuring the few necessaries of civilized commerce with peltries, the spoils of their guns and traps. With the advance of settlement these men and their descendants, frontier life having become a passion with them, pushed on to new frontiers. Though such a life produced a race of men with some prominent virtues, among them great courage and self-reliance, yet it tended to a mode of living not much above barbarism. Such a life appeared to Ralph Morton very undesirable, and he labored to keep his people out of it and in a state of civilization even superior to that of Europe. Therefore he labored to keep the settlements compact and prevent straggling in the march of empire. The few in whom the desire to plunge into barbarism seemed irrepressible were selected to man the distant trading-posts. Most of these men took Indian wives; and their children, although having some undesirable characteristics, formed a medium between the two races by no means without its value to the colony.

With a view to facilitate as much as possible communication and commerce between the transmontane country and the sea, the governor bravely undertook the work of construct-

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ing a navigable canal from Mortonia to a point near the head of the Potomac, paying most of the expense from his private means. In about two years the canal was constructed to a point above the "Great Falls." Although this advanced navigation little more than ten miles, it was very beneficial by bringing down to Mortonia a great flow of water with all the fall needed to run many mills, as at the upper edge of Mortonia the canal was more than thirty feet above the surface of the river. From this point it was conducted down to tide level by a series of locks. This section of the canal first completed offered much greater difficulties that any section of equal length subsequently constructed, as twenty locks were needed in ten miles. The mills at Mortonia contained not only great saws for cutting planks from logs, but smaller saws and lathes for cutting timber into all shapes for all sorts of manufactures. Thus, by the aid of water-power handles were made for all sorts of tools, hubs and other parts of wagons, furniture, etc. Furniture could be shipped to England and Holland and sold at a good profit, the separate pieces, packed closely, to be put together, polished, and painted or varnished by workmen in

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Europe. The abundance of good cabinet woods in America made this traffic large and profitable. And not only did the mills of Mortonia work wood, but iron also, by means of lathes, great hammers, and ponderous steel rollers for rolling iron into bars and sheets, all driven by water-power. All such work was then done in Europe by unaided human muscle.

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{{sc|Governor Morton}} was especially desirous of procuring immigrants from Switzerland—a hardy, industrious, intelligent, and moral race. As the poor resources of the country could not support her increasing swarms, many of the people were desirous of emigrating. Many of her young men were sent as mercenaries in foreign wars, and, as a consequence, there was a superabundance of women in Switzerland, while in Aristopia there was a deficiency; so particular effort was made to induce unmarried Swiss women to come to Aristopia. The fare of all these emigrants was paid down the Rhine to points accessible to Governor Morton's vessels, in which they were given free transportation to America, as, indeed, were all other emigrants to Aristopia.

In some of the cities of northern Italy, as Genoa, Milan, and Venice, were some of the most skilful workmen in the world, and many of the people of that region, particularly of

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Savoy, were Protestants, severely oppressed by their rulers and desirous of emigrating. Governor Morton had two of his ships ply regularly between Genoa and Mortonia, bringing emigrants from Genoa.

In 1618, the Thirty Years' Warm Germany broke out. It was the custom of that age to hold prisoners of war for ransom, in default of which they were sold into servitude differing from slavery principally in being for a term instead of for life. Governor Morton's agents purchased thousands of these prisoners, who, on taking the oath of allegiance to the government of Aristopia, were shipped thither to become citizens in due time. The families of such of them as had families whose whereabouts could be discovered were brought over to America. During this war the theater of military operations was horribly devastated, the war being one of peculiar bitterness. Myriads of women and children, their houses burned, their property destroyed or carried off, and their male relatives killed, were driven into the fields and woods to perish with hunger and exposure or subsist miserably on roots and herbs. Thousands of these unfortunates were picked up by Governor Morton's agents and

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shipped to Aristopia, where they found comfortable homes, and the women were soon married.

Governor Morton also, at his own expense, founded and sustained orphan asylums at Mortonia and Morgania, in which thousands of orphans brought from European cities were reared and educated, both intellectually and industrially, into good, capable, and industrious citizens of Aristopia. They acquired the Aristopian spirit more readily than the adult immigrants, as they had not so many European prejudices to overcome.

That the heterogeneous materials, gathered in so many countries, of different sects, nationalities, and languages, did not assimilate without some effervescence may easily be imagined. There were many broils, especially on religious matters, which gave Governor Morton much uneasiness; but they passed over without serious consequences. Religious bigotry in Aristopia was to that in Europe as vaccinosis is to {{hinc|small-pox}}. In Aristopia was seen what Campbell sings of Wyoming:

{{ppoem|class=poem|
{{fqm}}For here the exiles met from every clime,
And spoke in friendship every distant tongue;
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung,
Were but divided by the running brook."
}}

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The children of all these differing peoples grew up Aristopians all, differing in creed, it is true, but never dreaming of attempting to suppress the creed of others or force their own views upon others. They were all educated from the same books in the public schools, where no sectarian doctrines were allowed to be taught.

That the ideas of the age demanded something in the nature of religion in schools Governor Morton could not deny; but he persuaded the people to be contented with the reading in the schools of a volume composed of the four gospels with simple historical comments, to enable the children to understand the literal meaning of the words; but all attempts at doctrinal comment or explanation were excluded. The version used was the King James', but in the reformed spelling, as were all the school-books of Aristopia.

Governor Morton had established a large printing-office, which every year turned out many thousand volumes of works of useful knowledge. He employed persons in England not only to make translations of works in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, but to rewrite, in a concise and popular style, works written in a prolix and

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antiquated style of English. These works were published in Aristopia, of course in the reformed spelling and grammar, and a copy of each was given to every school library. Learning this language in their school-books, the children adopted it as their own, and there gradually grew up an Aristopian language which may he described as a perfected English.

While the colony of Aristopia was thus advancing with giant strides (but so quietly as to attract little public attention in England), the colony of Virginia still crawled feebly along with its "strange miracles of misery." There was not a single village or hamlet in the colony except Jamestown, and that was smaller after twenty years than it was two years after it was founded. Each family lived isolated, every planter a petty lordling with his black slaves (for negro slavery had been introduced) and white indentured servants, the latter hardly less slaves than the former. Indeed, the laws of both Virginia and Maryland made it punishable with death for one of these white servants to run away, a crime described with grim quaintness as a "theft of himself." Many friendless persons, especially orphan boys old enough to do considerable work, were kid-

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napped in England and Scotland, and sold into servitude in Virginia. Many of these indentured servants escaped into Aristopia. The government would not shelter these persons officially nor prevent their masters from retaking them, not wishing to embroil itself with the neighboring colonies; but there were not lacking persons in Aristopia to assist the fugitives to pass swiftly and secretly over the mountains to the remote western settlements, so that one could hardly ever be retaken by his master.

As to negro slavery, as soon as Governor Morton's attention was called to it he foresaw the evils it would bring, as well as its inherent wrong, and he hastened to urge and soon procured a constitutional amendment declaring that slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime, should never exist in Aristopia. Considering the depraved public sentiment respecting slavery then existing in England, and still more in other parts of Europe, this provision was a very advanced one.

In its relations with England, no other law of Aristopia was so hard to be enforced against the will of the mother country as this law against slavery; for, after the abdication of James II., when Parliament had set up Dutch

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William as the King of England, the kingdom was ruled by Parliament, which was itself ruled by the trading and manufacturing classes. These classes did their utmost to force negro slavery upon the colonies. Each class had its own reason for this. The manufacturers wanted the colonies to produce only raw materials, which alone could be produced by slave labor. The traders wanted the same thing, as it would increase their trade with the colonies; and they wanted also the profit of the slave trade.

In 1622 the Indians made a wholesale massacre of the scattered colonists of Virginia. The outbreak did not extend to the settlements of Aristopia, but it was a startling warning to them. In 1627 it was estimated that there were less than two thousand white persons living in Virginia, out of the seven thousand sent there and their progeny.

In 1620 a settlement of the Puritans was made in what afterward became the colony of Massachusetts. Arriving in the early part of a terrible winter, nearly destitute on account of the hard terms the Dutch and London merchants made with them in furnishing them passage, there was a great deal of suffering and

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death, much of it caused by what Captain Smith called "the humorous ignorances of your Brownists." But the Puritans, while professing to esteem worldly things very lightly, were too practical and shrewd long to retain any "humorous ignorances "of their surroundings, and the colony was soon very successful, considering the severity of the climate and the sterility of the soil.

In 1632 Cecil Calvert established a colony whose first settlement was a near neighbor of Mortonia, being near the mouth of the Potomac. Calvert obtained a charter almost exactly like that of Morton. His grant included, roughly speaking, the territory bounded on the east by the Atlantic, on the north by the fortieth parallel, and on the south and east by the Potomac and a line drawn across the eastern peninsula on about the thirty-eighth parallel. His colonists immediately had to fight for their grant with a Virginia adventurer named Clayborne; and many years afterward Calvert's successor was beaten out of a large part of his grant by that shrewd Quaker, William Penn. Calvert was a Catholic, and for a long time the majority of the settlers of his colony, called Maryland, were Catholics. The colony was fairly success-

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ful from the start. They found the Indians of the western shore friendly, and never had any trouble with them; but some of the tribes of the eastern shore were vicious and hostile.

