III

Sir William Berkeley had met few friends in that distant country of

Accomac when he had first flown there. Rebellion was in the air there as

it was on the mainland of Virginia, and only a few of the planters of

the eastern shore welcomed the king's governor and agreed to stand by

him in his fight with Nathaniel Bacon. Still he stuck to his

determination to try conclusions with the rebels, and meantime he waited

as patiently as he could, hoping that the tide of fortune would

presently turn in his favor.

General Bacon, when he set out from Middle-Plantation to fight the

Indians, sent Giles Bland to keep Governor Berkeley in Accomac, and, if

possible, to induce the people there to surrender him. Giles Bland

started on his mission with two hundred and fifty men, and one ship with

four guns, commanded by an old sailor, Captain Carver. One ship was not

enough, however, to carry the men across to the Eastern Shore, and so

Bland seized another that happened to be lying in the York River, and

that belonged to Captain Laramore, a friend of Governor Berkeley.

Captain Laramore was seized by Bland's men, and locked up in his cabin,

but after a time he sent word to Bland that he would fight with him

against the governor, and Bland, thinking that the captain was sincere,

restored command of the vessel to him. Two more ships were captured, and

so it was a fleet of four vessels that ultimately carried the rebel

party to the Eastern Shore.

When he saw this fleet nearing Accomac Sir William gave up his cause as

lost. He knew that he must surrender, as King Charles the First of

England had surrendered to Oliver Cromwell's men. Then suddenly a

loophole of escape offered itself most unexpectedly. Captain Laramore,

still very angry with the rebels for having seized his ship in such a

high-handed manner, secretly sent word to Sir William, that if

assistance were given him he would betray Giles Bland. The fleet was at

anchor, and Captain Carver had gone ashore to try to find the governor.

Laramore's offer looked as if it might be a trap, but Colonel Philip

Ludwell, a friend of Berkeley's, offered to vouch for Laramore's honesty

and moreover to lead the party that was to capture Bland. Sir William

agreed to this offer, and Colonel Ludwell got ready a boat in a near-by

creek, out of sight of the fleet. At the time set by Laramore Colonel

Ludwell's crew rowed out toward Laramore's ship. Bland thought he came

to parley, and did not fire. The boat pulled under the ship's stern, one

of Ludwell's men leaped on board, and aiming a pistol at Bland's breast,

cried, "You're my prisoner!" The crew of the rowboat followed, and with

the help of Laramore and those sailors who sided with him, quickly

captured the rebels on board. When Captain Carver returned he and his

crew were seized in the same way, and Colonel Ludwell and Laramore took

Bland and Carver and their officers ashore and presented them to Sir

William as his prisoners.

Sir William was stern in dealing with men he considered traitors. He put

Giles Bland and his officers in chains, and he hung Captain Carver on

the beach of Accomac. This victory won him recruits also among the

longshoremen, and now one of his own followers, Captain Gardener,

reached the harbor in his ship, the _Adam-and-Eve_, with ten or twelve

sloops he had captured along the coast. Counting Bland's ships the

governor now had a fleet numbering some seventeen sail, and on these he

embarked his army of nearly a thousand men. Many of them were merely

adventurers, lured by Sir William's promise to give them the estates

that belonged to the men who had taken the oath with Bacon at

Middle-Plantation. Sir William also proclaimed that the servants of all

those who were fighting under Bacon's flag should have the property of

their masters if they would enlist under the king's standard.

The governor set sail for Jamestown, and reached it on the sixth day of

September. One of the bravest of Bacon's commanders, Colonel Hansford,

held the town with eight or nine hundred men. The governor called on

Hansford to surrender, promising pardon to all except his old enemies,

Lawrence and Drummond, who were then in Jamestown. Hansford refused to

surrender, but Lawrence and Drummond advised him to retreat with his

army, and so he evacuated the town during the night. At noon next day

Sir William landed, and kneeling, gave thanks for his safe return to his

former capital.

Colonel Hansford, with Drummond and Lawrence, rode north to find General

Bacon. They found him at West Point and told him the startling news that

Sir William had come back with an army. The fight was to be waged all

over again, the question whether Bacon or Berkeley was to rule Virginia

was yet to be settled.

Bacon had only a body-guard with him, but he mounted in haste and rode

toward Jamestown, sending couriers in all directions to rouse the

countryside and bring his men to his flag. The message came to Curles,

and Edmund Porter and his father and their neighbors armed and hurried

to join their general. So swiftly did the planters take to horse that by

the time Bacon was in sight of Jamestown he was followed by several

hundred men.

Sir William had built an earthwork and palisade across the neck of the

island where Jamestown stands. Bacon ordered his trumpets to sound, and

then a volley to be fired into the town. No guns answered his, and Bacon

ordered his troops to throw up breastworks in front of the palisade,

while he made his headquarters at "Greenspring," a house that belonged

to Sir William.

Now Bacon, although usually a gentleman, resorted to a trick that was a

blot on his character. He sent horsemen through the near-by country to

bring the wives of some of the men who were fighting on Berkeley's side

into his camp. He sent one of these women, under a flag of truce, into

the town to tell her husband and the others there that Bacon meant to

place these wives in front of his own men while they were building the

earthworks, so that any shots fired would hit the women first. This he

did. He made these women stand as a shield before his men. The

governor's party would not fire a shot. The earthworks were finished,

and then Bacon had the women escorted to a place of safety. The trick

savored more of the customs of some of the Indian tribes the settlers

had been fighting than of the warfare of Virginia gentlemen.

