Quarter Court, I will promise to restore you again to your place
there." But he decided not to wait so long, and the following day
permitted him to resume his seat.
We are left in no doubt as to why Berkeley was so lenient. "Why did I
not put him to death when I had him in my power?" he asked later. "I
must have been judge, jury, and executioner to have done it, for the
Assembly ... were all picked for him. The Council frightened with
hearing 2000 men were armed to deliver him." Philip Ludwell wrote Lady
Berkeley who a few weeks before had sailed for England, that she must
wonder why instead of death "such favors were heaped on." But it was
unavoidable, since hundreds of enraged men were within a day's march
of Jamestown, and the forces at hand to oppose them secretly in
sympathy with Bacon. "There is not a part of the country free from the
infection. Never was there so great a madness as the people generally
were seized with."
But in restoring Bacon to the Council Berkeley was no doubt actuated
as much by policy as by fear, for it was better to have him there
where he could keep his eye on him than in the House of Burgesses
where he might attempt to carry through reform legislation.
By this time anyone less stubborn and arbitrary than Berkeley would
have learned his lesson. On June 12, when Bacon was still in the
governor's power, Philip Ludwell wrote his brother: "It now looks like
general ruin for the country.... The governor seems determined to
leave for England.... If he does he leaves a lost country." Had he
given Bacon a commission to fight the Indians and permitted the
Assembly to carry out adequate reforms in the government, the people
might have been satisfied. But when the Assembly met things seemed to
be going in the old way.
If we are to understand the transactions of this historic Assembly it
is necessary to divide the session into two parts, the part when
Berkeley had Bacon in his power, and the part when Bacon had escaped
and was once more at the head of his army. During the first part
Berkeley seems to have dominated the Assembly despite the pro-Bacon
majority, during the second part the threat of coercion by Bacon's
angry frontiersmen undoubtedly affected all legislation. Without this
division many of the known facts seem incongruous and conflicting;
with it they fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.
At the opening of the session "some gentlemen took this opportunity to
endeavor the redressing several grievances the country then labored
under," and a committee was about to be named for this purpose when
they "were interrupted by pressing messages from the governor to
meddle with nothing until the Indian business was dispatched." So the
matter of grievances was sidetracked.
Then followed a heated debate on whether the House would ask that two
Councillors sit with the committee on Indian Affairs. In the end "this
was huddled off without coming to a vote, and so the committee must
submit to be overawed, and have every carped at expression carried
straight to the governor."
And the governor, closing his eyes to the fact that the Pamunkeys
hated the English and were sullen and resentful, insisted that they
return to their towns and join in the defence of the colony. So their
queen was brought in and asked how many men she would furnish. In
reply she reproached the English for not giving her people
compensation for their aid in a former war in which her husband had
been killed. In the end she promised twelve men, but it must have been
obvious to all that she and they were not to be trusted. When she had
gone the committee proceeded with their plans for prosecuting the war.
Some of the forts were to be abandoned and their garrisons distributed
among fourteen frontier plantations, and an army of 1,000 men was to
be raised and sent out against the enemy.
Bacon was a discontented spectator of these proceedings. The governor
was as overbearing as ever, the Burgesses were overawed, the plans for
reform were set aside, the Indian war was mismanaged. He must have
been disgusted that the Burgesses were too cowardly to vote down a
resolution requesting the governor not to resign. The Assembly did not
prove "answerable to our expectations", he said later, for which he
thought they should be censured. So, telling Berkeley that his wife
was ill, he got permission to visit her. No sooner had he gone than
the governor heard that he intended to place himself once more at the
head of his volunteer army. In desperate haste horsemen galloped off
to intercept him. But they were too late. Bacon had made good his
escape.
In Henrico angry men gathered around him. And when he told them that
the governor had not given him a commission and that he still
persisted in carrying out essentially the old plan for the war, they
were furious. In Bacon's absence the Indians had renewed their raids,
and had wiped out many whole families. The frontiersmen vowed that
they would have a commission or they would march on Jamestown and
"pull down the town."
