Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/150

 Savoy, were Protestants, severely oppressed by their rulers and desirous of emigrating. Governor Morton had two of his ships ply regularly between Genoa and Mortonia, bringing emigrants from Genoa.

In 1618, the Thirty Years' Warm Germany broke out. It was the custom of that age to hold prisoners of war for ransom, in default of which they were sold into servitude differing from slavery principally in being for a term instead of for life. Governor Morton's agents purchased thousands of these prisoners, who, on taking the oath of allegiance to the government of Aristopia, were shipped thither to become citizens in due time. The families of such of them as had families whose whereabouts could be discovered were brought over to America. During this war the theater of military operations was horribly devastated, the war being one of peculiar bitterness. Myriads of women and children, their houses burned, their property destroyed or carried off, and their male relatives killed, were driven into the fields and woods to perish with hunger and exposure or subsist miserably on roots and herbs. Thousands of these unfortunates were picked up by Governor Morton's agents and