Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/112

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

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