So off they went, some mounted, others on foot. There was talk of
sharing the estates of the rich, of making Lady Berkeley discard her
fine gowns for "canvas linen," of ending all taxes. "Thus the raging
torrent came down to town."
When the governor heard that they were coming he made desperate
efforts to gather a force to resist them. But it was too late. It was
rumored that Bacon had threatened that if a gun was fired at his men
he would "kill and destroy all." Since resistance was useless,
Berkeley threw the guns from their carriages and waited for Bacon's
arrival.
So the motley band came streaming into town. "Now tag, rag and bobtail
carry a high hand." Bacon drew up a double line before the State House
and demanded that some members of the Council come out to confer with
him. When Colonel Spencer and Colonel Cole appeared he told them he
had come for a commission. Then he said that the people would not
submit to taxes to pay for the proposed new army. And his men shouted:
"No levies! No levies!"
At this juncture Berkeley rushed out, gesticulating wildly and
denouncing Bacon to his face as a traitor.
Then he threw back his coat and shouted: "Here, shoot me, 'fore God,
fair mark, shoot."
Bacon replied that he would not hurt a hair of his head. They had come
for a commission to save their lives from the Indians, which had so
often been promised.
The Burgesses hearing the noise below, crowded to the windows. But
they drew back when the soldiers pointed their fusils at them, calling
out: "We will have it. We will have it." One of the Burgesses called
back: "For God's sake hold your hands; forbear a little and you shall
have what you please."
After walking up and down before the State House for some time,
muttering threats and "new coined oaths," Bacon mounted the steps to
the Long Room, where the Burgesses sat, and demanded a commission to
lead a force out against the Indians. One of them told him that
governor alone had the right to grant a commission. But when he left
they sent a message to Sir William advising him to issue the
commission. The Council, too, pointing out that he and they were in
Bacon's power, added their voices. At last, though with intense
bitterness, he yielded.
But new humiliations awaited him. He was forced to write the King
justifying Bacon's conduct, sign blank commissions for Bacon's
officers, and imprison some of his most loyal friends. So long as it
did not concern "life and limb" he was willing to do anything to be
rid of him.
In his determination to secure a commission Bacon did not neglect the
matter of reform. When Berkeley suggested that they decide their
controversy by a duel with swords, he replied that "he came for
redress of the people's grievances." In the Assembly he "pressed hard,
nigh an hour's harangue on preserving our lives from the Indians,
inspecting the revenues, the exorbitant taxes, and redressing the
grievances and calamities of that deplorable country." After this
impassioned plea he must have been greatly surprised when the Assembly
told him "that they had already redressed their grievances." Since,
had the so-called Bacon's Laws been passed while he was sitting in the
Council he would have known it, they must have been rushed through
during the brief period between his flight from Jamestown and his
return.
It will be helpful to recall the situation in the little capital at
the time. With hundreds of enraged frontiersmen "within a day's
journey", with no force which could be trusted to oppose them, the
governor and his friends were in a state of panic. Even before Bacon's
escape Ludwell wrote: "We have all the reason in the world to suspect
their designs are ruinous." And now, with Bacon back at their head to
tell them of his humiliation and report that he still had no
commission, Berkeley feared the worst. Then came the certain
information that Bacon was marching on the town.
Obviously the Assembly and the governor rushed Bacon's Laws through in
a desperate, last minute attempt to appease Bacon and his men. When
the governor affixed his signature he must have been almost within
hearing distance of the tramp of armed men. And it is significant that
both the governor and the Assembly wished to have the laws read before
Bacon's men "for their satisfaction." That Bacon, who was in no humor
to be appeased, refused to permit this, is no indication that he did
not heartily approve of the laws.