Tobacco soon became and remained almost the only product of Virginia and Maryland. It was, in fact, their currency and legal tender. While tobacco was largly cultivated in Aristopia, and could be cultivated better than corn on steep hillsides, it never became the principal product of the colony, although people of Aristopia had a great advantage over those of Virginia in selling their tobacco. Almost every plantation in Virginia fronted on one of the several navigable rivers. Ships from England and Holland anchored in front of the plantation, took on the planter's tobacco, and unloaded the goods in which it was paid for. Each planter acted for himself. He consigned his tobacco to some English or Dutch merchant, who allowed him what he pleased for the tobacco in goods the price of which was fixed by the merchant. The helpless planter was allowed just enough to keep him from utter despair and from refusing to raise and ship any more tobacco. All the tobacco exported from Aristopia was sent by the commonwealth to one of

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the governor's agents in England, and a fair price insured. A small profit went to the commonwealth, serving, instead of a tax, to pay public expenses.

Governor Morton early saw that the vast new continent presented for subjection to human control a vaster field than could he conquered by unaided human muscle in centuries, whatever myriads of the surplus population of Europe his gold would enable him to ship over. He saw that the wilderness must be conquered by machinery, and that the wants of the people engaged in the conquest must be ministered to by machinery, driven by water-power to do whatever work could be done by stationary machines, and propelled by horse-power where locomotive machines must be employed.

Agricultural implements and the methods of using them were among the first improvements made. Plows were greatly improved, and it was found that Indian corn could, after the land was freed from roots and numerous stumps, be cultivated with small, light plows much more easily than with hoes by hand, as the Indian squaws had done the work. The governor himself, having great inventive faculties, invented the grain cradle to take the place of

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the ancient sickle, and a brush scythe, with a short, thick blade, heavily braced, for cutting bushes and brambles, in place of the English bill-hook.

Governor Morton saw, too, that his transmontane colony, not able to export much of its crude products to Europe, as the three hundred miles or more of land carriage would be too expensive, must manufacture for itself, especially heavy and bulky articles; and to do this profitably, with so many hands needed so much in subduing savage nature, would require better machinery than the world had yet seen. Many skillful mechanics, from Holland, Flanders, Genoa, Venice, and the Free Cities of Germany, had come to Aristopia. These were stimulated by hope of reward, both of money and honor, to invent new machines and improve old ones. Laws were passed either allowing the inventor of a mechanical device the sole right of making and selling it for a term of years, or, if the commonwealth saw fit to manufacture the device, obliging it to pay the inventor a premium (better understood as a "royalty") on each article; but these premiums should not aggregate more than ten thousand dollars, for it was not thought meet

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that the commonwealth should enrich any of its citizens to such an extent as to enable them, if so disposed (and most rich men are so disposed), to oppress or corrupt their fellow-citizens.

But there was a reward to be coveted by inventors which could hardly become dangerous to the commonwealth—honor. Men in all ages and under all forms of government have coveted titles. Civilized or barbarous, royalist or republican, all are ready to risk life, endure suffering, and even give up wealth for titles, or, in other words, honor. When titles are bestowed on the worthy and do not carry with them undue power or a revenue wrung by privilege and monopoly from the people, and are not hereditary, giving to a person, however unworthy, power and honor merely on account of what his father did or was, they are something not to be rejected and despised by a wise social economy. So it was enacted that the Governor of Aristopia should bestow titles of honor on persons of conspicuous merit or who had rendered signal service to the commonwealth. Prominent among those to be so rewarded were inventors. These titles were not to be hereditary nor carry with them any

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pecuniary reward or revenue—nothing but a gold medal or badge and a ribbon.

Among the great needs of the commonwealth was a machine for the rapid and cheap manufacture of nails. The great increase in the production of lumber by the invention of saw-mills made it possible to build a board bouse much more quickly than a log one, and when built it was more cleanly and sightly. But the cost of band-made nails, many of which were needed in a frame bouse, was a great drawback. Stimulated by promised rewards, and encouraged by the governor's bearing the expense of their experiments, some mechanics soon produced a practicable nail-machine, which, with a single attendant, could cut from a thin strip of iron as many nails in a day as a hundred men could make by hand in the same time. Building was thus cheapened in Aristopia, and nails were made for export. The machine was kept a secret, although it would hardly have been adopted in Europe if known, such was the prejudice against machinery in the old world. When some progressive person ventured to introduce a new machine in Europe, mobs of workmen destroyed it lest it should displace them, and

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cut off even the poor wages they received. But in Aristopia the poorest workmen had no fear of machinery. None was so dull as not to see that the vast continent offered work which every available hand, aided by every possible machine, could not do in generations. Governor Morton, foreseeing the danger that individuals, through wealth obtained by whatever means, might own and control machinery to such an extent as to oppress laborers, used every device of statecraft, first, to prevent any dangerous accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals, and next, to accustom the people to the public control of great aggregations of manufacturing machinery.

A thing which Governor Morton very much desired, but which he did not see until he was very old, was machinery for spinning and weaving, driven by water-power, replacing the spinning-wheel and hand-loom by which cloth was then produced, a work which fell with great weight on the patient, drudging housewife.

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{{sc|One}} of the most destructive scourges of mankind in the days of which we write, and of uncounted centuries before, was smallpox. Other plagues were more destructive for a time, but their duration was short, and the intervals between their appearances were long. Smallpox, however, was always lurking in some corner of every country, ready to take advantage of circumstances favorable for an epidemic. It has been estimated that half a million people perished annually of smallpox in Europe. The Spaniards carried it to Mexico and South America, where it committed the most frightful ravages among the Indians and the negro slaves. The English and French carried it to North America, where it exterminated whole tribes of Indians. It has ever been noticed that the disease is much more virulent and fatal among the dark races than among the light ones. America was only thinly populated

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with Indians when the European settlements were first planted. Of this thin population it is estimated that six millions perished of smallpox in a century.

One of the first cares of Ralph Morton was to exclude the scourge from his colony. His agents were continually warned against shipping persons suffering from, or suspected of being infected with, smallpox. When the disease became epidemic in any port of Europe Morton's vessels ceased to visit that port until the epidemic subsided. Vessels arriving at Mortonia with the pest on board were rigidly quarantined and all infected articles destroyed. The cleaner and more comfortable mode of living in Aristopia than that of the common people in Europe, where poverty among the masses was the mother of filth and squalor, was favorable to exemption from the scourge.

But still, smallpox was the terror of the world, and no hope of exemption appeared.

The second wife of Ralph Morton was the daughter of a Gloucestershire farmer and dairyman. From the time of her marriage she had observed her husband's anxiety about the smallpox and his unceasing efforts to exclude the

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scourge from the colony and mitigate its ravages when it gained an entrance. But it was many years before it occurred to her to tell her husband something of which she made little account, but which seemed to him of immense importance. She said it had long been known that the cows of Gloucestershire were subject to a pustular disease which could be, and sometimes was, communicated to the milkers who had chaps or abrasions of the skin upon their hands. It was believed by some that those persons who had suffered from the cowpox would not have the smallpox, or, if they did, that it would be in a very mild form. She told of a school-teacher who had inoculated several children with the cowpox; these children had escaped the smallpox, even when it attacked their families.

Ralph Morton had one of those fertile minds in which suggestions, falling sterile on other minds, like seeds sown upon the stones of the highway or among the bushes and brambles of the roadside, sprang up in a fruitful growth. He wondered much that if one person had observed that cowpox gave immunity from smallpox, all the world had not soon known and availed itself of the immunity. He did not

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make sufficient allowance for human dullness and prejudice.

He pondered the matter some time and then sent an agent to Gloucestershire to investigate. The agent reported that in fact he had found cows with the pustular disease, and by diligent inquiry learned of the existence of a tradition that the disease communicated to mankind gave immunity from smallpox.

Morton then ordered twenty young heifers to be shipped from Gloucestershire to Mortonia; two of them on leaving England were to be inoculated with the cowpox, and during the voyage two other heifers should be inoculated every ten days, so that the virus should be kept fresh. At Mortonia other heifers were to be inoculated, and thus a sufficient supply of virus would be provided.

Meanwhile the governor had published the matter and called for volunteers to be vaccinated. Several physicians and many other young men responded, having great confidence in the governor's wisdom and knowledge. The governor promised to confer a title of honor upon any vaccinated physician who would go into a smallpox hospital as doctor or nurse, and to give a pension of five hundred dollars a

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year to the family of any person who should, while so acting as nurse or physician, contract the smallpox and die of it.

There never have been lacking, in any civilized community, a few devoted persons willing to expose themselves to the dangers of plague in ministering to the sufferings of their fellowbeings, and that without hope of extraordinary reward. Still more were thus willing when special honors were to be reaped and provision was to he made for the future of their families. The smallpox was not just then in existence in Aristopia, but in some of the other colonies there were local epidemics, and thither went Aristopians, to try the efficacy of vaccination.

Every one of these persons became firmly convinced that vaccination furnished either entire immunity, or immunity from all except a very mild form of smallpox. Their testimony was published in newspapers, pamphlets, lectures, and by the teachers of public schools all over Aristopia. Many persons, including physicians, lent the governor their aid in urging general vaccination. When a smallpox epidemic at last broke out in Aristopia the efficacy of vaccination was so fully demonstrated that

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none but strongly prejudiced persons longer disbelieved.

The good news that here at last was protection from the world's terror, was published far and near. It might be supposed that all would gladly hail and quickly avail themselves of the protection. Not so. Mighty indeed is human prejudice, invincible when fortified with religious superstition. Nowhere in the civilized world outside of Aristopia was there sufficient freedom from bigotry to allow vaccination to be adopted, for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the acme of religious fanaticism in the world's history. The pulpit everywhere thundered against the impiety of vaccination. Smallpox was a wise dispensation of Providence to rid the poor man of the burden of his numerous family; it was a fitting punishment for the sins of the proud and impious; to attempt to escape from or abolish it was sacrilege. Passages of Scripture were searched out and pieced together to prove that vaccination was even anti-Christ. The miracle-mongers of the Church did not fail to find warning portents. Ox-faced boys and cow-faced girls were known (it was said) to be born of mothers who had been vaccinated. God's wrath was

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called down upon the impious who attempted thus to escape his scourge, a scourge intended in mercy, as they were too blind to see.

