Charles Morton was elected Governor of Aristopia for three successive terms of five years each, and then declined another term. He believed the political principles held so dear by the founder of the commonwealth had become so firmly imbedded in the institutions and public life of Aristopia that they were in little danger of ever being eradicated, and he wished the people to become accustomed to a change of executives, and above all that they should not come to consider the office to be hereditary. So he was pleased when a person not a member of his family was elected as his successor. Members of the family, however, had become members of Congress, and one of them was a judge of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth.
Governor Charles Morton, not long after his first election, began gradually to give up the free transportation of immigrants and to dispose of the many vessels his father had employed for that purpose. Very many people would come to Aristopia at their own expense, and the inhabitants of the commonwealth could well assist many of their poor relatives to come over.
After he had retired from the governorship he rendered the commonwealth a service which, although it seemed small at first, became very great a generation afterward. The colonists had introduced sheep as soon as they had clearings sufficient for sheep-pastures not too much exposed to the wolves; but circumstances were unfavorable for an improvement of the breed, which became inferior. In England more favorable circumstances had enabled breeders to develop much improved breeds. But the jealous land owners had procured the enactment of laws forbidding the exportation of sheep, on penalty of having the right hand cut off, and exportation did not offer sufficient profit to induce an ordinary individual to risk the terrible penalty.
Ex-Governor Morton employed the captain of a privateer, with a strong, bold crew, to make an importation of Cotswold sheep. One of his agents in England rented a wild piece of land on the western coast of England for a pasture, and brought there more than a hundred Cotswold ewes and a few of the finest bucks to be obtained. One day, toward evening, the rover appeared off this coast. At night the crew landed, provided with a launch or flat-boat large enough to take off all the sheep. The coast-guard were on the watch, thinking the vessel a smuggler. They attacked the crew while the latter were in the act of loading the sheep, but the crew was far stronger than the guard expected, and the attack was easily repulsed. The sheep were safely loaded, and before daylight the bold rover was out of sight of the English coast. The sheep were duly landed, the captain of the rover receiving three thousand pounds for his venture. The flock was carefully nursed and increased rapidly, so that in time they supplied not only Aristopia, but the other American colonies, with a much improved breed, adding millions of dollars to the wealth of America.
Charles Morton took from the mine all the gold which was easily accessible, placing all he did not use for current expenses in the bank of Amsterdam. Before his death, which occurred when he was about eighty, he gave five thousand dollars to each of his living sons and daughters and to each family of the two who had died. He left in the bank of Amsterdam three million dollars, which, with the accrued interest, was to be used by the commonwealth at a certain crisis, which he foretold in a letter which he had the governor read and then seal up and reserve for his successor. Each governor of Aristopia on his accession was to open and read this letter, and then seal it and leave it for his successor, first solemnly promising never to reveal the contents of the letter until the crisis should arrive, when he was to draw upon the fund and use it for the commonwealth.
In the war between England and France, from 1744 to 1748, Aristopia had to defend itself vigorously against the French, who had become considerably numerous in the western part of Canada, and their Indian allies. The posts on the route to the copper mines had to be strongly fortified, and the vessels on Lake Michigan heavily armed. But Aristopia was ten times as strong as all New France, and the Aristopians captured the forts of the French at Mackinaw and Detroit, and easily routed their Algonquin allies. The French never were able to seduce the Ojibways, Sauks, and Foxes from their friendship to the Aristopians. Aristopia also sent a thousand soldiers to the assistance of New England in the war.
Immediately after the close of this war, commerce between Aristopia and the new French colony of Louisiana, which began before the war, very greatly increased. The annoying and oppressive restrictions laid by the English Parliament on American manufactures and commerce stimulated this commerce with Louisiana, until in a few years Aristopia almost abandoned its commerce by its Atlantic port, Mortonia. Manufactures in the colonies, if not absolutely forbidden, were very much restricted by the prohibition to carry any article manufactured in one "plantation" into another or to any other country. The colonies had now to deal not with the King alone, nor even with Parliament alone, but with the merchant and landlord class of England. Great Britain was governed by a Parliament of merchants and landowners, and English legislation was surrendered to the traders' and the landlords' selfish and short-sighted greed of gain.
