Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/175

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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 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