We do not know who drew up Bacon's Laws. It may have been Lawrence and
Drummond, who introduced them through some ally in the House. It may
have been Bacon's neighbor, Thomas Blayton, whom Colonel Edward Hill
afterwards called "Bacon's great engine" in the Assembly. It may have
been James Minge, clerk of the Assembly, "another [of] Bacon's great
friends in forming the laws." More probably it was the committee on
grievances. But whoever drew them up, whoever introduced them, most of
the credit goes to Bacon. They were aimed at the abuses he repeatedly
denounced, they were passed in an Assembly which Bacon had incited the
people to demand and which Berkeley declared overwhelmingly pro-Bacon,
and signed under the threat of Bacon's armed forces.
Although the governor and the King both voided Bacon's Laws and the
Assembly of February 1677 repealed them, they constitute a landmark in
the development of self-government in Virginia. They broadened the
franchise by giving the right to vote to all freemen; they gave the
voters representation in the county courts in assessing taxes; they
put an end to self-perpetuating vestries; they fixed the fees of
sheriffs, collectors, and other officials; they made it illegal for
sheriffs to serve more than one year at a time; no person could hold
two of the offices of sheriff, clerk of the court, surveyor, or
escheator at the same time; members of the Council were barred from
sitting on the county courts.
It was long recognized in both England and America that liberty is
grounded on the principle that no man's money can be taken from him
without his own consent. Yet local taxes in Virginia, which often
exceeded those voted by the Assembly, were assessed by the county
courts made up of the governor's appointees. The self-perpetuating
vestries also had the right to tax, for they levied the parish
charges. Thus Bacon's Laws struck at an exceedingly dangerous abuse.
The use of fees to raise money without the consent of the voters was a
source of bitter controversy between the governors and the people for
many decades to come, a controversy which culminated in the celebrated
case of the pistole fee which got Governor Dinwiddie into so much
trouble. The restricting of local officers to one office at a time
struck a blow at Berkeley's system of government by placemen. But the
laws did not include an act to prohibit officeholders from sitting in
the Assembly. This would have gone to the root of the trouble, but it
was too much to expect the governor to assent to it even with Bacon
and his infuriated men marching on Jamestown. In fact, this step was
taken only more than half a century later.
Bacon now began preparations for the Indian campaign. Riding from one
county to another he gathered armed bands, appointed their officers,
and sent them off to the falls of the James. Arms, ammunition, and
stores were sent up the rivers in sloops. The well-to-do planters were
angered when their horses and corn were taken for the expedition, but
at any show of resistance they were threatened and intimidated. One of
Bacon's men told John Mann, "with many fearful oaths, as God damn his
blood, sink him and rot him, he would ruin him."
It was late in July when Bacon drew up his army of seven hundred horse
and six hundred foot. Riding out before them, he made a brief address.
He assured them of his loyalty to the King, and that it was "the
cries of his brethren's blood" that induced him to secure his
commission. He then took the oath of allegiance, and required the men
to swear fidelity to him as their general. Then they broke ranks for
the night, expecting the next day to march.
At that moment word arrived that Berkeley was busy raising forces with
which to attack them in the rear. This forced Bacon to change all his
plans. After the rebels had left for the frontier, the Governor,
realizing that the sentiment of the colony was overwhelmingly against
him, at first had made no attempt to resist him. But Philip Ludwell
and Robert Beverley drew up a petition in the name of the people of
Gloucester, stating that Bacon had stripped them of arms and asking
the governor to protect them. Although "not five persons knew about
it," Berkeley accepted it as a call to action. "This petition is most
willingly granted," he wrote. It was his duty to protect the King's
loyal subjects. Bacon's commission was illegal, he added, since it had
been extracted by force.
In a spirit of elation he rode over to Gloucester and sent out a call
for the militia to assemble. But when they learned that they were
expected to fight against Bacon, the popular hero, they demurred. "For
Bacon at that time was so much the hope and darling of the people that
the governor's interest proved but weak and his friends so very few
that he grew sick of the essay." As he rode out before the troops he
heard a murmur, "Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!" and saw them walk away.
