CHAPTER XI.

BACON’S REBELLION.

[Sidenote: The Navigation Act of 1651.]

The rapid development of maritime commerce in the seventeenth century

soon furnished a new occasion for human folly and greed to assert

themselves in acts of legislation. Crude mediæval methods of robbery

began to give place to the ingenious modern methods in which men’s

pockets are picked under the specious guise of public policy. Your

mediæval baron would allow no ship or boat to pass his Rhenish castle

without paying what he saw fit to extort for the privilege, and at the

end of his evil career he was apt to compound with conscience and buy

a ticket to heaven by building a chapel to the Virgin. Your modern

manufacturer obtains legislative aid in fleecing his fellow-countrymen,

while he seeks popularity by bestowing upon the public a part of his

ill-gotten gains in the shape of a new college or a town library. This

change from the more brutal to the more subtle devices for living upon

the fruits of other men’s labour was conspicuous during the seventeenth

century, and one of the most glaring instances of it was the Navigation

Act of 1651, which forbade the importation of goods into England except

in English ships, or ships of the nation that produced the goods.

This foolish act was intended to cripple the Dutch carrying trade, and

speedily led to a lamentable and disgraceful war between England and

Holland. In its application to America it meant that English colonies

could trade only with England in English ships, and it was generally

greeted with indignation. Cromwell, however, did little or nothing to

enforce it in America. Charles II.’s government was more active in the

matter and soon became detested. One of the earliest causes of the

American Revolution was thus set in operation. The policy begun in the

Navigation Act was one of the grievances that kept Massachusetts in a

chronic quarrel with Charles II. during the whole of his reign, and it

was a source of no less irritation in Virginia.

[Sidenote: The second Navigation Act.]

A second Navigation Act, passed at the beginning of the reign of

Charles II., prescribed that “no goods or commodities whatsoever shall

be imported into or exported from any of the king’s lands, islands,

plantations, or territories in Asia, Africa, or America, in any other

than English, Irish, or plantation built ships, and whereof the master

and at least three-fourths of the mariners shall be Englishmen, under

forfeiture of ships and goods.” It was further provided that “no

sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic and other dyeing

woods, of the growth or manufacture of our Asian, African, or American

colonies, shall be shipped from the said colonies to any place but to

England, Ireland, or to some other of his Majesty’s said plantations,

there to be landed, under forfeiture of goods and ships.”

[Sidenote: Bland’s remonstrance.]

The motive in these restrictions is obvious enough. Their effects were

ably set forth in 1677, in a memorial by John Bland, a sagacious London

merchant, whose grasp of the principles of political economy was very

remarkable for that age.[32] In order that merchants in England might

buy Virginia tobacco very cheap, the demand for it was restricted by

cutting off the export to foreign markets. In order that they might

sell their goods to Virginia at exorbitant prices, the Virginians were

prohibited from buying anything elsewhere. The shameless rapacity

of these merchants was such as might have been expected under such

fostering circumstances. If the planter shipped his own tobacco to

England, the charges for freight would be put so high as to leave him

scarcely any margin of profit.

[Sidenote: Some direct consequences.]

Such restrictions were apt to have other effects than those

contemplated. The “protected” merchants chuckled over their sagacity

in keeping Dutchmen away from Virginia, for thus it would become

possible to make the Dutchmen pay three or four shillings in England

for tobacco that cost a ha’penny in the colony. But the worthy burghers

of the Netherlands took a different view of the matter. They began

planting tobacco for themselves in the East Indies, so that it became

less necessary to buy it of the English. Another somewhat curious

consequence may be stated in Bland’s own words: “Again, if the

Hollanders must not trade to Virginia, how shall the planters dispose

of their tobacco? The English will not buy it [all], for what the

Hollander carried thence was a sort of tobacco not ... used by us in

England, but merely to transport for Holland. Will it not then perish

on the planters’ hands? which undoubtedly is not only an apparent loss

of so much stock and commoditie to the plantations who suffer thereby,

but for want of its employment an infinite prejudice to the commerce in

general.”

[Sidenote: Some indirect consequences.]

There was yet another aspect of the matter. “I demand then, in the next

place, which way shall the charge of the governments be maintained, if

the Hollanders be debarred trade in Virginia and Maryland, or anything

raised to defray the constant and yearly levies for the securing the

inhabitants from invasions of the Indians? How shall the forts and

public places be built and repaired, with many other incident charges

daily arising, which must be taken care for, else all will come to

destruction? for when the Hollanders traded thither, they paid upon

every anchor of brandy (which is about 25 gallons) 5 shillings import

brought in by them, and upon every hogshead of tobacco carried thence

10 shillings; and since they were debarred trade, our English, as they

did not, whilst the Hollander traded there, pay anything, neither

would they when they traded not ...; so that all these charges being

taxed on the poor planters, it hath so impoverished them that they

scarce can recover wherewith to cover their nakedness. As foreign

trade makes rich and prosperous any country that hath within it any

staple commodities to invite them thither, so it makes men industrious,

striving with others to gather together into societies, and building of

towns, and nothing doth it sooner than the concourse of shipping, as we

may see before our eyes, Dover and Deal what they are grown into, the

one by the Flanders trade, the other by ships riding in the Downs.”

[Sidenote: Exposure of the humbug.]

But if in spite of all these arguments the Navigation Act must stand,

then, says this acute writer, “let me on the behalf of the said

colonies of Virginia and Maryland make these following proposals, which

I hope will appear but equitable:--

“_First_, that the traders to Virginia and Maryland from England shall

furnish and supply the planters and inhabitants of those colonies with

all sorts of commodities and necessaries which they may want or desire,

at as cheap rates and prices as the Hollanders used to have when the

Hollander was admitted to trade thither.

“_Secondly_, that the said traders out of England to those colonies

shall not only buy of the planters such tobacco ... as is fit for

England, but take off all that shall be yearly made by them, at as good

rates and prices as the Hollanders used to give for the same, by bills

of exchange or otherwise....

“_Thirdly_, that if any of the inhabitants or planters of the said

colonies shall desire to ship his tobacco or goods for England, that

the traders from England to Virginia and Maryland shall let them have

freight in their ships at as low and cheap rates as they used to have

when the Hollanders and other nations traded thither.