Thus, for a century after Aristopia enjoyed practical exemption from the scourge, Europe suffered on, until at last the fierce fever of bigotry so far subsided as to leave fair room for reason, when the whole civilized world (except a small prejudiced minority) availed itself of the boon, first made public by Ralph Morton.

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{{sc|The}} terrible storm of civil war in England between the partisans of the King and those of the Parliament was almost unfelt in the American colonies, and especially in Aristopia. Its principal effect was to send many royalist refugees to Virginia, when the King's cause met with final disaster, and many to Aristopia of those who abhorred the excesses of both sides. Though Governor Morton had little cause to complain of Charles I, he naturally hoped the struggle might pave the way for a republic in England. Seeing in Cromwell, after the execution of Charles, the man in whom he thought lay England's only hope of extrication from the anarchy into which the factions of Parliament had plunged the country, he sent that general ten thousand pounds to assist him.

In 1649 Governor Morton went to Holland, with a large amount of gold, to arrange some business in person, being also desirous of see-

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ing Europe again. At this time Cromwell was in Ireland, subduing that country, which had taken up arms for Charles II. The Irish were completely defeated, and so reduced to despair that an immense body of them determined to emigrate. Word came to Holland that they were assembled on the western coast of Ireland, awaiting vessels to take them away. Governor Morton promptly resolved to take them to Aristopia. He quickly sent word to the captains of all his own vessels whom he could reach, to sail immediately to the coast of Ireland, and take as many Irish as possible to Mortonia, if they would go. He also employed a large number of Dutch vessels for the same purpose. As the Irish who were determined on self-exile had no particular destination in view, Morton's agents easily induced them to go to Aristopia on promise of profitable employment and political and religious liberty. More than forty thousand Irish, mostly men, thus expatriated themselves. Cromwell, desirous of ridding the island of these intractable subjects of the English government, gave them ample time to embark. Of the forty thousand more than twenty-five thousand, including nearly all of the small proportion of women

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and children among the exiles, went to Aristopia.

It is certain that Governor Morton averted a vast amount of human misery by his action, for terrible indeed would have been the sufferings of those poverty-stricken exiles, inured although they were to hardships, if they had been thrown in great masses, ignorant of the language, manners, and industries of the countries to which they might have gone, into any other community than Aristopia, with its unique governor.

It was a very hazardous experiment to throw a mass of semi-barbarous people like the Irish of that age into a new colony, and the colonists murmured much when they learned of it. The Irish were accounted by the English as little more civilized than the Indians, and quite as hopeless of civilization. But Governor Morton did not share these prejudices. He knew that the Irish were rude, ignorant, and half-savage in their manners; but he also knew that this rudeness was not inherent in the race, as in the Indians. He remembered that, some centuries before, Ireland had been the seat of by far the highest civilization of which western Europe could boast, and that

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their present degradation was the result of hideous misgovernment. Under good government he was sure the Irish would rise from their degradation and recover their ancient civilization.

He wanted only industrious citizens in Aristopia; the English of that time and for centuries afterward were never tired of descanting on Irish sloth. Says Macaulay: "The Irish peasant feared not danger half so much as work." But Governor Morton had read history enough to know that no misgoverned people are ever industrious, because they have no incentive to produce anything of which they would probably he robbed. No civilized race, well governed, has shown a lack of the industry necessary to obtain a comfortable living.

To feed this army, almost as great as was then the whole population of Virginia and Maryland combined, in a new country, until they could produce something from the soil, was no small task. The governor had several {{hinc|shiploads}} of wheat and barley shipped promptly from Holland, then a mart for every commodity, and as soon as possible sent word to Aristopia to export no more grain. When

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the fleet bearing this army of immigrants arrived, the Potomac was whitened with sails like the Thames, and the river bank from Mortonia far down was fringed with masts like the docks of London. The horse-boats worked night and day, with relays of men and horses, towing the ships up the river. As the Irish were known to be turbulent, a considerable force of militia was kept in readiness as a police.

About five thousand of the Irish were put at work on the canal along the upper Potomac, and the rest were marched over the mountains. Many of them had been fishermen in Ireland. These were selected and set to fishing on the lower Potomac and the Chesapeake. The fish they caught were salted and sent to feed the Irish immigrants. Part of the Irish were assisted in making themselves farmers, some were employed by private individuals, more on public works by the commonwealth, and the rest by the governor at his private expense.

Though wild and turbulent at first, and requiring considerable extra police force, they gradually improved. Paid fair wages and encouraged by every possible means to desire and attain a higher and more comfortable con-

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dition of life than they had known before, their improvement was rapid. In a few years they went far to justify Governor Morton's opinion of their capacity for civilization, and their children did so completely.

As soon as possible, the governor's agents sought out and brought over the families of such of the immigrants as had left families in Ireland. Some of the most intelligent of the immigrants were selected and sent back to Ireland to assist in inducing enough young Irish women to come over to mate the unmarried men. In the distracted and impoverished state of the country, with myriads of their young men slain in their struggle with the conquering English, and thousands exiled, it was not difficult to find {{hinc|shiploads}} of surplus women, many of them lone and homeless and only too glad to accept any offered refuge.

The victories of Cromwell gave another peculiar accession to the population of Aristopia, but a much smaller one than that of the Irish exiles. Nearly two hundred of the Scotch captured at the battle of Worcester in 1651 were shipped to Virginia to be sold into servitude—something which sounds very strange in this age. Governor Morton bought

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the whole lot before they were landed. They were then informed that if they would take the oath of allegiance to the government of Aristopia, and especially an oath never to molest their neighbors by word or deed in the free exercise of their religious faith (for the Scotch of that day were generally furious zealots in religion), they would be allowed their freedom in Aristopia, where in due time they might become citizens; otherwise they would be resold in Virginia. The offer was unanimously accepted, although it was a bitter pill to most of these Covenanters to swear not to do their utmost against "popish dogs" and "recusants," if not against less heinous heretics and "antichrists." But in the course of years the savage zeal of these men abated so much that they were content merely to think evil of their neighbors who were in "spiritual darkness," without saying much or doing anything violent to enlighten them. The families of such of them as had families in Scotland were brought over to Aristopia.

The fleet which brought these Scotch prisoners came over to "reduce" Virginia, which had declared for the King. The work of reduction was very speedily performed. The

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parliamentary commissioners made very favorable terms for the Virginians; indeed, they left them more freedom and self-government than the King had given them. Maryland, as a Catholic colonv, was "reduced" to the extent of rendering Catholics incompetent to hold office and putting the local government into the hands of the few Puritans the colony contained. Aristopia had not rendered itself obnoxious to the parliamentary party, and was not molested.

The rule of the "Rump," and the protectorates of Oliver and Richard Cromwell passed away without any event of importance in the relations of England and the colonies. The short war with Holland and the Navigation Act of Parliament hardly interrupted the trade of the colonies with the Dutch.

For many years after the accession of Charles II. the King and Parliament were too intent on watching each other to pay much attention to the colonies. At last Charles had sufficient leisure to inflict two of his favorites, Arlington and Culpeper, on Virginia, which was unfortunate enough to be the favorite of the Stuarts. Large grants of land were given to these rapacious parasites, whom the Virginians

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finally bought off. Another such favorite was about to be inflicted on Aristopia, when Governor Morton's agents succeeded, by the payment of twenty thousand pounds, in inducing the King to renounce his intention and sign a solemn promise that the charter given by his grandfather should be forever respected to the letter.

That charter had given Governor Morton the right to levy customs, and had exempted the colony from the levying of royal customs within its borders. But the terms of this exemption were vague, and Governor Morton had much difficulty in keeping his colony free from royal spies in the form of customs officers; he wished to conceal from the English government the proceedings of the commonwealth and the fact that Aristopia was exporting largely of its manufactures—a fact which, if fully known, would have aroused the jealousy of the English government and provoked restrictive legislation. It is popularly but erroneously supposed in America that restrictive legislation against manufacturing in the colonies began with the colonization; but in fact it was more than a century after the founding of Jamestown before the English manufactur-

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ers awoke to the fact that America was manufacturing for herself and before they obtained power enough in Parliament to procure restrictive legislation.

Charles II. died, and James II. became King of England in 1685. His arbitrary and tyrannical career as lord proprietor and governor of the colonies of New York and New Jersey, while he was Duke of York, prepared him for arbitrary measures with the colonies when he became King of Great Britain. One of these measures was to send over one of his favorites, George Arundel, as governor of Aristopia, in the place of the venerable Governor Morton, then nearly one hundred years old; although this was in flagrant violation of the charter.

The royalist governor came to Morgania, the capital of Aristopia, and very much surprised he was to find flourishing and highly civilized communities where he expected to find the scattered settlements and rude huts of a few thousand semi-barbarous colonists. Mortonia was a city of several thousand inhabitants, with many public buildings, all of brick or stone, with slate roofs. The dwelling-houses were mostly of wood, neatly painted,

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and glass windows were more plentiful than in London. All the land from the Eastern Branch to Rock Creek, and much above the creek, was a close succession of well-cultivated farms, orchards, vineyards, and gardens. The land along the river too moist for cultivation was an expanse of green meadows. Morgania was considerably larger and more flourishing than Mortonia. The new governor never went beyond Morgania, and never learned the greatness of the civilized communities which stretched far down the Ohio.

