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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Chapter XIII.