“_Fourthly_, that for maintenance of the governments, raising of forces

to withstand the invasions of the Indians, building of forts and other

public works needful in such new discovered countries, the traders

from England to pay there in Virginia and Maryland as much yearly as

was received of the Hollanders and strangers as did trade thither,

whereby the country may not have the whole burden to lie on their hard

and painful labour and industry, which ought to be encouraged but not

discouraged.

“Thus having proposed in my judgment what is both just and equal, to

all such as would not have the Hollanders permitted to trade into

Virginia and Maryland, I hope if they will not agree hereunto, it will

easily appear it is their own profits and interest they seek, not those

colonies’s nor your Majesty’s service, but in contrary the utter ruin

of all the inhabitants and planters there; and if they perish, that

vast territory must be left desolate, to the exceeding disadvantage of

this nation and your Majesty’s honour and revenue.”

[Sidenote: Bland’s own proposal.]

After this keen exposure of the protectionist humbug the author

concludes by offering his own proposal. “Let all Hollanders and other

nations whatsoever freely trade into Virginia and Maryland, and

bring thither and carry thence whatever they please,” with only one

qualification. It had been urged that, without legislative aid, English

shipping could not compete successfully with that of other countries.

Insatiableness of commercial greed begets a fidgetty, unreasoning

dread of anything like free competition. Just as the Frenchman puts

tariff duties upon German goods because he knows he cannot compete with

Germans in a free market, while at the same moment the German puts

tariff duties upon French goods because he knows he cannot compete

with Frenchmen in a free market, so it was with men’s arguments two

centuries ago. It was urged that French and Dutch ships could be

built and navigated at smaller expense than English ships; and this

point our author meets by suggesting a differential tonnage-duty “to

counterpoise the cheapness,” only great care must be taken not to make

it prohibitory.

[Sidenote: Distress caused by low price of tobacco.]

The principal effect of the Navigation Act upon Virginia and Maryland

was to lower the price of tobacco while it increased the cost of all

articles imported from England. As tobacco was the circulating medium

in these colonies, the effect was practically a depreciation of the

currency with the usual disastrous consequences. There was an inflation

of prices, and all commodities became harder to get. Efforts were

made from time to time to contract the currency by curtailing the

tobacco crop. It was proposed, for example, in 1662, that no tobacco

should be planted in Maryland or Virginia for the following year. Such

proposals recurred from time to time, but it proved impossible to

secure concerted action between the two colonies. In 1664 the whole

tobacco crop of Virginia was worth less than £3 15s. for each person

in the colony. In 1666 so much tobacco was left on the hands of the

planters that a determined effort was made to enforce the cessation of

planting, and after much discussion an agreement was reached between

Maryland, Virginia, and the new settlements in Carolina, but the plan

was defeated by disapproval in Maryland which led to a veto from Lord

Baltimore. In 1667 the price of tobacco fell to a ha’penny a pound,

and Thomas Ludwell, writing to Lord Berkeley in London, “declared that

there were but three influences restraining the smaller landowners of

Virginia from rising in rebellion, namely, faith in the mercy of God,

loyalty to the king, and affection for the government.”[33]

[Sidenote: The Surry protest, 1673.]

The discontent sometimes took the form of a disposition to resist the

collection of taxes, as in Surry, in December, 1673, when “a company of

seditious and rude people to y^e number of ffourteene did unlawfully

Assemble at y^e pish church of Lawnes Creeke, w^{th} Intent to declare

they would not pay theire publiq taxes, & y^t they Expected diverse

oth^{rs} to meete them, who faileing they did not put theire wicked

design in Execution.” Nevertheless these persons assembled again,

some three weeks later, in an old field “called y^e Divell’s field,”

where they passed divers lawless resolutions interspersed with heated

harangues. In particular one Roger Delke did say, “we will burne all

before one shall Suffer,” and when brought before the magistrates, “y^e

s^d Delke Acknowledged he said y^e same words, & being asked why they

meet at y^e church he said by reason theire taxes were soe unjust, &

they would not pay it.”[34] The ringleaders in this affair were fined,

but Governor Berkeley remitted the fines, provided “they acknowledged

their faults and pay the court charges.”

[Sidenote: The Arlington-Culpeper grant, 1673.]

Another cause of trouble was the king’s recklessness in rewarding

public services or gratifying favourites by extensive grants of wild

land in America. It was an easy way to pay debts, for it cost the king

nothing, and all the labour and expense of making the grant valuable

fell upon the grantee. To many of these grants there could, of course,

be no objection. Those that founded the Carolinas and Pennsylvania and

the Hudson Bay Company were all proper enough. The trouble began when

territory already granted and occupied by Englishmen was given away

again. There were some complicated and obscure instances of this in

New England, but a flagrant and exasperating case occurred in Virginia

in 1673, when Charles made a grant of the whole country to the Earl of

Arlington and Lord Culpeper, to hold for thirty-one years at a yearly

rent of 40 shillings to be paid at Michaelmas.

[Sidenote: Some of its effects.]

The practical effect of this grant was to convert Virginia into

something like a proprietary government, with Arlington and Culpeper

for proprietors. It was, of course, not the intention to disturb

individuals in the possession of lands already acquired by a valid

title; but escheated lands were to go to these proprietors instead of

the crown, and there was an opportunity for grievous injustice, for

many escheated lands were occupied by persons who had purchased them

in good faith. The lord proprietors were to receive the revenues of

the colony, to appoint all public officers, and to present pastors

for installation. In short, the entire control of the internal

administration of the colony was to be placed in their hands, and

against such favourites of the king an appeal at any time was likely

to be of little avail. It is needless to add that the grant was made

without consulting the Virginians. For people who had lavished so much

loyalty upon a worthless sovereign, this was a scurvy requital. To

find its match for ingratitude one must go to the story of Inkle and

Yarico. No sooner did the House of Burgesses hear of it than they sent

commissioners to England to make an energetic protest. They found the

king rather surprised to hear that the Virginians cared anything about

such a trifle; he promised to satisfy everybody, and that naturally

took some time, so that the matter was still under discussion when

things came to a blaze in Virginia.

[Sidenote: Character of Sir William Berkeley.]