The system of government of Aristopia required of its chief executive little action in the way of ruling. He was rather the chief clerk of a business bureau than a ruler. Thus, while the royalist governor imagined he was governing the colony, the work of this bureau went on without any reference to him. At last, finding that no attention was paid to his edicts, he began to bluster and threaten. Then the real head of the commonwealth, the venerable Governor Morton, ordered several thousand of the well-drilled militia of Aristopia to Morgania and displayed them before the nominal ruler. It was then suggested to Arundel that he could probably rule Aristopia much better through

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a lieutenant-governor while residing in London than by remaining in Morgania. Governor Morton promised to pay him an annual pension of double the salary he was receiving.

Arundel was not a very, wise man, but he was no fool. He saw that governing Aristopia in reality would be for him a very troublesome work. Then, too, he was an aristocrat, and the democratic civilization of Aristopia, so different from that of England, however well it might suit Aristopians, was distasteful to him. He much preferred life in London, especially with a double salary. So one fine day he climbed into a six-horse coach, and with his retinue of servants at his back, turned his face toward the Atlantic and left Morgania, amid the blare of much martial music, the waving of many red-cross flags, and the booming of cannons. All this was ostensibly in loyal honor of their departing guest and ruler; but it might have occurred even to Arundel that the demonstrations were rather an ironical honor.

Arundel left as his lieutenant Henry Morgan, a brother-in-law of Governor Morton's son. The nominal lieutenant-governor never had the slightest idea of exercising any of the

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functions of governor, and after the departure of Arundel the government of Aristopia moved on exactly as before his coming. The cautious old governor would rather pay out a few thousand pounds than to plunge the commonwealth into a struggle with the King or let the royalist tool remain to meddle with the affairs of the commonwealth.

But Arundel's pension was of short duration. The reckless and stubborn James so aroused England against himself that he was forced to abdicate in 1688, and Dutch William ascended the English throne. The pension to the nominal governor of Aristopia was immediately stopped, and the tool of the exiled king saw the hopelessness of any attempt to enforce the payment.

In the first year of the reign of James II the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II., raised an insurrection, which was speedily suppressed. A thousand of his followers were sold into servitude. Governor Morton's agents bought and shipped nearly all of them to Aristopia. Their joy may be imagined when they found themselves freemen in the new world, with brighter prospects than they had ever hoped for in their most prosperous days.

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They were mostly agricultural peasants, material from which useful citizens might be made. The families of such of them as had families were brought to them.

Toward the end of this same year 1685, began the greatest immigration into Aristopia which ever occurred in so short a time. The arrogant and despotic King of France revoked the edict of Nantes by which the Protestants of France had for many years enjoyed a small degree of religious liberty. The high-spirited Huguenots resolved not to remain and endure the terrible persecutions which quickly followed the revocation, and they soon began a wholesale emigration. Many of the French Huguenots had already come to Aristopia. Some of these were immediately sent back to France to co-operate with Governor Morton's agency (which was well organized in France) in inducing the exiles to come to Aristopia. The number of these exiles is variously estimated at from three to five hundred thousand. So well directed were the efforts of Morton's agency, supported with abundant means, and so great the inducements offered, that more than one hundred thousand of these Huguenots came to Aristopia in a single year. They came in

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unbroken families. They were among the most skillful mechanics and agriculturists of France, high-spirited and intelligent, possessing most of the high virtues and noble qualities of the English Puritans, without their gloomy austerity and savage bigotry; and they soon became excellent citizens of their adopted country. Some were men of great learning capable of becoming professors in the higher institutions of learning in Aristopia.

The manner of the Huguenots' exile rendered it easy to direct their emigration to Aristopia, and very fortunate it was for them that such an asylum and such assistance in reaching it were at hand. The emigration of the Huguenots was made a felony, and the frontiers were guarded to prevent it. The property of the dying Protestant was by law left to the one of his family who should renounce his religion. Soldiers were quartered in Huguenot families to prevent them from the exercise of their religion and to guard against—their emigration. Those who escaped must leave their property behind. Sad enough and hard enouo-h is the lot of the exile when he can take a little property with him, but infinitely harder when thrown empty-handed among a strange and unsympathizing

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people—not the strong man with only his own wants to provide for, but the father with his wife and babes. What fortune, then, to find free passage to a land where nature's bounty was lavish and to a great extent unappropriated, and to a commonwealth whose leading principle was the public weal, not the greed of gain at the expense of others, whose motto was ''"{{lang|la|non sibi, sed ahis}}"''—not for one's self but for others!

The Huguenots, adding their peculiar qualities to those of the English, Germans, and Irish, very greatly and beneficially influenced the new composite nation.

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{{sc|The}} venerable Ralph Morton lived but a few months after the abdication of James. He was in his hundredth year. To very few of the human race is it given to live and retain their faculties for a round century. Well would it be if all these centenarians were such as Ralph Morton.

For many years he had left to a subordinate the arduous labors of the chief executive's office and had undertaken no task beyond his strength. He became rather an adviser than an executive. Feeling that his end was near, and wishing to see his successor installed, he resigned his office. The people elected his son Charles as governor for a term of five years.

Ralph Morton had married, when about thirty, a young and comely woman who had come over to Mortonia to teach school. By this union he had no son who survived him. At the age of about fifty he had married again,

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and Charles Morton was the oldest son by this marriage. This son was, what too few sons of great and good men are, entirely worthy of his father. Free from avarice, arrogance, love of ostentation and luxury; desiring power and wealth only that he might do good with them; a philanthropist with an abiding faith in the ultimate high destiny of the human race; an earnest friend of progress, but opposing change for the mere sake of novelty; without bigotry, believing that the truest and most acceptable worship of God is the doing good to His creatures; he was the man above all others whom Ralph Morton desired as his successor, although he had never urged his election, which was a spontaneous tribute of a grateful people to a benefactor whom they could little requite for all his benefactions.

Ralph Morton bequeathed to the commonwealth in fee simple all the lands of which the royal charter made him lord proprietor, except a few acres about the mine, with the condition that the cardinal principles of the Constitution in respect to private ownership and monopoly of soil, forests, mines, waters, etc., should never be violated. In case of such violation the lands in respect to which the violation should occur

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should immediately revert to the heirs of Ralph Morton.

He gave to each of his living children and the representatives of such as were dead ten thousand dollars, with the request that they should use the advantages the wealth gave them for the benefit of their country and humanity. The mine he gave to his son Charles, on receiving a solemn pledge that the gold should be used for the public good. The stone had been dug away from the mass for its whole length and depth down to where, in miner's phrase, the deposit "pinched out." Several millions of dollars' worth were still left, sufficient for many years of use in assisting immigration, maintaining institutions of learning, and aiding the advancement of science; to these uses the new Governor Morton resolved to devote the gold.

At the time of his retirement, Governor Ralph Morton issued a farewell address to the people of Aristopia, which, in the main, he had composed many years before, while his mental powers were in full vigor, only modifying it somewhat as the flight of years opened to him new views and furnished him new illustrations. He not only drew upon the historical studies of

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his youth, but on the experiences of his long life. He hud kept himself fully informed, by means of his wide correspondence, of all public events of both Europe and America.

He urged his people to guard their liberties with unremitting and unending vigilance. He pointed out the dangers to which these liberties would be exposed and whence would probably come the assaults upon them; that these assaults would not be hold, abrupt, and open, but stealthy, insidious, and gradual. With every succeeding generation the dangers to popular liberty from the despotism of hereditary monarchy and aristocracy would grow less. With increasing and advancing civilization another kind of despotism—the despotism of wealth—would become more and more dangerous. This despotism might be hereditary, the slow growth of generations, or it might be the sudden growth of a score or two of years. In a new country, where so much of nature's wealth was unappropriated and so wide a scope was offered for those excelling in greed, cunning, and strength to grasp this unappropriated wealth, the sudden acquisition of great riches might be looked for in many cases.
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He warned the people that the greatest dangers to liberty might be covered by the most specious pleas for liberty itself. He warned them that the wealthy and strong would plead for liberty—the liberty to oppress the weak and helpless, to rob them, not boldly and openly, with the coarse methods of the highwayman, but stealthily and under the pretence of fair and open "business." But the result would be exactly that accomplished by the highwaymen: the acquisition of wealth without rendering an equivalent.

Absolute equality of wealth, however desirable, could not be attained except in a community in which the individual was controlled in all financial matters by the society; otherwise the improvident and incapable would surely become and remain poor. As society is obliged in the end to care for the improvident and incapable, it is a question when that care ought to begin and how far prevention ought to be substituted for alleviation, especially when it is considered that the incapable one is often the head of a family, dragging down to poverty those naturally dependent upon him. But without any question, prevention ought to be used against the great and

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dangerous accumulation of wealth by individuals and associations not public. Great wealth in the bands of a few must with the utmost certainty be balanced by the poverty of many. The dangers and injustice to society of this are so great that no specious plea for liberty must be allowed to cover the acquisition of undue wealth. The liberty of the strong and capable to get all they can and keep all they get, although obtained at the expense of the weak and incapable, is only the liberty of the highwayman glossed over and refined by subtle methods; the liberty of the bold and strong to do as they please with the weak and timid, the liberty of the shrewd and cunning to deal as they can and will with the simple and uncalculating, is a sort of anarchy.

He warned the people especially against the dangers from corporations, which were then beginning to grow strong in England. He had seen a good specimen of corporation rule in the early settlement of Virginia. A corporation is the very worst of rulers. It has all the vices of the avarice, greed, selfishness, and cruelty of all its members combined and increased in geometrical ratio by the combination, with none of the virtues of the benevolence and

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generosity of its separate members. It is deaf to the voice of mercy, insensible to the pangs of remorse and the scourge of shame, and untouched by the sentiment of gratitude. Vain against corporations are laws relating to heredity, for corporations may perpetuate themselves and live through generations. Above all, he warned the people against giving a corporation any monopoly. Dangerous and evil as is any monopoly in the hands of an individual, in the grasp of a corporation its evil is multiplied infinitely. Although a corporation has no soul, it may have a head, who, wielding its vast power with a single will, may make of himself a most dangerous despot.

