Francis Moryson (bef. 1628–1680/81) was an English soldier who became a Virginia colonial official and agent. A Royalist in the English Civil War, he emigrated to the Virginia Colony, where he held several posts before returning to England and becoming the colony's agent, and finally briefly served on the commission investigating Bacon's Rebellion.
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Early and family life
His father Sir Richard Moryson (c.1571-1628) had been lieutenant general of the ordnance for King James, as well as a member of Parliament for Leicester in 1621. His mother Elizabeth Harrington, was the daughter of Sir Henry Harrington. He had at least two brothers, Richard and Robert Moryson, and a sister, Letitia, who married Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland. He married Cecelia, sister of Giles Rawlins, and both she and their son Henry survived him.
Career
A Cavalier refugee, Major Moryson emigrated to Virginia in 1649 around the time of the execution of Charles I, sailing on The Virginia Merchant in September alongside Col. Henry Norwood and Majors Richard Fox and Francis Cary. However, their vessel ran aground off Cape Hatteras during a November storm. Rather than deposit the passengers at Jamestown, the colony's capital as planned, the ship's crew left them on a small island in Assateague Bay on the Eastern Shore, where they nearly starved, as Norwood later recalled in a book. Native Americans discovered the party, nursed them to health, and a Virginia fur trader, Jenkin Price, transported them first to Northampton County and then to George Ludlow's York County home. Finally Ralph Wormeley brought Moryson to Jamestown, where Moryson became the guest of Governor Sir William Berkeley. When The Virginia Merchant had grounded again in the James River, Berkeley had ordered a search for Moryson's party, possibly because they may have carried a payment of 1000 pounds from Edmund Custis.