The unprincipled government of Charles II. in England was matched in

some respects by the oppressive administration of Sir William Berkeley

in Virginia. We have already met this gentleman on several occasions;

it is now time to notice him more particularly. He was son of Sir

Maurice Berkeley, who was one of the members of the London Company

when it was first organized in 1606. Several members of the family

were interested in American affairs. Sir William’s elder brother, Lord

Berkeley of Stratton, was a favourite of Charles II., and one of the

group of proprietors to whom that king granted Carolina in 1663. Sir

William was an aristocrat to the ends of his fingers, a man of velvet

and gold lace, a brave soldier, a devoted husband, a chivalrous friend,

and withal as narrow and bigoted and stubborn a creature as one could

find anywhere. He had no sympathy with common people, nor any very

clear sense of duty toward them. When he first arrived in Virginia in

1642, at the age of thirty-four, he was considered very gracious and

affable in manners, and during the ten years of his first governorship

he seems to have been generally popular. From 1652 to 1660 he lived in

retirement on his rural estate of Greenspring near Jamestown, where he

had an orchard of more than 2,000 fruit trees--apples, pears, quinces,

peaches, and apricots--and a stable of seventy fine horses. There he

entertained Cavalier guests and drank healths to King Charles until he

was once more called to Jamestown to be governor. In 1661 he went to

London and stayed for a year, and it was afterwards thought that his

visit with his froward and hot-tempered brother[35] worked a change

in him for the worse. Berkeley’s errand in London was to oppose an

attempt which the old London Company was making to have its charter

restored; the people of Virginia had long ago passed the stage at which

they regretted the overthrow of the Company. During his stay in London,

Berkeley saw one of his own plays performed at the theatre, for this

courtier and Cavalier dabbled in literature. Of this tragi-comedy, “The

Lost Lady,” Pepys tells us in his Diary that at first he did not care

much for it, but liked it better the next time he saw it.[36]

[Sidenote: Corruption and extortion.]

[Sidenote: The Long Assembly, 1661-1676.]

[Sidenote: Berkeley’s violent temper.]

After Berkeley’s return to Virginia the evils of Charles’s

misgovernment soon began to show themselves. A swarm of place-hunters

beset the king, who carelessly gave them appointments in Virginia, or

recommended them to Berkeley for places. Judges and sheriffs, revenue

collectors and parsons, were thus appointed without reference to

fitness, with the natural results; the law was ill-administered, the

public money embezzled, and the church scandalized. The custom-house

charges on exported tobacco afforded chances for extortion and

blackmailing, of which abundant advantage was taken, and Berkeley was

not the sort of man who was quick to punish the rogues of his own

party. Enemies accused him of profiting by the maladministration of his

officials, and he himself confessed in a rather cynical letter to Lord

Arlington that, while advancing years had taken away his ambition, they

had left him covetous. A little group of wealthy planters, friends

of Berkeley, obtained places on the council, and contrived to have

everything their own way for several years. With their aid the governor

tried to do away with the popular election of representatives. Amid

the blaze of royalist exultation over the restoration of monarchy,

the House of Burgesses elected in 1661 contained a large majority

of members who believed in high prerogative and divine right; and

Berkeley, having thus secured a legislature that was quite to his mind,

kept it alive for fifteen years, until 1676, simply by the ingenious

expedient of _adjourning_ it from year to year, and refusing to issue

writs for a new election. The effect of such things was to carry more

than one staunch Cavalier over into what was by no means a Puritan

but none the less a strong opposition party. As this opposition could

not find adequate voice in the legislature, it became ready for an

explosion. As Berkeley’s old popularity ebbed away he grew arrogant

and cross, and now and then some instance of mean vindictiveness

swelled the rising tide of hatred against him. He became subject to

fits of violent passion. The famous Quaker preacher, William Edmundson,

who visited Virginia in 1672, called on the governor and sought to

intercede with him for the Society of Friends, the members of which

were shamefully treated in that colony. “He was very peevish and

brittle,” says Edmundson, “and I could fasten nothing on him, with all

the soft arguments I could use.... The next day was the men’s meeting

at William Wright’s house [where I met] Major-General Bennett....

He asked me ‘How I was treated by the governor?’ I told him ‘he was

brittle and peevish.’... He asked me ‘if the governor called me dog,

rogue, etc.’ I said ‘No.’ ‘Then,’ said he, ‘you took him in his best

humour, those being his usual terms when he is angry, for he is an

enemy to every appearance of good.’”[37]

[Sidenote: Beginning of the Indian war, 1675.]

Such was the governor of Virginia and such the state of things there,

when to the many troubles that were goading the people to rebellion

the horrors of the tomahawk and scalping-knife were suddenly added.

In 1672, after a fearful struggle of twenty years’ duration, the Five

Nations of New York had completely overthrown and nearly annihilated

their kinsmen the Susquehannocks. The defeated barbarians, slowly

retreating southward, roamed on both sides of the Potomac, while

parties of the victors, mostly from the Seneca tribe, pursued and

harassed them. Early in the summer of 1675 some Algonquins of the

Doeg tribe, dwelling in Stafford County, not far from the site of

Fredericksburg, got into a dispute with one of the settlers and stole

some of his pigs. The thieves were pursued, and in the chase one or two

of them were shot. A few days afterward a herdsman was found mortally

wounded at the door of his cabin, and said with his dying breath that

it was Doegs who had done it. Then the county lieutenant of Stafford

turned out with his militia to punish the offenders. This officer

was Colonel George Mason, whose cavalry troop had gone down before

Cromwell’s resistless blows in the crowning mercy at Worcester. He was

great-grandfather of the George Mason who sat in the Federal Convention

of 1787. One party of Colonel Mason’s men overtook and slew eleven of

the Algonquins, and another party at some distance in the forest had

already shot fourteen red men, when a chief came running up to Colonel

Mason and told him that these latter were friendly Susquehannocks,

and that the murderers of the herdsman were neither Algonquins nor

Susquehannocks, but Senecas. The firing was instantly stopped, but the

unfortunate affair had evil consequences. Murders by Indians along the

Potomac became frequent. The Susquehannocks occupied an old blockhouse

on the Maryland side of the river, and a force of Marylanders,

commanded by Major Thomas Truman, marched out to dislodge them.

[Sidenote: John Washington.]

At the request of the Maryland government, Virginia sent a party

to coöperate in this task. Its commander bore a name which his

great-grandson was to make forever illustrious. Colonel John Washington

had come over from England in 1657, with his younger brother Lawrence,

and settled in Westmoreland County. He was now forty-four years old, a

man of wealth and influence, a leading judge, and member of the House

of Burgesses.