When the women were gone, Sir William burst out of Jamestown with eight

hundred men and attacked Bacon's troopers. But the rabble that made up

the governor's army, longshoremen, fishermen from Accomac, a rabble

attracted by the hope of plunder, was no match for the well-drilled and

well-armed planters. At the first touch of steel they turned and fled

back to the town, leaving a dozen wounded on the ground. Sir William

lashed them with a tongue of scorn, but his anger did no good. He saw

that he could not rely on this new following, and so embarked on his

ships again that night, and sailed away from Jamestown.

Bacon marched in, took counsel with his officers, and determined that

Sir William should make no further use of his capital. Orders were

given to set fire to all the houses, and shortly the town, founded by

that great adventurer, John Smith, was only a mass of burned and

blackened timbers.

Sir William had sailed down the river, but a courier from York County

brought word that a force of his friends were advancing from the

direction of the Potomac to attack Bacon's men. So, when Jamestown was

only ruins, the general left that place and marched at the head of his

horsemen to meet this new enemy. He was as full of courage as ever, but

he had caught a fever in the trenches before Jamestown, and instead of

stopping to cure it he insisted on pushing on and trying to settle

matters with his opponents as soon as possible.

His men crossed the York in boats at Ferry Point and marched into

Gloucester. There Bacon called on all the men of Gloucester who had

taken the oath with him at Middle-Plantation to join him promptly.

Another courier arrived, with word that Colonel Brent was coming against

him with a thousand soldiers. Bacon did not wait for any more recruits,

but marched at once up country in the direction of the Rappahannock

River. But there was to be no fighting. The spirit of rebellion had

spread so far that even Colonel Brent's men, supposed to be very loyal

to the governor, deserted to Bacon's standard, and Brent himself, with a

few faithful followers, had to retire from the field, and leave the

rebel chief in entire command.

Bacon went back to Gloucester, and again summoned the men of that

county to meet him at the court-house. Six or seven hundred came, but

they did not want to fulfil their pledge and take up arms, it might be

against the king's own soldiers. They said that they wanted to take no

sides in the matter. Bacon insisted that they should pledge themselves

to follow him. The fever had hold of him, his temper was short, and he

spoke in such a domineering way that at last the men of Gloucester gave

him the pledge he wanted. Having had his way Bacon closed the meeting,

and, seeing that all the mainland of Virginia was now under his control,

laid plans to follow Sir William Berkeley to Accomac, where the governor

had fled again.

But now Nathaniel Bacon, at the very moment when he had driven all his

enemies out of the colony, and had made himself the master of Virginia,

fell very ill of the fever he had brought from Jamestown. His old

friends, Mr. Porter among them, urged him to give up command of his army

and rest. In spite of his wish to go to Accomac and settle accounts with

Berkeley, he had to take their advice. He went to the house of a friend,

Major Pate, in Gloucester, and there, after a few weeks' illness, he

died, in October, 1676.

Sorrowing for their brave leader and friend, Mr. Porter and Edmund went

back to their plantation on the James. They had stood by him when he

needed their aid, but, in spite of all the exciting events of that

summer, they had not had to take part in any actual fighting except the

brief battle with the Indians in May and the short skirmish outside

Jamestown. Neither father nor son were known as officers in Bacon's

army, and as they stayed quietly at home the storm that followed blew

safely over their heads.

In four months Nathaniel Bacon had risen from the position of a

little-known planter to be the ruler of Virginia, and because the king's

governor would not give him a commission to march against the Indians

who had attacked his farm he had driven the governor out of the colony.

It was a remarkable story, packed full of strange happenings.

When Bacon died, however, the rebellion fell to pieces. A man named

Ingram tried to rally his army, but the men of Virginia would not fight

under any other leader than Bacon. Sir William Berkeley came back from

the county of Accomac with a wolfish thirst for vengeance. His chief

enemy had escaped him, but he meant to take his revenge on the other

leaders of the rebellion against him. And take his revenge he did, not

like an honorable governor who wishes to make peace in his country, but

more like that Judge Jeffreys in England, whose name became a byword for

cruelty. He captured Colonel Hansford, who was a fine Virginian, and

hung him as a rebel. Lawrence escaped, but Drummond was caught in his

hiding-place in the Chickahominy swamp, and brought before Sir William.

"Mr. Drummond," said the governor, "you are very welcome! I am more

glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be

hanged in half an hour!"

"When your Honor pleases," Drummond coolly replied.

Drummond was hung, and his brave wife, who had broken the stick to show

how easily the planters could defeat Sir William, was driven into the

wilderness with her children.

Bland was found in Accomac and executed. Men were hung in almost every

county, and the settlers hated the name of Berkeley more than they hated

raiding Indians. In all Sir William executed twenty-three rebels, as he

called them, and King Charles II of England, when he heard the report,

said indignantly, "That old fool has hanged more men in that naked

country than I have done for the murder of my father."

At last the Assembly begged the governor to stop. He reluctantly agreed

that all the rest of the rebels should be pardoned except about fifty

leaders. The property of these leaders was confiscated, and they were

sent away from the colony.

Sir William, however, was no longer popular with any in Virginia. Soon

afterward he sailed to England, and never came back again to the colony

he had ruled with an iron hand. Salutes were fired and bonfires blazed

when he sailed, for the people were all still rebels at heart. Other

governors came from England, but they found the Virginians harder to

rule since they had tasted independence in that summer of 1676.

By many boys of Virginia, like Edmund Porter, Nathaniel Bacon was always

remembered as a gallant hero, one who had fought for them against the

tyranny of Sir William Berkeley.

V