Aristopia/Chapter 17
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 seeing 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 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 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 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 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 condition 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 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 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 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 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 manufacturers 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 enough 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 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 "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.