[Sidenote: The five Susquehannock envoys.]

When the Virginia troops crossed the Potomac they found their Maryland

allies assembled before the blockhouse, with five Susquehannocks in

custody. These Indians were envoys who had come out for a parley, but

had apparently taken alarm and sought to escape, whereupon Major Truman

seized and detained them until the Virginians should arrive. Then

Colonel Washington, with his next in command, Major Isaac Allerton,

proceeded to interrogate the Indians, while Major Truman listened in

silence. Washington demanded satisfaction for the murders and other

outrages committed in Virginia, but the Indians denied everything and

declared that their deadly enemies the Senecas were the sole offenders.

Washington then asked how it happened that several canoe-loads of

beef and pork, stolen from the plantations, had been carried into

the Susquehannock fort; was it their foes the Senecas who were thus

supplying them with food? And how did it happen that a party of

Susquehannocks just captured in Virginia were dressed in the clothes of

Englishmen lately murdered? The falsehood was too palpable. The guilt

of the Susquehannocks was plain, and they must either make amends or

taste the rigours of war.

There can be little doubt that Colonel Washington was right. Then,

as always until after 1763, the Long House was from end to end the

steadfast ally of the English, and nothing could be more unlikely than

that one of its tribes should have been guilty of these murders. It

is quite clear that the Susquehannocks lied, with the double purpose

of saving themselves and bringing down vengeance upon the Senecas.

The first murders had been committed by Algonquins, and evidently

the Susquehannocks had joined in the work in retaliation for the

unfortunate mistake committed by Colonel Mason’s men.

[Sidenote: The killing of the envoys.]

At the close of the conference Major Truman called to Colonel

Washington, asking if these were not impudent rogues to deny the

murders they had done, when at that very moment the corpses of nine of

their own tribe were lying unburied at Hurston’s plantation, where in

a fight the defenders of the place had just slain them. As the envoys

persisted in denying that these dead Indians were Susquehannocks,

Washington suggested that they should be taken to Hurston’s and

confronted with the bodies. So Truman’s men marched away with the five

envoys, and presently put them to death, “w^{ch} was occation,” says

one of the Virginian witnesses, “y^t much amaized & startled us & ou^r

Comanders, being a thing y^t was never imagined or expected.”[38]

The killing of these envoys was in violation of a rule that holds in

all warfare, whether savage or civilized, and Truman was impeached for

it in the Maryland assembly; but owing to an obstinate disagreement

between the two houses as to the penalty to be inflicted, he escaped

without further punishment than the loss of his seat in the council.

[Sidenote: Berkeley’s perverseness.]

[Sidenote: Indian atrocities.]

Colonel Washington’s force proved too small to hold in check the

infuriated Susquehannocks, who seem to have entered into alliance with

the Algonquins of the country. Soon the whole border, from the Potomac

to the falls of the James, was swarming with painted barbarians, and

day after day renewed the tale of burning homes and slaughtered wives

and children. This sort of thing went on through the fall and winter,

driving people into frenzy, but Berkeley would not call out a military

force for the occasion. He insisted that it was enough to instruct

the county lieutenants, each in his county, to keep his militia in

readiness. It was charged against him that fear of losing his share in

a very lucrative fur trade made him unwilling to engage in war with

the Indians. However this may have been, the spirit of the people had

become so mutinous that he was probably afraid to entrust himself

to the protection of a popular militia. Whatever the motive of his

conduct, its consequences were highly disastrous. On a single day in

January, 1676, within a circle of ten miles’ radius, thirty-six people

were murdered; and when the governor was notified, he coolly answered

that “nothing could be done until the assembly’s regular meeting in

March”![39] Meanwhile the work of firebrand and tomahawk went on. In

Essex County (then known as Rappahannock), sixty plantations were

destroyed within seventeen days. It was thought by some persons that

the Indians were stimulated by reports of the fearful havoc which

their brethren were making in New England, where King Philip’s war

was raging. Surely the wrath of the planters must have been redoubled

when they heard of the stalwart troop led by Josiah Winslow into the

Narragansett country, and noted the stern vengeance it wrought there

on a December day of 1675, and contrasted these things with what they

saw before them. As the Charles City people afterward declared with

bitterness, “we do acknowledge we were so unadvised then ... as to

believe it our duty incumbent on us both by the laws of God and nature,

and our duty to his sacred Majesty, notwithstanding ... Sir William

Berkeley’s prohibition, ... to take up arms ... for the just defence of

ourselves, wives, and children, and this his Majesty’s country.”[40]

At length, in March, the Long Assembly, as people called it, which had

been elected in 1661, was convened for the last time; a force of 500

men was gathered, and all things were in readiness for a campaign, when

Berkeley by proclamation disbanded the little army, declaring that

the frontier forts, if duly prepared and equipped, afforded all the

protection the country needed. To many people this seemed to be adding

insult to injury; for while no fortress could prevent the skulking

approach of the enemy through the tangled wilderness, it was widely

believed that the repairing of forts was simply a device for enabling

the governor’s friends to embezzle the money granted for the purpose.

[Sidenote: Nathaniel Bacon.]

[Sidenote: Drummond and Lawrence.]

At this time there was a young man of eight-and-twenty living on his

plantation on James River, hard by Curl’s Wharf. His name was Nathaniel

Bacon, son of Thomas Bacon, of Friston Hall, Suffolk, a kinsman of the

great Lord Bacon.[41] His mother was daughter of a Suffolk knight, Sir

Robert Brooke. He had studied law at Gray’s Inn, and after extensive

travel on the continent of Europe had come to Virginia with his young

wife shortly before the beginning of these Indian troubles. His

father’s cousin, Nathaniel Bacon, of King’s Creek, who had dwelt in

the colony since about 1650, was a man of large wealth and influence.

The abilities and character of the young Nathaniel were rated so high

that he already had a seat in the council. He was clearly an impetuous

youth, brave and cordial, fiery at times, and gifted with a persuasive

tongue. He was in person tall and lithe, with swarthy complexion

and melancholy eyes, and a somewhat lofty demeanour. One writer says

that his discourse was “pestilent and prevalent logical,” and that it

“tended to atheism,” which doubtless means that he criticised things

freely. Two other prominent men were much of his way of thinking.

