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