This paper, of which only a brief, dry outline is here given, was written with a vividness of color, a depth and warmth of feeling, an aptness of expression, a strength of argument, a force, and fire, and fervor which were possible only to a man of high genius, with a soul aflame with love of right and hatred of wrong.

The address became a classic in Aristopia, and was read and declaimed by every youth in every school for generation after generation. Its influence was greater than that of future presidents and congresses. Its maxims had more than the force of laws.

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{{sc|The}} arduous task of King William in firmly establishing the throne which lie had acquired in so peculiar a manner, left him little time in the early part of his reign to meddle with the American colonies; but in after years he reduced Maryland to a royal colony and meddled considerably with the charter of Massachusetts, probably because the proprietor of the former colony was a Catholic, while the latter colony was offensively Puritan. But Aristopia came little under his notice. His campaign against the exiled King James in Ireland led to further measures against that unhappy country resembling those of Cromwell. Nearly the whole Irish population of the province of Ulster was driven out. Many thousands of these exiles were brought to Aristopia, where they furnished very crude but in the end very valuable material for citizenship, as we have seen in the case of those driven out by Cromwell.

By the time those were settled in Aristopia,

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the valley of the Ohio from its source at the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela to its mouth was thickly settled. At the junction just mentioned a flourishing town called Columbus was established, and became the seat of an extensive iron-smelting industry. The old trading-posts on the Ohio and the Mississippi had become large towns. New trading posts had been established far westward up the Mizouri, and northward up the Mississippi.

Lead in abundance had been discovered in the region west of the Mississippi, not far from that river, and considerable mining settlements had been formed. Zinc ore was also found in the vicinity of the lead ore.

The Indians who came to trade at the posts on the upper Mississippi had knives, hatchets, and arrow-heads cast of copper, evidently of native manufacture. Some of the Indians revealed the existence of large deposits of pure metallic copper, which they said were situated near the shores of a vast lake or fresh-water sea far to the north. These Indians were induced by rich presents to conduct an exploring party to the mines. With the party were experts in minerals and a mathematician to de-

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termine the latitude and longitude of the places visited. The party set out from a post on the Mississippi about five hundred miles (by river) above the mouth of the Mizouri and traveled nearly four hundred miles in a northerly direction, over rugged hills and broad plains, narrow prairies and extensive forests, first of hard woods and later of great pines. At last they came to the shore of a lake so vast that it seemed like a sea. Near the lake they found many outcroppings of metallic copper and copper ore, with indications that much greater quantities could he obtained by mining.

The Indians informed the explorers that another great lake lay off to the southeast of the copper mines, on which they could, by going southward, reach a point less than six days' journey from the Mississippi. It was determined that on reaching this lake a few of the party should go by canoes as far as possible, leaving the rest of the party to return by nearly the same route as they came.

Crossing the peninsula separating the two great lakes, a party of five white men, including the mathematician, and two Indian guides, embarked in birch canoes and set out southward along the shore of the great and solitary

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lake. After a long journey southward they found the shore of the lake trending too much to the east, when they abandoned their canoes and struck out on foot over the vast prairie, with the setting sun as their guide. In due time they reached the great river, and were soon at a trading-post.

Copper was a metal very much needed in Aristopia. Unalloyed and in brass and bronze it was far better adapted to many uses than iron, which was very plentiful in the country. There was plenty of zinc from which to make brass, but all the copper used had to be imported from Europe. So it was decided by the government of Aristopia to take possession of these copper mines, although they were far beyond the charter limits of the commonwealth.

The Elenwah River, emptying into the Mississippi about twenty-five miles above the mouth of the Mizouri, could be ascended by horse-boats to within about a hundred miles of the shore of the great Lake Michigan. At this head of navigation a post was established. A fort was built of prairie sods, and armed with three six-pound cannons. Houses were built of lumber, brought up on the boats. For the post on Lake Michigan a point was selected

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at the mouth of a small river called the Sheca'o. The mouth of the river would form a port for vessels used on the lake. As there was no timber for building and fuel here, a post was not immediately established; but a strong party with all the necessary tools was sent northward alongthe shore of the lake until a spot was found where there was plenty of good timber, and a small river running into the lake which would furnish water-power for a saw-mill. Here a post called Sheboygan was established, and a saw-mill erected. From the lumber sawn two sailing vessels were built. The first one, which was finished immediately, took a cargo of lumber to the mouth of the Shecago River, where a post called Shecago was established. The western and northern shores of Lake Michigan were explored with a view to finding a passage into the other lake, called Lake Tracy or Superior. It was found, however, that in the river between the two lakes were rapids which prevented navigation. So another post, called Escanaba, was established at the head of a little bay at the north end of Lake Michigan. From this point a road was cut through the woods to the shore of Lake Superior, a distance of about forty-five miles.

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On the shore of Lake Superior another post, called Fort Neenah, was established and another saw-mill erected. A vessel of about twenty tons was built to ply between Fort Neenah and the mines, where a post called Fort Copper was established.

In this systematic and thorough manner a line of communication was established between the western settlements of Aristopia and the far-off northern mines, which left only two short journeys overland to be made. Thus, before the end of the seventeenth century, the white sails of staunch vessels, manned by English-speaking crews, could be seen on these lonely inland seas, of whose very existence the people of England were ignorant, supposing that in their place rolled the salt waves of the great South Sea.

This extension of the outposts of Aristopia not only supplied the colony with a large amount of copper, but greatly increased its fur trade, by extending it into a new region. In this high northern latitude, too, the furs were of the best quality.

The determination which Ralph Morton took to occupy with his colony the interior instead of the coast region, with the results that flowed

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from that determination, effectually blocked a game which France had begun to play more than a century before the events described in this chapter, viz: the occupation of the interior of the vast continent which the English for a long time thought so narrow and of which they seized only the Atlantic coast. The fur traders of the French early pushed up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, and later the ardent and courageous missionaries went much farther. Later still a French colony occupied the lower Mississippi, and the natural result would have been a final union of these colonies by the pathway of the Mississippi, Ohio, and the great lakes. But the settlements of Aristopia blocked the way.

In 1673 a party composed of Marquette, a missionary who had spent several years in the region of the great lakes, Joliet, a Quebec trader, five other Frenchmen, and two Algonquins, ascended a river flowing into Lake Michigan to a place where a short portage enabled them to launch their canoes in another broad but shallow river flowing southwestward. This river was named by the French Ouisquondsen (later spelled Ouisconsin). Here the Indian guides deserted the party, and the

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Frenchmen proceeded down the stream in search of a greater river of which they had heard.

After seven days of floating and paddling, they came into this great river and began to descend. They saw, indeed, a magnificent stream, its great volume in some places flowing in one broad channel, at other places dividing and running' among islands covered to the water's edge with willow and birch. The valley they saw flanked with high bluffs, in places rising in smooth, green ramparts, crowned with oak groves, in other places perpendicular limestone cliffs. Descending a hundred miles, the valley broadened out and the great bluffs sunk into low, rounded hills. The water rippled clear in the sunshine on the sandy banks, sprinkled with many-hued pebbles, for here the great river had not been polluted by the turbid tide of the Mizouri.

They had been told by the Indians that white men were settled on the banks of the great river, but they concluded that in their imperfect knowledge of the language they had misunderstood; they were sure the region had never been seen by any Europeans except themselves. Great, then, was their surprise when,

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after descending about two hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the Ouisconsin, and supposing themselves in a vast solitude so far from civilization that the thought was overawing, they saw upon the eastern bank a village of about fifty houses, with outlying farms and farm-houses, all of civilized style, and a fort over which floated the well-known flag of England, and a banner bearing three bars of red, white, and blue. Going ashore, they learned that it was the outpost of the Colony of Aristopia, and was called Oquawka. The Frenchmen had heard of Aristopia, but had not supposed that its outposts were within five hundred miles of the great river. When they learned that down the river were other towns, one of which contained fifteen hundred inhabitants, Joliet said to Marquette:

"These cursed English will populate the whole earth some time."

"Meanwhile," answered Marquette, "they bar the way to the spread of the true religion of the holy cross among the heathen of this fair land."

The bright visions in which the Frenchmen had been indulging, while floating down the great river, of seeing this noble valley, with a

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climate so much more genial than that of the St. Lawrence, peopled with Frenchmen, vanished. They saw that France was completely forestalled. After a few days' rest, being treated very hospitably, they returned to New France as they came.

The war which broke out between France and England on the accession of William III., and lasted, with a short intermission, until 1713, into which the American colonies were dragged, had no effect on Aristopia. The French and their allies, the Algonquins, made from their posts on the St. Lawrence several bloody raids on the exposed settlements of New England and eastern New York, accompanied with great atrocities. But the powerful Iroquois, the implacable enemies of the French and the allies of the English, barred the way of the French to the west, compelling them to evacuate Forts Niagara and Frontenac, respectively, at the inlet and outlet of Lake Ontario. The Mohawks, one of the Iroquois tribes, even made a bloody raid on Montreal. The French afterward made peace with the Iroquois, but during the war had not force enough west of Niagara Falls to threaten Aristopia.

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{{sc|Charles Morton}} was elected Governor of Aristopia for three successive terms of five years each, and then declined another term. He believed the political principles held so dear by the founder of the commonwealth had become so firmly imbedded in the institutions and public life of Aristopia that they were in little danger of ever being eradicated, and he wished the people to become accustomed to a change of executives, and above all that they should not come to consider the office to be hereditary. So he was pleased when a person not a member of his family was elected as his successor. Members of the family, however, had become members of Congress, and one of them was a judge of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth.