One was a hard-headed and canny Scotchman, William Drummond, who had

been governor of the Albemarle colony in Carolina.[42] The other was

Richard Lawrence, an Oxford graduate of scholarly tastes, whom an old

chronicler has labelled for posterity as “thoughtful Mr. Lawrence.”

Both Drummond and Lawrence were wealthy men, and lived, it is said, in

the two best built and best furnished houses in Jamestown, which, it

should be remembered, had scarcely more than a score of houses all told.

[Sidenote: Bacon’s plantation attacked, May, 1676.]

[Sidenote: He defeats the Indians.]

Beside the estate where Bacon lived, he had another one farther up, on

the site still marked by the name “Bacon Quarter Branch” in the suburbs

of Richmond. “If the redskins meddle with me,” quoth the fiery young

man, “damn my blood but I’ll harry them, commission or no commission!”

One May morning in 1676 news came to Curl’s Wharf that the Indians had

attacked the upper estate, and killed Bacon’s overseer and one of his

servants. A crowd of armed planters on horseback assembled, and offered

to march under Bacon’s lead. He made an eloquent speech, accepted the

command, and sent a courier to the governor to ask for a commission.

Berkeley returned an evasive answer, whereupon Bacon sent him a polite

note, thanking him for the promised commission, and forthwith started

on his campaign. He had not gone many miles when a proclamation from

the governor overtook him, commanding the party to disperse. A few

obeyed; the rest kept on their way and inflicted a severe defeat upon

the Indians. Then Bacon and his volunteers marched homeward.[43]

[Sidenote: Election of a new House of Burgesses.]

[Sidenote: Arrest of Bacon.]

Meanwhile the indignant Berkeley had gathered a troop of horse and

taken the field in person to arrest this refractory young man. But

suddenly came the news that the whole York peninsula was in revolt. The

governor must needs hasten back to Jamestown, where he soon realized

that if he would avoid civil war he must dissolve his moss-grown House

of Burgesses and issue writs for a new election. This was done. In

anticipation of such an emergency, an act had been passed in 1670

restricting the suffrage by a property qualification, which had

called forth much indignation, since previously universal suffrage had

prevailed. In this excited election of 1676 the restriction was openly

disregarded in many places, and unqualified persons voted illegally.

Bacon offered himself as a candidate for Henrico County and was elected

by a large majority. As he drew near to Jamestown in his sloop with

thirty followers, a war-ship lay at anchor awaiting him, and the high

sheriff arrested him with his whole party. He was taken into the brick

State House and confronted with the governor, who simply said, “Mr.

Bacon, have you forgot to be a gentleman?” “No, may it please your

honour,” said Bacon. “Very well,” said Berkeley, “then I’ll take your

parole.” This was discreet in the governor, since the election had gone

so heavily against him. Bacon was released and went to lodge in the

house of Richard Lawrence.

[Sidenote: “Thoughtful” Mr. Lawrence.]

This “thoughtful” gentleman, the Oxford scholar, “for wit, learning,

and sobriety equalled by few,” is said to have “kept an ordinary,”

while his house was one of the best in Jamestown. It should be

remembered that the permanent residents in the town numbered less than

a hundred,[44] while the sessions of the assembly brought a great

influx of temporary sojourners, so that any or every house would be

made to serve as a tavern. Some years before, Mr. Lawrence had been

“partially treated at law, for a considerable estate on behalf of a

corrupt favourite” of Sir William Berkeley; a fact well certified by

the testimony of the governor’s friend, Colonel Lee. For this reason

Lawrence bore the governor a grudge and spoke of him as a treacherous

old villain. It was believed by some people that in the conduct of the

rebellion Lawrence was the Mephistopheles and Bacon simply the Faust

whom he prompted.

[Sidenote: Bacon’s submission.]

There seems to have been an understanding that, if Bacon were to

acknowledge his offence in marching without a commission, he should be

received back to his seat in the council, and the governor would give

him a commission to go and finish the Indian war. The old Nathaniel

Bacon, of King’s Creek, being “a very rich politic man and childless,”

and intending to leave his estates to young Nathaniel, succeeded in

persuading him, “not without much pains,” to accept the compromise. The

old gentleman wrote out a formal recantation, which his young kinsman

consented to read in public, and a scene was made of it. The State

House was a two-story building in which the burgesses had lately begun

sitting apart on the second floor, while the governor and council (in

point of dignity the “upper house”) held their session on the first

floor. On the 5th of June, 1676, the burgesses were summoned to attend

in the council chamber while Berkeley opened parliament. In his opening

speech the governor referred to the Indian troubles, and expressed

himself with strong emphasis on the slaying of the five envoys: “If

they had killed my grandfather and grandmother, my father and mother

and all my friends, yet if they had come to treat of peace they ought

to have gone in peace!”[45] Then, changing the subject, the governor

announced: “If there be joy in the presence of the angels over one

sinner that repenteth, there is joy now, for we have a penitent sinner

come before us. Call Mr. Bacon.” The young man knelt at the bar of the

assembly and read aloud the prepared paper in which he confessed that

he had acted illegally, and offered sureties for future good behaviour.

Then said the governor impressively, and thrice repeating the words,

“God forgive you! I forgive you.” “And all that were with him,”

interposed a member of the council. “Yea,” continued Berkeley, “and

all those that were with you.” The sheriff at once released Bacon’s

followers, and he took his old seat in the council, while the burgesses

filed off upstairs. Our informant, the member for Stafford, tells us

that while he was on his way up to the burgesses that afternoon, and

through the open door of the council chamber descried “Mr. Bacon on his

quondam seat,” it seemed “a marvellous indulgence” to one who had so

lately been proscribed as a rebel.

[Sidenote: Governor _vs._ Burgesses.]

[Sidenote: Reform of abuses.]

The governor’s chief dread was the free discussion of affairs in

general by a hostile assembly. Now that the Indian imbroglio had

brought these new burgesses together, he wanted them to confine their

talk to Indian affairs and then go home, but this was not their way

of thinking. They aimed, though feebly, at greater independence than

heretofore, and the governor’s intent was to frustrate this aim. It was

moved by one of his partisans in the House of Burgesses “to entreat

the governor would please to assign two of his council to sit with

and assist us in our debates, as had been usual.” At this the friends

of Bacon scowled, and the member for Stafford ventured to suggest

that such aid might not be necessary, whereat there was an uproar.

