not merely into establishing a colony, but founding a nation in Virginia.
One of Ralph's first cares was to supply his mother with money sufficient to satisfy all her wants, and the next to induce his oldest brother, James, to give up everything else and act as his agent, in conjunction with John Somers and Edward Morton, Ralph's third brother, now just ready to enter business as a London merchant. As soon as possible he bought a staunch vessel of two hundred tons, called the Flora, and induced Captain Nelson to sell his bark and take command of her.
Meanwhile Ralph and his agents were engaging emigrants for his colony. The first lot he determined should all go out as his employees, or the families of his employees. With the exception of three or four mechanics, they must all be laborers, most of them agricultural laborers.
The next and most difficult consideration was the religious one. Ralph determined there should be full religious toleration in his colony. The times were, above all others of history, those of the fiercest intolerance and bigotry, of which England was a religious hot-bed. Ralph Morton was philosopher enough to see