Bitterly disappointed and wearied by his exertions, he fainted away in
the saddle.
Upon receiving the news that the governor was trying to raise forces
to oppose him, Bacon "causes the drums to beat and trumpets to sound
for calling his men together." Then he addressed them. It was revenge
which hurried the governor and his advisors on without regard to the
people's safety. They would rather see them murdered and their ghosts
sent to join those of their slaughtered friends, than have them
disturb their trade with the Indians. So now they must use their
swords in their own defence. While they were sound at heart and not
wearied they must descend to find out why these men sought to destroy
their lives who sought to preserve theirs.
At this there was a shout of "Amen! Amen!" They were all ready and
would rather die on the field of battle than be hanged like rogues or
perish in the woods at the hands of the merciless savages. So with
muttered oaths they turned their faces toward Gloucester.
Hearing that Bacon's enraged men were pouring down upon them, Berkeley
and his friends were at a loss as to what to do. If they fell into his
hands imprisonment was the mildest treatment they could expect. It was
Robert Beverley who suggested that they flee to Accomac, where they
would be safe beyond the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Berkeley
agreed, and asked Sir Henry Chicheley to accompany him. Chicheley
promised to join him later, but before he could get away was captured.
Berkeley, Beverley, and three others procured a small vessel, and
reached the Eastern Shore in safety. And for the next few days the bay
was dotted with sails as one gentleman after another fled with his
wife and children, leaving his house, furniture, crops, horses, and
cattle to be plundered by Bacon's men.
This was the situation when Bacon returned from the frontier. With
Berkeley in exile, and with the Council dispersed, the colony had been
left without a government. So Bacon had to become dictator, assume the
role of a Cromwell. He might well have become hopelessly confused had
he not had Lawrence and Drummond to advise him in every step in taking
over the government. Probably it was they who helped him draw up a
manifesto, in which he dwelt on Berkeley's tyranny and injustice. All
men were witnesses of the corruption of the government, it stated; how
men of lowly estate, elevated to important posts, had lined their
pockets at the public expense. If he had attacked the so-called allied
Indians, it was because they had committed "murder upon murder" upon
the settlers. Had the governor himself not supplied them with arms and
ammunition the frontier plantations would not now be deserted, the
blood of their brothers spilled.
Bacon set up headquarters at Middle Plantation, the site of
Williamsburg. Here he issued a proclamation declaring Berkeley,
Chicheley, Ludwell, Beverley, and others, traitors, and threatened to
confiscate their estates unless they surrendered within four days.
Next he summoned all the leading planters to a conference. When
seventy had assembled, most of them because they feared to stay away,
some because they were dragged in by force, Bacon asked them to take
three oaths; that they would join with him against the Indians; that
they would arrest anyone trying to raise troops against him; and
lastly, to oppose any English troops sent to Virginia until Bacon
could plead his case before the King. Many of those present demurred
at the last oath, but in the end no less than sixty-nine signed, among
them such prominent men as Thomas Swan, John Page, Philip Lightfoot,
and Thomas Ballard.
It was shortly after this that Bacon had a conversation with a certain
John Goode, of Henrico, which is revealing of his fears, hopes, and
plans for the future.
"There is a report that Sir William Berkeley hath sent to the King for
2000 redcoats, and I do believe it may be true," said Bacon. "Tell me
your opinion, may not 500 Virginians beat them, we having the same
advantages against them the Indians have against us?"
"I rather conceive 500 redcoats may either subject or ruin Virginia,"
Goode replied.
"You talk strangely. Are not we acquainted with the country, can lay
ambushes, and take to trees and put them by the use of their
discipline, and are doubtless as good or better shots than they."
"But they can accomplish what I have said without hazard ... by taking
opportunities of landing where there shall be no opposition, firing
our houses and fences, destroying our stock and preventing all
trade...."