Governor Charles Morton, not long after his first election, began gradually to give up the free transportation of immigrants and to dispose of the many vessels his father had employed

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for that purpose. Very many people would come to Aristopia at their own expense, and the inhabitants of the commonwealth could well assist many of their poor relatives to come over.

After he had retired from the governorship he rendered the commonwealth a service which, although it seemed small at first, became very great a generation afterward. The colonists had introduced sheep as soon as they had clearings sufficient for sheep-pastures not too much exposed to the wolves; but circumstances were unfavorable for an improvement of the breed, which became inferior. In England more favorable circumstances had enabled breeders to develop much improved breeds. But the jealous land owners had procured the enactment of laws forbidding the exportation of sheep, on penalty of having the right hand cut off, and exportation did not offer sufficient profit to induce an ordinary individual to risk the terrible penalty.

Ex-Governor Morton employed the captain of a privateer, with a strong, bold crew, to make an importation of Cotswold sheep. One of his agents in England rented a wild piece of land on the western coast of England for a

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pasture, and brought there more than a hundred Cotswold ewes and a few of the finest bucks to be obtained. One day, toward evening, the rover appeared off this coast. At night the crew landed, provided with a launch or flat-boat large enough to take off all the sheep. The coast-guard were on the watch, thinking the vessel a smuggler. They attacked the crew while the latter were in the act of loading the sheep, but the crew was far stronger than the guard expected, and the attack was easily repulsed. The sheep were safely loaded, and before daylight the bold rover was out of sight of the English coast. The sheep were duly landed, the captain of the rover receiving three thousand pounds for his venture. The flock was carefully nursed and increased rapidly, so that in time they supplied not only Aristopia, but the other American colonies, with a much improved breed, adding millions of dollars to the wealth of America.

Charles Morton took from the mine all the gold which was easily accessible, placing all he did not use for current expenses in the bank of Amsterdam. Before his death, which occurred when he was about eighty, he gave five thousand dollars to each of his living sons and

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daughters and to each family of the two who had died. He left in the bank of Amsterdam three million dollars, which, with the accrued interest, was to be used by the commonwealth at a certain crisis, which he foretold in a letter which he had the governor read and then seal up and reserve for his successor. Each governor of Aristopia on his accession was to open and read this letter, and then seal it and leave it for his successor, first solemnly promising never to reveal the contents of the letter until the crisis should arrive, when he was to draw upon the fund and use it for the commonwealth.

In the war between England and France, from 1744 to 1748, Aristopia had to defend itself vigorously against the French, who had become considerably numerous in the western part of Canada, and their Indian allies. The posts on the route to the copper mines had to be strongly fortified, and the vessels on Lake Michigan heavily armed. But Aristopia was ten times as strong as all New France, and the Aristopians captured the forts of the French at Mackinaw and Detroit, and easily routed their Algonquin allies. The French never were able to seduce the Ojibways, Sauks, and Foxes from

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their friendship to the Aristopians. Aristopia also sent a thousand soldiers to the assistance of New England in the war.

Immediately after the close of this war, commerce between Aristopia and the new French colony of Louisiana, which began before the war, very greatly increased. The annoying and oppressive restrictions laid by the English Parliament on American manufactures and commerce stimulated this commerce with Louisiana, until in a few years Aristopia almost abandoned its commerce by its Atlantic port, Mortonia. Manufactures in the colonies, if not absolutely forbidden, were very much restricted by the prohibition to carry any article manufactured in one "plantation" into another or to any other country. The colonies had now to deal not with the King alone, nor even with Parliament alone, but with the merchant and landlord class of England. Great Britain was governed by a Parliament of merchants and landowners, and English legislation was surrendered to the traders' and the landlords' selfish and short-sighted greed of gain.

The exports of Aristopia to Louisiana consisted of flour, potatoes, oats, lumber, furs and pelts, wool, shoes, nails and other heavy iron

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manufactures, and wooden ware. Its imports were sugar, tea, rice, lemons, fine cloths, needles, pins, thread, buttons, fine cutlery, watches, musical instruments, etc. As the exports were much more heavy and bulky than the imports, more shipping was needed to carry them. Thus, while the imports were brought up the Mississippi and Ohio on horse-boats, much of the exports was floated down on flat-boats rudely and cheaply constructed, which were broken up and sold for lumber at New Orleans. Some of the flat-boatmen returned home on the horse-boats, but most of them by land, as the distance from New Orleans to the Ohio overland was only about half that by river, and the horse-boats made slow progress up stream, against the powerful current.

If these flat-boatmen had belonged to any other community they would have been left to find their way home through the wilderness as best they could, each man for himself. But they were engaged in the business of the commonwealth, and the commonwealth cared carefully for them. A route was surveyed and a good path cleared through tangled thickets and cane-brakes; creeks and morasses were

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bridged with commodious foot-logs; on streams too wide to be bridged, boats were placed for ferriage. At every twenty miles on the route a strong log-house was built, where parties of boatmen might sleep, secure from savages and sheltered from storms. At two points on the route posts were established and garrisoned, where the travelers could replenish their stock of food for the journey. These places also served as posts for the purchase of furs from the Indians.

Another war, in which the American colonies took part, broke out in 1755, between England and France, for the possession of Canada. Aristopia was in principle opposed to a war of conquest, but such was the animosity of the French in Canada, such their persistency in striving to incite the Indians against all the English colonies, and their determination to prevent any further extension of those colonies, that Aristopia saw that in self-defense the French must be driven from the upper lakes. A strong land-force, co-operating with heavily armed vessels from Lake Michigan, captured all the French posts as far east as Niagara, sent the soldiers prisoners into the eastern part of Aristopia, and disarmed all the French set-

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tlers. The commonwealth also sent five thousand well-drilled, well-armed, and well-equipped soldiers to assist New England and New York. Along the St. Lawrence, the French were much stronger than in the west, and the Atlantic colonies were not nearly so strong as Aristopia; therefore the war lingered in the east for several years, until, finally, the French were entirely overcome. Peace between England and France was declared, and all Canada and the region east of the Mississippi, except a small part of Louisiana, were ceded to England.

During all this war, Aristopia maintained its trade with New Orleans, keeping a sort of tacit truce with the French of Louisiana, while actively fighting those of Canada. The trade of Aristopia was valuable to Louisiana; the governor of that province had fully informed himself of the overwhelming strength of Aristopia, and was glad of the opportunity of avoiding a hopeless contest with the great northern commonwealth.

At the beginning of this war occurred the tragedy of the exile of the Acadians, a colony of about seven thousand French in the western part of the peninsula lying east of the Bay of Fundy. The English having conquered this

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region, the authorities thought it too much trouble and expense to watch the inhabitants, and did not want them to retire to Quebec to reinforce the French there. So it was determined to deport all the inhabitants of Acadia.

The dreadful business was carried out implacably. After being held prisoners some time the Acadians were driven at the point of the bayonet on terribly crowded transports to be distributed among the English colonies. In many cases fathers were separated from their children and husbands from their wives. Before leaving their beloved homes the Acadians had the grief to see them burned by the English soldiers. Their well cultivated lands, their recently gathered harvests, and their numerous live stock became the plunder of the English officials.

The news of this deportation and the separation of the Acadians was quickly carried to Aristopia, where it created the greatest indignation and sympathy for the unfortunates. Congress happened to be in session; an appropriation was immediately made to bring as many of the Acadians as possible to Aristopia.

The English intended to send the greater part of them to Massachusetts, but on arriving

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there the people refused to receive them; they shrank in horror from the "popish dogs" and the countrymen of those who had incited the Indians to such atrocious massacres as those of Cocheco and Haverhill. Nor was New York, which had passed a kiw to hang every Catholic priest who ventured into the colony, any more hospitable to the exiles. With Aristopia it was far different. A large part of its population was Catholic and another large part of French origin. With its compact and formidable settlements on its northern frontier it had suffered little from Indian war, and had no memories of massacres to keep hatred alive.

Most of the Acadians were brought to Aristopia. The Mortons, descendants of the first Governor of Aristopia, imbued with the spirit of their ancestor, headed subscriptions for means to seek out such heads of families as had been sent to other colonies, while their wives and children had reached Aristopia, and unite them with their families. In the fraternal commonwealth the anguished exiles found a quiet asylum. But the government of Aristopia tookcare not to settle them so far west that they would come in contact with their countrymen in Canada or Louisiana, to whom they might be too partial.

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{{sc|At}} the close of the war, England began an increased taxation of the colonies, to defray its expenses. Intense dissatisfaction was produced as one tax after another was levied. The Americans now saw that it was no longer the King and Parliament, but the electors of Parliament, who were bent on oppressing them. Every village shopkeeper and country squire in England began to talk of the taxes which ought to be imposed on "our subjects in America." Seeing this, the Americans began to think of separation, and talk of armed resistance. Aristopia did her best to encourage the other colonies to resistance, for she determined that the time for independence had almost arrived. She began to drill great numbers of militia, establish foundries for cannon, and factories for muskets and powder.

In some great caverns in Kentucky saltpeter in immense quantities had been discovered; Aristopia could manufacture powder, importing only the sulphur.
{{nop}}

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The population of the commonwealth in 1774 had become fully four millions. The immigration, by the immense expenditures of Ralph Morton, had been such as the world had never seen elsewhere. The circumstances of life were so favorable that the natural increase of the colony, by the excess of births over deaths, was sufficient to double the population every thirty years or less, exclusive of immigration. The suppression of the smallpox by vaccination was sufficient of itself to give the commonwealth an immense advantage over other countries.