The exports of Aristopia to Louisiana consisted of flour, potatoes, oats, lumber, furs and pelts, wool, shoes, nails and other heavy iron manufactures, and wooden ware. Its imports were sugar, tea, rice, lemons, fine cloths, needles, pins, thread, buttons, fine cutlery, watches, musical instruments, etc. As the exports were much more heavy and bulky than the imports, more shipping was needed to carry them. Thus, while the imports were brought up the Mississippi and Ohio on horse-boats, much of the exports was floated down on flat-boats rudely and cheaply constructed, which were broken up and sold for lumber at New Orleans. Some of the flat-boatmen returned home on the horse-boats, but most of them by land, as the distance from New Orleans to the Ohio overland was only about half that by river, and the horse-boats made slow progress up stream, against the powerful current.
If these flat-boatmen had belonged to any other community they would have been left to find their way home through the wilderness as best they could, each man for himself. But they were engaged in the business of the commonwealth, and the commonwealth cared carefully for them. A route was surveyed and a good path cleared through tangled thickets and cane-brakes; creeks and morasses were bridged with commodious foot-logs; on streams too wide to be bridged, boats were placed for ferriage. At every twenty miles on the route a strong log-house was built, where parties of boatmen might sleep, secure from savages and sheltered from storms. At two points on the route posts were established and garrisoned, where the travelers could replenish their stock of food for the journey. These places also served as posts for the purchase of furs from the Indians.
Another war, in which the American colonies took part, broke out in 1755, between England and France, for the possession of Canada. Aristopia was in principle opposed to a war of conquest, but such was the animosity of the French in Canada, such their persistency in striving to incite the Indians against all the English colonies, and their determination to prevent any further extension of those colonies, that Aristopia saw that in self-defense the French must be driven from the upper lakes. A strong land-force, co-operating with heavily armed vessels from Lake Michigan, captured all the French posts as far east as Niagara, sent the soldiers prisoners into the eastern part of Aristopia, and disarmed all the French settlers. The commonwealth also sent five thousand well-drilled, well-armed, and well-equipped soldiers to assist New England and New York. Along the St. Lawrence, the French were much stronger than in the west, and the Atlantic colonies were not nearly so strong as Aristopia; therefore the war lingered in the east for several years, until, finally, the French were entirely overcome. Peace between England and France was declared, and all Canada and the region east of the Mississippi, except a small part of Louisiana, were ceded to England.
During all this war, Aristopia maintained its trade with New Orleans, keeping a sort of tacit truce with the French of Louisiana, while actively fighting those of Canada. The trade of Aristopia was valuable to Louisiana; the governor of that province had fully informed himself of the overwhelming strength of Aristopia, and was glad of the opportunity of avoiding a hopeless contest with the great northern commonwealth.
At the beginning of this war occurred the tragedy of the exile of the Acadians, a colony of about seven thousand French in the western part of the peninsula lying east of the Bay of Fundy. The English having conquered this region, the authorities thought it too much trouble and expense to watch the inhabitants, and did not want them to retire to Quebec to reinforce the French there. So it was determined to deport all the inhabitants of Acadia.
The dreadful business was carried out implacably. After being held prisoners some time the Acadians were driven at the point of the bayonet on terribly crowded transports to be distributed among the English colonies. In many cases fathers were separated from their children and husbands from their wives. Before leaving their beloved homes the Acadians had the grief to see them burned by the English soldiers. Their well cultivated lands, their recently gathered harvests, and their numerous live stock became the plunder of the English officials.
The news of this deportation and the separation of the Acadians was quickly carried to Aristopia, where it created the greatest indignation and sympathy for the unfortunates. Congress happened to be in session; an appropriation was immediately made to bring as many of the Acadians as possible to Aristopia.
The English intended to send the greater part of them to Massachusetts, but on arriving there the people refused to receive them; they shrank in horror from the "popish dogs" and the countrymen of those who had incited the Indians to such atrocious massacres as those of Cocheco and Haverhill. Nor was New York, which had passed a kiw to hang every Catholic priest who ventured into the colony, any more hospitable to the exiles. With Aristopia it was far different. A large part of its population was Catholic and another large part of French origin. With its compact and formidable settlements on its northern frontier it had suffered little from Indian war, and had no memories of massacres to keep hatred alive.
Most of the Acadians were brought to Aristopia. The Mortons, descendants of the first Governor of Aristopia, imbued with the spirit of their ancestor, headed subscriptions for means to seek out such heads of families as had been sent to other colonies, while their wives and children had reached Aristopia, and unite them with their families. In the fraternal commonwealth the anguished exiles found a quiet asylum. But the government of Aristopia tookcare not to settle them so far west that they would come in contact with their countrymen in Canada or Louisiana, to whom they might be too partial.