"There may be such prevention that they shall not be able to make any
great progress in such mischiefs. And the country and clime not
agreeing with their constitutions, great mortality will happen amongst
them...."
"You see, sir, ... all the principal men in the country dislike your
manner of proceedings. They, you may be sure, will join with the
redcoats."
To this Bacon replied that he would see to it that they did not.
"Sir, you speak as though you designed a total defection from his
Majesty and our country."
"Why, have not many princes lost their dominions so?" he asked,
smiling.
"They have been people as have been able to subsist without their
princes. The poverty of Virginia is such that the major part of the
inhabitants can scarce supply their wants from hand to mouth, and many
there are besides who can hardly shift without supply one year, and
you may be sure that the people which so fondly follow you, when they
come to feel the miserable wants of food and raiment, will be in
greater haste to leave you than they were to come after you. Besides,
here are many people in Virginia that receive considerable benefits
... in England, and many which expect patrimonies...."
"For supply I know nothing the country will not be able to provide for
itself withal in a little time save ammunition and iron, and I believe
the King of France or States of Holland would either of them entertain
a trade with us."
"Sir, our King is a great prince, and his amity is infinitely more
valuable to them than any advantage they could reap by Virginia....
Besides I conceive that your followers do not think themselves engaged
against the King's authority, but against the Indians."
"But I think otherwise, and am confident of it that it is the mind of
this country, and of Maryland, and Carolina also to cast off their
governors ... and if we cannot prevail by arms to make our conditions
for peace, or obtain the privilege to elect our own governor, we may
retire to Roanoke."
"Sir, the prosecuting what you have discoursed will unavoidably
produce utter ruin."
After a pause Bacon asked: "What should a gentleman engaged as I am
do? You do as good as tell me I must fly or hang for it."
"I conceive a sensible submission to the Assembly...."
So Goode left him to think over the various steps which had led him on
to his present desperate situation. But he did not take the advice to
submit. That would mean deserting the people before their wrongs had
been righted, it would mean going back to the old despotism with all
its injustices and oppressions. He would rather take his chances of
defeating the King's troops, confederating with other colonies, and
securing the aid of one or more of England's enemy nations. Desperate
though these plans seemed, it is possible that they might have
succeeded, had not an untimely death overtaken him. Holland, with
bitter recollections of two recent wars with England, might have
welcomed a chance to break up the British Empire and regain her
lucrative tobacco trade. In its essential points it was the same plan
which brought independence to America a century later almost to a day.
While Bacon was dreaming of a complete break with England his father
was pleading with the King to pardon him. His only son had been
unhappily prevailed upon by the importunity of his distressed
neighbors to lead them forth against the cruel and perfidious enemies,
the Indians. In this way he had "become obnoxious to the letter of the
law."
With his petition Thomas Bacon presented an appeal from his son's
followers called "The Virginians' Plea." They were in danger day and
night, especially those who lived dispersedly on the frontier, from
the murderous Indians, and many had been forced to desert their
plantations. So they offered their services to go out against them,
"having still so much English blood in us ... as to risk our lives in
opposing them ... rather than to be sneakingly murdered in our
beds.... Oh Heavens! what a sad dilemma! We confess we have vented our
discontents in complaints of other grievances also, too great to be
wholly smothered." But they had taken up arms not to relieve
themselves by the sword from them, since they thought it better to
wait patiently until they could appeal to the King, the governor, the
Assembly, and Parliament.
But the period of patient waiting was now at an end. Bacon and his men
were in possession of all Virginia west of the Chesapeake Bay. The
immediate question was how to defend it against the governor and
perhaps an expedition from England. For this the control of the water
was vital. The four great rivers gave easy access to the heart of the
colony to an enemy fleet, but were serious obstacles to moving troops
by land. Without war vessels it would be necessary for Bacon to divide
his little army into numerous widely separated detachments in order to
defend hundreds of miles of shore.