The population of other English colonies, exclusive of Canada, was a little less than two and a half millions. Aristopia had doubtless drawn off some people who, but for her, would have gone to the Atlantic colonies; but most of her immigrants were those who would never have reached America without her aid: the Irish; the poor peasants of England, Scotland, and the western shores of the continent; the people of the far inland regions, eastern Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Savoy, Lombardy, and Venice, who would not have come to America but for the far-reaching and effective Morton agencies.

Aristopia, for convenience of administration

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of public affairs, had been divided into six states: Alleghany, extending from the crest of the Alleghany Mountains on the east to the Alleghany, Ohio, and Big Sandy rivers on the west; Ohio, bounded on the east and south by the Alleghany River and Ohio River, and on west by the eighty-fourth meridian; Columbia, extending from the eighty-fourth meridian to the Wabash River; Elenwah, lying between the Wabash and the Mississippi; Mizouri, extending from the Mississippi indefinitely westward; and Kentucky including all of Aristopia lying south of the Ohio and west of the Big Sandy River. The nominal boundaries of Aristopia were the thirty-eighth parallel on the south and the forty-first parallel on the north; but there were many settlements of Aristopia beyond those lines, especially in Kentucky. The population of Alleghany was more than a million, and that of Ohio nearly a million.

Each of these states had a governor and a legislature with limited legislative powers for local government. The chief executive of the commonwealth was now called the Governor-general.

In popular education, the condition of agriculture and the mechanical arts, Aristopia was

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far in advance of the Atlantic colonies and in some respects of England. Virginia, although the most populous of the Atlantic colonies, except only Massachusetts, was the most backward in civilization. No improvement could be expected from her frontiersmen, living in semi-barbarism, and little from her aristocratic and indolent planters, and, of course, none at all from the abject white servants and still more abject black slaves of the planters. The colony had a college or two for the sons of rich planters, but few public schools for the common people, and only two or three printing-presses. All the other Atlantic colonies south of Pennsylvania were like Virginia, although in a less degree.

In Massachusetts, improvement was checked by another cause—religious bigotry and superstition. Although there were printing-presses and public schools in the colony, the teaching, beyond the merest rudiments of English, was only Latin and theology. One of their own writers on the agriculture of New England before the Revolution says: "The man who ventured to try experiments was looked on with displeasure. If one did not plant just as many acres of corn as his father

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did, and that, too, in the old of the moon; if he did not sow just as much rye to the acre and use the same number of oxen to the plow; if he did not hoe as many times as his father and grandfather did; if, in short, he did not adopt the same views and prejudices his father had done, he was shunned in the company of old and young, and looked on as a visionary."

They had near them a fair example of progress in the Dutch settlers of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, whose industry was so well seconded by ingenuity and improvement as to lead to great comfort and prosperity; but the Puritans carefully avoided profiting by the example. When shown any ingenious device for agricultural, mechanical, or household use, the New Englander was accustomed to say: "It beats the Dutch!" While he said aloud: "It beats the Dutch," he thought to himself: "It beats the Devil!" for to his mind Satan was the father of innovations. It was not until near the Revolution that the crust of bigotry was broken and the New England mind began to expand, and "Yankee ingenuity" began to "beat the Dutch!" The strong reaction which followed the witchcraft delusion was the

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dawning of the day after the night of bigotry and superstition in New England.

The one thing in which the Puritans appear to have made an innovation was in sawing lumber. Somewhere about 1640, saw-mills, then unknown in England, were introduced into Massachusetts. Some of the Puritans had seen saw-mills driven by water-power during their exile in Germany, and, strange to say, did not consider them a device of Satan to enslave men's souls.

In Aristopia every public school had a large library of books of useful knowledge, and every child attended school for twelve or fifteen years, studying not Latin and theology, but mathematics, geography, astronomy, and what was then known of chemical science. Improvement was a matter of course, and innovation which promised improvement was welcomed.

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{{sc|The}} storm-cloud of revolution grew darker and darker during the year 1774 and the first months of 1775. Boston was the storm-center. The stubborn and rebellious colony of Massachusetts had always been most prominent in resistance to royal and parliamentary interference with its government. A strong garrison of British troops had been stationed in the rebellious city.

At last, one April day in 1775, the news came to Aristopia of that momentous skirmish at Lexington. In little more than six weeks after this news had reached the capital of Aristopia, five thousand well-drilled and well-equipped Aristopian soldiers were ready to embark at Mortonia for Boston, with a battery of six twelve-pounder brass guns.

Fearing to encounter some British men-ofwar if they took the passage outside of the capes, the expedition went by water to the head of Chesapeake Bay, where the soldiers disembarked and marched across to the Dela-

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ware. Re-embarking, they went up to Trenton, where they again landed and marched across New Jersey to Paulus Hook, opposite New York city.

Embarking again, the expedition passed through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound, and so on to Providence. There they landed and marched to Boston.

They approached the Puritan city on the morning of the seventeenth of June. From a distance they heard the heavy booming of the cannon. They supposed it was only the British vessels bombarding the patriot fortifications. But as the Aristopians approached nearer they heard the sharp rattle of musketry, and knew that a battle was in progress. The sound quickened and lengthened their pace. Already their commander, General Morton, a greatgrandson of Ralph Morton, had received a dispatch from General Putnam, informing him that the British were making a stubborn attack on the works of the Americans, and directing his march to Charlestown Neck.

The Aristopians received the order, "Doublequick march!" On went the long column at a trot, to the shrill, lively strains of "[[Yankee Doodle (traditional)|Yankee Doodle]]," from such of the panting fifers as

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could keep their breath and their place alongside of the musket-bearers. When the head of the column came near the American redoubt on Breed's Hill, the first regiment swung into line of battle and was halted, with the intention of waiting for the other regiments to come up and form on the left, the column being stretched out about a mile in length. But there was no time to wait. Already the British on their third charge had reached the redoubt. The powder of the American militia had given out, and they had no bayonets. The red-coats swarmed over the earth-works. The farmer-soldiers resisted a minute or two, using their rifles as clubs, and then fell back.

"Forward, march!" was the order that rang out to the Aristopian regiment; steadily forward went the long, blue-coat line of battle, as steadily as ever the red-coat line had come on. Opening their ranks in places to let the retiring militia through, and then quickly closing them again, they moved on to within less than a hundred steps of their enemy, when they halted. The long line of muskets came down to a level and a crashing volley followed. Then down went the musket breeches and up the bayonet points to a charge, and with an impetuous

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dash the Americans were upon the British, bayonet to bayonet, and instantly the enemy were hurled back over the earth-works.

Pausing behind the works to reload, the Aristopians gave their foes another volley. Meanwhile the battery came thundering to the front, and quickly unlimbering on the right and left of the infantry, poured grape upon the broken and retreating line of the British.

In a few minutes the other Aristopian regiments came up, and, forming on the left, drove the British out of the breastworks of hay and rails, stretching down to the Mystic River, which defenses had a few minutes before been given up by the farmer-soldiers of New Hampshire.

Thus the desperate sally of the British ended in utter failure and terrible loss.

Then the siege was resumed, and the six cannons of the Aristopians were soon hurling their missiles from the heights down upon the British men-of-war. The Aristopians brought with them a great supply of powder, the supply of the besieging army had become completely exhausted, threatening the failure of the siege, but thenceforth there was no lack, as fresh supplies were hurried forward from Aristopia.

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{{sc|Let}} us leave the siege of Boston to view another move in this game of war so briskly opened.

But first it should be said that immediately on the publication of the news of the skirmish of Lexington, the governor-general of Aristopia announced the purpose of the fund which Charles Morton had provided for a great crisis in the history of Aristopia—the war of independence for the commonwealth. The crisis had come, the hour had struck. The fund, originally three million dollars, which had accumulated by interest to about seven millions, was to be used by the commonwealth. It was urged, however, that this fund alone must not be depended on. Aristopia must freely pour out treasure as well as blood, for the struggle would be desperate. England was a stubborn as well as a powerful foe.

At the very beginning of the struggle, the government of Aristopia decided that Canada

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must be conquered, and that Aristopia must do it. It was seen that the British population of Canada, fresh from England and Scotland' would not rebel, and the French population dared not. Canada, held by England, would always form a base of operation against the states, and a safe rendezvous for her fleets. From the St. Lawrence she could harry New England with her soldiers and their Indian allies. By way of Sorel River and Lake Champlain she could invade New York. From Lake Erie she could threaten Aristopia, although she could never bring force enough to endanger the commonwealth.

In the systematic manner characteristic of the commonwealth, the enterprise was begun, carefully concealed even from the leaders of the other colonies, even from Washington himself, when he was given the chief command of the Continental armies. From the head of navigation on the western branch of Alleghany River to the nearest point on the shore of Lake Erie was only twenty miles. Between these two points a good road was constructed.

The vessels of the commonwealth on Lake Michigan were ordered around to Lake Erie. A strong expedition, advancing with celerity

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and secrecy, captured the unsuspecting British garrison at Fort Niagara. Pressing on, they built a saw-mill on a creek near the shore of Lake Ontario. A fort was quickly erected, a shipyard constructed near the mouth of Niagara River, and the building of vessels begun as soon as possible.

By great vigilance, supplies sent by the British to Fort Niagara were captured, and information of the shipbuilding on Lake Ontario was prevented from coming to the knowledge of the enemy.

All through the summer of 1775 the shipbuilders, brought from Boston and Baltimore, worked on, with all the assistance which the skilled mechanics and a swarm of laborers from Aristopia could give them. The fleet was to be a strong one, for the commonwealth determined that no second blow should be needed. The foundries of Aristopia were now turning out as heavy and as good guns as any in the world. These great guns were brought to arm the Ontario fleet.