The Berkeleyans urged that “it had been customary and ought not to be

omitted,” but a shrewd old assemblyman named Presley replied, “’Tis

true it has been customary, but if we have any bad customs amongst

us, we are come here to mend ’em.”[46] This happy retort was greeted

with laughter, but the Cavalier feeling of loyalty to the king’s

representative was still strong, and Berkeley’s friends had their

way, apparently in a tumultuous fashion. As the member for Stafford

says, the affair “was huddled off without coming to a vote,” so that

the burgesses must “submit to be overawed and have every carped at

expression carried straight to the governor.” Nevertheless, they went

sturdily on to their work of reform, and the acts which they passed

most clearly reveal the nature of the evils from which the people had

been suffering. They restored universal suffrage; they enacted that

vestrymen should be elected by popular vote, and limited their term

of office to three years; they reduced the sheriff’s term to a single

year; they declared that no person should hold at one and the same time

any two of the offices of sheriff, surveyor, escheator, and clerk of

court; and they imposed penalties upon the delay of public business and

the taking of excessive fees. Councillors with their families, and the

families of clergymen, had been exempted from taxation; this odious

privilege was now abolished. Sundry trade monopolies were overthrown;

two magistrates, Edward Hill and John Stith, were disfranchised for

alleged misconduct; and provision was made for a general inspection of

public expenses and the proper auditing of accounts.[47]

[Sidenote: An Indian “princess.”]

The Indian troubles were not neglected. Arrangements were made for

raising and maintaining an army of 1,000 men, and the aid of friendly

Indians was solicited. There was a picturesque scene when the

“Queen of Pamunkey” was brought before the House of Burgesses. That

interesting squaw sachem appears to have been a descendant of the

fierce Opekankano. Her tribe was the same that John Smith had visited

on the winter day when he held his pistol to the old warrior’s head,

with the terse mandate, “Corn or your life!” That remnant of the

Powhatan confederacy was still flourishing in Bacon’s time, and indeed

it has survived to the present day, a mongrel compound of Indian and

negro, on two small reservations in King William County.[48] The “Queen

of Pamunkey” in Bacon’s time commanded about 150 warriors, and what

the assembly wanted was to secure their aid in suppressing the hostile

Indians. The dusky princess “entered the chamber with a comportment

graceful to admiration, bringing on her right hand an Englishman

interpreter, and on the left her son, a stripling twenty years of

age, she having round her head a plat of black and white wampum peag

three inches broad in imitation of a crown, and was clothed in a

mantle of dressed deerskins with the hair outwards and the edge cut

round six inches deep, which made strings resembling twisted fringe

from the shoulders to the feet; thus with grave courtlike gestures

and a majestic air in her face she walked up our long room to the

lower end of the table, where after a few entreaties she sat down; the

interpreter and her son standing by her on either side as they had

walked up. Our chairman asked her what men she would lend us for guides

in the wilderness and to assist us against our enemy Indians. She spake

to the interpreter to inform her what the chairman said (though we

believed she understood him). He told us she bid him ask [her] son to

whom the English tongue was familiar (and who was reputed the son of an

English colonel), yet neither would he speak to or seem to understand

the chairman, but, the interpreter told us, he referred all to his

mother, who being again urged, she, after a little musing, with an

earnest passionate countenance as if tears were ready to gush out, and

a fervent sort of expression, made a harangue about a quarter of an

hour, often interlacing (with a high shrill voice and vehement passion)

these words, _Totapotamoy chepiack!_ i. e. _Totapotamoy dead!_ Colonel

Hill, being next me, shook his head. I asked him what was the matter.

He told me all she said was too true, to our shame, and that his father

was general in that battle where divers years before[49] Totapotamoy

her husband had led a hundred of his Indians in help to the English

against our former enemy Indians, and was there slain with most of his

men; for which no compensation at all had been to that day rendered to

her, wherewith she now upbraided us.”

[Sidenote: The chairman’s rudeness.]

The candid member for Stafford calls the chairman of the committee

morose and rude for not so much as “advancing one cold word towards

assuaging the anger and grief” of the squaw sachem. Having once

obtained a favour and so ill requited it, the white men in an emergency

were now suppliants for further good offices of the same sort. But

disregarding all this, the chairman imperiously demanded to be informed

how many Indians she would now contribute. A look of angry disdain

passed over the cinnamon face; she turned her head away and “sat mute

till that same question being pressed a third time, she, not returning

her face to the board, answered with a low slighting voice in our own

language, _Six!_ but, being further importuned, she, sitting a little

while sullen, without uttering a word between, said, _Twelve!_ ... and

so rose up and walked gravely away, as not pleased with her treatment.”

[Sidenote: Bacon’s flight.]

[Sidenote: His return.]

Small wisdom was shown in this mean and discourteous treatment of a

useful ally, but men’s thoughts were at once abruptly turned from such

matters. “One morning early a bruit ran about the town, Bacon is fled!

Bacon is fled!” and for the moment Indian alliances and legislative

reforms were alike forgotten. Mr. Lawrence’s house was searched at

daybreak, but his lodger had gone. Not only had the governor withheld

the expected commission, but the air was heavy with suspicion of

treachery. The elder Bacon, of King’s Creek, who was fond of “this

uneasy cousin” without approving his conduct, secretly informed him

that his life was in danger at Jamestown. So the young man slipped

away to his estate at Curl’s, and within a few days marched back upon

Jamestown at the head of 600 men. Berkeley’s utmost efforts could

scarcely muster 100 men, of whom we are told that not half could be

relied on. Early in the warm June afternoon Bacon halted his troops

upon the green before the State House, and walked up toward the

building with a little guard of fusileers. The upper windows were

filled with peering burgesses, and crowds of expectant people stood

about the green. Out from the door came the old white-haired governor,

trembling with fury, and plucking open the rich lace upon his bosom,

shouted to Bacon, “Here I am! Shoot me! ’Fore God, a fair mark, a fair

mark--shoot!” Bacon answered mildly, “No, may it please your honour, we

have not come to hurt a hair of your head or of any man’s. We are come

for a commission to save our lives from the Indians, which you have so

often promised, and now we will have it before we go.”

[Sidenote: The governor intimidated, June, 1676.]