It was a debated point with the commanderin-chief of the army and navy of Aristopia whether the blow should be struck in the fall of 1775 or the spring of 1776, but events de-

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cided the matter. Washington himself, ignorant of the designs of Aristopia, determined to send two expeditions into Canada to cut off the British supplies. One, commanded by Arnold, went through the wilderness of Maine to capture Quebec. The other, commanded by Montgomery, went by way of Lake Champlain to capture Montreal. Both expeditions started in August. The siege of St. John's, on the Sorel River, detained Montgomery's force the whole month of September and part of October.

At last the expedition from Aristopia, hastened by these events, left the station on Niagara River about the first of October. There were ten large and heavily armed vessels and some smaller transports. Capturing Kingston, at the outlet of Lake Ontario, with hardly an effort, the expedition proceeded down the St. Lawrence, and arrived at Montreal without obstruction. Montreal was defended by a force of a few hundred men, not expecting a formidable attack. About two weeks before the arrival of the Aristopian expedition, the brave and fiery, but eccentric and foolhardy, Ethan Allen had attacked the place, with only eighty men. He and his little force were quickly captured. But the formidable expedition of Aris-

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topia was irresistible, and the British at Montreal immediately surrendered. A strong force was hurried across the country to St. John's, while the Aristopian vessels entered the Sorel and captured the British vessels sent to relieve St. John's. Carleton, the Governor of Canada, made his escape from one of these vessels in a small boat at night, and went to Quebec.

The British force at St. John's being captured, the expedition proceeded to Quebec as hastily as possible. The British garrison at that strongpoint had been warned of the approaching attack, but they were entirely too weak to withstand, even in their stronghold, the combined forces of the Aristopians and General Montgomery. Seeing themselves besieged by a strong fleet on the river and a numerous army on land, with winter near at hand, and not the slightest hope of succor from England before spring, the garrison surrendered. Among the prisoners was Governor Carleton. Ethan Allen and his little band were also recaptured.

Winter had already begun in that high latitude, and there was nothing further to be done. With the heavy cannons of Aristopia commanding the St. Lawrence from the forts at Quebec, Montreal, and Kingston, and a fleet to aid the

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forts, invasion of the colonies by England, by way of the St. Lawrence, was effectually blocked. The Aristopian fleet had brought abundant stores. The French ''{{lang|fr|habitans}}'' were friendly to the Americans, and rejoiced to escape from British dominion. No trouble whatever in holding the country was expected.

The force under Montgomery was sent back, in the transports and the vessels captured from the British, by way of the Sorel and Lake Champlain, to New York, carrying to the colonies the first news of the complete conquest of Canada.

Toward the middle of November, the expedition under Arnold, in a desperate plight from the hardships they had endured in journeying through the wilderness, half the time without food, exposed to the storms of early winter, arrived at Quebec. Arnold's force was reduced to seven hundred and fifty men, without artillery and with damaged muskets. What would have been the fate of this desperate commander and his few but brave men, if the expedition from Aristopia had not come to the rescue, can hardly be told. They would certainly have done all that human beings in their circumstances could have done to capture Quebec, but

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must have perished or been captured in the end. The surprise and joy of the colonies and the consternation of England at the easy conquest of Canada were great. While it was being effected the British were forced to evacuate Boston.

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{{sc|It}} is not the purpose of this work to narrate all the details of the war for independence. Suffice it to say that, during all the war, the power and wealth of Aristopia formed the bulwark of the American cause. She realized that the welfare of the other colonies was her interest. Safe from invasion herself, she poured out men and means to repel invasion of the Atlantic colonies. Every port on the Atlantic was defended by great cannons cast in Aristopia, manned by well-trained Aristopian gunners. Everywhere, from the Kennebec to the Savannah, where invasion threatened, there were seen the long blue lines of the brigades of Aristopia, forming a firm nucleus around which might rally and a sure shield behind which might form the undisciplined and unskilled, if brave and ardent, patriots.

The soldiers of Aristopia had not the perfect marksmanship and the self-reliant, fierce,

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semi-barbaric fighting spirit of the frontiersmen of New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas, which made those men the best skirmishers, sharpshooters, and bushrangers of the world; nor the red-hot zeal, implacable hate, and stubborn courage of the New Englanders. But they had a calm, enduring courage of their own, and they had besides, what all the others lacked: steady discipline, willing subordination to their commanders, and skill in the tactics of the line of battle, for they had long been drilled by men who had fought under Frederic the Great. They had, too, the superiority which is ever given by education and intelligence, for Aristopia had for generations been a land of public schools.

Of her means Aristopia gave as freely as of her men. The American armies were armed with Aristopian cannon, muskets, bayonets, and sabers. The mines of Mizouri furnished lead, and the caverns of Kentucky the saltpeter from which skillful Aristopian workmen made their powder. The troops were fed largely with flour of wheat from the wood-embosomed fields of Ohio and the prairie farms of Elenwah. Ships of war were built by skillful builders at Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Norfolk, and

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manned by the hardy seamen of the coasts; but Aristopia furnished their cannon, powder, shot, sails, and cordage.

The fund furnished by Charles Morton supplied the commonwealth with the gold and silver needed to pay for all she bought outside of her own borders; inside those borders the public revenues paid for all. The other colonies had followed the example of Aristopia in issuing paper-money, but not with the same success, for their paper money depreciated badly, while that of Aristopia was always at par with gold and silver. Her paper-money was confined to its proper use as a medium of exchange; that of the other colonies was used as evidence of a debt the payment of which was very doubtful. In Aristopia paper-money was not, as in the other colonies, an expedient to escape from the pinch of the poverty of today by a promise to be met with the hopedfor wealth of to-morrow.

In case of a great war, it is common to say: "These burdens are too great for us to bear alone; let posterity share them, for they are borne as much for the benefit of posterity as for ourselves. Let us go in debt and let the future pay the debt." The financiers of Aris-

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topia were trained in a wiser school. They knew that most war loans must be procured from usurers, and be paid over and over; that the borrowing generation must pay all or more than the debt in interest and the next generation must pay it in principal or go on paying it over and over in interest.

True, a paper currency offers a means of a forced loan without interest, but at the cost of terribly disordering the medium of exchange. In Aristopia, paper-money being issued solely as a medium of exchange, and not as a promise to pay a debt, no more and no less was issued than the wants of trade demanded. The Aristopian paper-money was not redeemable in gold, but in what the holders needed more than gold—any of the necessaries or luxuries of life to be had in the market, and it could not depreciate.

Every invading fleet and army which England sent over to America was either repelled with great loss to the invaders or captured. Nor was America left to fight her battles alone. The arrogant commercial policy into which England had been driven and kept by the clamors of her hordes of shopkeepers and traders, had gained her the enmity of all maritime Europe.

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Holland was eager to cripple her rival on the seas. France and Spain, although their despotic kings little liked to encourage rebels and republicans in America, could not let slip the opportunity to satisfy their ancient grudges. The result was a triple European alliance against England.

England could fight three European nations single-handed, but she could do nothing toward conquering America in addition. France, who had so recently lost the greater part of North America, was now determined that England should lose it, and she influenced Spain to a like determination. England could not now hope to gain anything by continuing the war, and had much to lose. Her great commerce was being destroyed. The only alternative was to acknowledge the independence of the American colonies, and to this humiliation the stubborn and dauntless mistress of the seas at last consented.

Before the war was ended, the statesmen of Aristopia were considering how they could hold Canada. The French ''{{lang|fr|habitans}}'' of Lower Canada, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, by far the majority of the population of that region, were very willing to exchange

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the dominion of England for statehood in the American republic. But a majority of the inhabitants of the province of Ontario were English and Scotch, recent immigrants. They certainly would not have rebelled against England. Whether they would consent to unite with the other colonies was doubtful. Many of them certainly would not. They were few in number, and their majority in the region might be overcome. The Congress of Aristopia made an appropriation to pay the expenses of ten thousand families from Ohio and Alleghany, who consented to go and settle along the northern shores of Lake Erie and Ontario and on the peninsula opposite Detroit. This completely turned the scale, and it was now certain that a majority of the inhabitants of Upper Canada were in favor of union with the other colonies and independence of Great Britain.

The Acadians, remembering with fondness their old home, were induced to return there. Their friendship for Aristopia made them favor a union of Nova Scotia with the other colonies.

So, when England objected to giving up Canada on the ground that it had not revolted, but

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had been overrun by the Americans, a vote of the duly elected legislatures of all the provinces of Canada demanded independence of England and union with the other colonies.

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{{sc|After}} the war of independence the six states of Aristopia rapidly expanded their boundaries and settlements to the great lakes on the north and a hundred miles south of the Ohio River. The stations on the route to the copper mines and to New Orleans became the germs which quickly grew into new states. Having by far the most desirable and fertile part of the continent, immigration from Europe to Aristopia was much greater than to the Atlantic States, and from her favorable conditions of life the natural increase of her population was more rapid than that in any other part of America. The Aristopian population dominated the Canadian State of Ontario and introduced there their peculiar political economy.

The other states were at first fearful of a close union with Aristopia, jealous of her overshadowing power. But gradually the leaven of Aristopian political economy worked in the

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other states, until at last all America, from the Rio Grande to the most northern settlements of Canada, became one solid nation, a Commonwealth in fact as well as in name, whose citizens, safe in their aggregate wealth and power from fear of foreign foes, turned not their fighting force against each other, in a social and commercial war—none the less war because other weapons than those of steel and gunpowder were used. Such civil war devastated every other civilized nation of the globe, even when they deceived themselves with the belief that they were enjoying profound peace. In this new nation was realized the dream of the social philosophers and philanthropists of all ages: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, resting on the deep and solid foundations of {{sc|Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.}}/last/

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User:SnowyCinema/P/Aristopia

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