But we are told that after the old man had gone in to talk with his

council, Bacon fell into a rage and swore that he would kill them all

if the commission were not granted. The fusileers presented their

pieces at the windows and yelled, “We will have it! we will have it!”

till shortly one of the burgesses shook “a pacifick handkercher”

and called down, “you shall have it.” All was soon quiet again. The

assembly drew up a memorial to the king, setting forth the grievances

of the colony and Bacon’s valuable services; and it made out a

commission for him as general of an army to be sent against the

Indians. Next day the governor was browbeaten into signing both these

papers; but the same ship that carried the memorial to Charles II.

carried also a private letter wherein Berkeley told his own story in

his own way. The assembly was then dissolved.

[Sidenote: Bacon crushes the Susquehannocks.]

[Sidenote: Berkeley flies to Accomac, and proclaims Bacon a rebel.]

[Sidenote: Bacon’s march to Middle Plantation.]

Bacon was a commander who could move swiftly and strike hard. Within

four weeks the remnant of the Susquehannocks had been pretty nearly

wiped out of existence, when he heard that the governor had proclaimed

him and his followers rebels. It was like a cry of despair from the

old man, who felt his power and dignity gone while this young Cromwell

rode over him rough-shod. He tried to raise the people in Gloucester,

reputed the most loyal of the counties, but his efforts were vain.

Ominous groans and calls of “a Bacon! a Bacon!” greeted him, until in

anticipation of still worse difficulties he fled across Chesapeake Bay

to the Accomac peninsula, launching the proclamation behind him like a

Parthian arrow. This was on July 29, and Richard Lawrence carried the

news up-stream to Bacon, who was probably somewhere about the North

Anna River. The young leader was stung by what he felt to be cruel

injustice. “It vexed him to the heart for to think that while he was

hunting Indian wolves, tigers, and foxes, which daily destroyed our

harmless sheep and lambs, that he and those with him should be pursued

with a full cry, as a more savage or a no less ravenous beast.” He

quickly marched back at the head of his troops to Middle Plantation,

half way between Jamestown and York River, the site where Williamsburg

was afterward built. What had best be done was matter of discussion

between Bacon and his friends, and the affair began to assume a more

questionable and dangerous aspect than before. The Scotch adviser,

William Drummond, was a gentleman who did not believe in half measures.

When some friend warned him of the danger of rebellion he was heard to

reply, “I am in over shoes; I will be over boots!” His wife was equally

bold. It was suggested one day that King Charles might by and by have

something to say about these proceedings, whereupon Sarah Drummond

picked up a stick and broke it in two, exclaiming, “I care no more for

the power of England than for this broken straw!” Bacon was advised

by Drummond to have Berkeley deposed and the more placable Sir Henry

Chicheley put in his place; and as a precedent he cited the thrusting

out of Sir John Harvey, forty-one years before. But Bacon preferred a

different course of action. First, he issued a manifesto in rejoinder

to Berkeley’s proclamation. A few ringing sentences from it will serve

as a sample of his peculiar eloquence.

[Sidenote: His manifesto.]

“If virtue be a sin, if piety be guilt, all the principles of morality,

goodness and justice be perverted, we must confess that those who are

now called Rebels may be in danger of those high imputations. Those

loud and several bulls would affright innocents, and render the defence

of our brethren and the inquiry into our sad and heavy oppressions

Treason. But if there be (as sure there is) a just God to appeal to, if

religion and justice be a sanctuary here, if to plead the cause of the

oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty’s honour and the public

good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap

after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the

loss of a great part of his Majesty’s colony deserted and dispeopled

freely with our lives and estates to endeavour to save the remainders,

be treason--God Almighty judge and let guilty die. But since we cannot

in our hearts find one single spot of rebellion or treason, or that

we have in any manner aimed at subverting the settled government or

attempting of the person of any either magistrate or private man,

notwithstanding the several reproaches and threats of some who for

sinister ends were disaffected to us and censured our innocent and

honest designs, and since all people in all places where we have yet

been can attest our civil, quiet, peaceable behaviour, far different

from that of rebellion [rebellious?] and tumultuous persons, let Truth

be bold and all the world know the real foundations of pretended

guilt. We appeal to the country itself, what and of what nature their

oppressions have been, or by what cabal and mystery the designs of many

of those whom we call great men have been transacted and carried on.

But let us trace these men in authority and favour to whose hands the

dispensation of the country’s wealth has been committed.”[50]

[Sidenote: His arraignment of Berkeley.]

This is the prose of the seventeenth century, which had not learned

how to smite the reader’s mind with the short incisive sentences to

which we are at the present day accustomed; but there is no mistaking

the writer’s passionate earnestness, his straightforward honesty and

dauntless courage. As we read, we seem to see the gleam of lightning

in those melancholy eyes, and we quite understand how the impetuous

youth was a born leader of men. With strong words tumbling from a full

heart the manifesto goes on to “trace these men in authority,” these

“juggling parasites whose tottering fortunes have been repaired at

the public charge.” He points out at some length the character of the

public grievances, and appeals to the king with a formal indictment of

Sir William Berkeley:--

“For having upon specious pretences of public works raised unjust taxes

upon the commonalty for the advancement of private favourites and other

sinister ends, but no visible effects in any measure adequate.

“For not having, during the long time of his government, in any

measure advanced this hopeful colony either by fortification, towns, or

trade.

“For having abused and rendered contemptible the majesty of justice, of

advancing to places of judicature scandalous and ignorant favourites.

“For having wronged his Majesty’s prerogative and interest by assuming

the monopoly of the beaver trade.

“[For] having in that unjust gain bartered and sold his Majesty’s

country and the lives of his loyal subjects to the barbarous heathen.

“For having protected, favoured, and emboldened the Indians against

his Majesty’s most loyal subjects, never contriving, requiring or

appointing any due or proper means of satisfaction for their many

invasions, murders, and robberies committed upon us.”

[Sidenote: “Wicked counsellors.”]

And so on through several further counts. At the close of the

indictment nineteen persons are mentioned by name as the governor’s

“wicked and pernicious counsellors, aiders and assisters against the

commonalty in these our cruel commotions.” Among these names we read

those of Sir Henry Chicheley, Richard Lee, Robert Beverley, Nicholas

Spencer, and the son of our old friend William Claiborne, who had

once been such a thorn in the side of Maryland. The manifesto ends by

demanding that Berkeley and all the persons on this list be promptly

arrested and confined at Middle Plantation until further orders. Let

no man dare aid or harbour any one of them, under penalty of being

declared a traitor and losing his estates.

[Sidenote: The oath at Middle Plantation.]

[Sidenote: Defeat of the Indians.]

When he had launched this manifesto Bacon called for a meeting of

notables at Middle Plantation, to concert measures for making it

effective. There on August 3, accordingly, were assembled “most of

the prime gentlemen of those parts,” including four members of the

council. The discussion lasted all day, and was kept up by the light

of torches until midnight. There were many who were not willing to go

all lengths with Bacon. All were willing to subscribe an agreement

not to aid Berkeley in molesting Bacon and his men, but all were not

prepared to promise military aid to Bacon in resisting Berkeley. Bacon

insisted upon this and even more. It was not unlikely that the king,

influenced by calumnies and misrepresentations, might send troops to

Virginia to suppress the so-called “rebellion.” In that case all must

unite in opposing the royal forces until his Majesty should be brought

to see these matters in their true light. Many demurred at this. It

was equivalent to armed rebellion. They would sign the first part

of the agreement, but not this. Bacon replied that the governor had

already proclaimed them rebels, and would hang them for signing any

part of the agreement; one might as well be hanged for a sheep as for

a lamb, and as for himself he was not going to be satisfied with half

support. They must choose between Berkeley and himself. It is said that

they might have argued all that summer night but for a sudden Indian

scare which emphasized the need for prompt action. Then the hesitating

gentlemen came forward and signed the entire paper, while the whole

company, and no one more emphatically than Bacon himself, asseverated

that these proceedings in no way impaired their allegiance. In other

words, they were ready if need be to make war on the king for his own

good. It was “We, the inhabitants of Virginia,” that drew up this

remarkable agreement, which Charles II. was presently to read. Writs

were then made out in the king’s name for a new election of burgesses

and signed by the four councilmen. Then Bacon crossed the James River

and defeated the Appomattox Indians near the spot where Petersburg now

stands. After this he moved about the country, capturing and dispersing

the barbarians, until early in September it might be said that every

homestead in the colony was safe.

[Sidenote: Startling conversation between Bacon and Goode.]

In the proceedings which attended the taking of the oath at Middle

Plantation it may be plainly seen that Bacon was in danger of

alienating his followers by pursuing too radical a policy. This is

strikingly confirmed by a document which has only lately attracted

attention, a letter from John Goode to Sir William Berkeley, dated

January 30, 1677. This John Goode was a veteran frontiersman of sixty

years, a man of importance in the colony. He seems to have been a

faithful adherent of Bacon from his first march against the Indians

in May until the beginning of September, when there occurred the

conversation which, after all was over, he reported to the governor as

follows. The affair is so important and so little known that I quote

the dialogue entire, with the original spelling and punctuation:[51]--

HON’D SR.--In obedient submission to your honours command directed

to me by Capt. Wm. Bird[52] I have written the full substance of a

discourse Nath: Bacon, deceased, propos’d to me on or about the 2d day

of September last, both in order and words as followeth:--

BACON.--There is a report Sir Wm. Berkeley hath sent to the king

for 2,000 Red Coates, and I doe believe it may be true, tell me

your opinion, may not 500 Virginians beat them, wee having the same

advantages against them the Indians have against us.

GOODE.--I rather conceive 500 Red Coats may either Subject or ruine

Virginia.

B.--You talk strangely, are not wee acquainted with the Country, can

lay Ambussadoes, and take Trees and putt them by, the use of their

discipline, and are doubtlesse as good or better shott than they.

G.--But they can accomplish what I have sayd without hazard or coming

into such disadvantages, by taking Opportunities of landing where

there shall bee noe opposition, firing out [our?] houses and Fences,

destroying our Stocks and preventing all Trade and supplyes to the

Country.

B.--There may bee such prevention that they shall not bee able to

make any great Progresse in Mischeifes, and the Country or Clime not

agreeing with their Constitutions, great mortality will happen amongst

them, in their Seasoning which will weare and weary them out.

G.--You see Sir that in a manner all the principall Men in the Countrey

dislike your manner of proceedings, they, you may bee sure will joine

with the Red Coates.

B.--But there shall none of them bee [permitted?].

G.--Sir, you speake as though you design’d a totall defection from

Majestie, and our native Country.

B.--Why (smiling) have not many Princes lost their Dominions soe.

G.--They have been such people as have been able to subsist without

their Prince. 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 can hardly shift, without Supply one yeare,

and you may bee sure that this people which soe fondly follow you,

when they come to feele the miserable wants of food and rayment, will

bee in greater heate to leave you, then [than] they were to come

after you, besides here are many people in Virginia that receive

considerable benefitts, comforts, and advantages by Parents, Friends

and Correspondents in England, and many which expect patrimonyes and

Inheritances which they will by no meanes decline.

B.--For supply I know nothing: the Country will be able to provide it

selfe withall, in a little time, save Amunition and Iron, and I believe

the King of France or States of Holland would either of them entertaine

a Trade with us.

G.--Sir, our King is a great Prince, and his Amity is infinitely more

valuable to them, then [than] any advantage they can reape by Virginia,

they will not therefore provoke his displeasure by supporting his

Rebells here; besides I conceive that your followers do not think

themselves ingaged against the King’s Authority, but against the

Indians.

B.--But I think otherwise, and am confident of it, that it is the mind

of this country, and of Mary Land, and Carolina also, to cast off their

Governor and the Governors of Carolina have taken no notice of the

People, nor the People of them, a long time;[53] and the people are

resolv’d to own their Governour further; And if wee cannot prevaile by

Armes to make our Conditions for Peace, or obtaine the Priviledge to

elect our own Governour, we may retire to Roanoke.

And here hee fell into a discourse of seating a Plantation in a great

Island in the River, as a fitt place to retire to for Refuge.

G.--Sir, the prosecuting what you have discoursed will unavoidably

produce utter ruine and destruction to the people and Countrey, & I

dread the thoughts of putting my hand to the promoting a designe of

such miserable consequence, therefore hope you will not expect from me.

B.--I am glad I know your mind, but this proceeds from meer

Cowardlynesse.

G.--And I desire you should know my mind, for I desire to harbour noe

such thoughts, which I should fear to impart to any man.

B.--Then what should a Gentleman engaged as I am, doe, you doe as good

as tell me, I must fly or hang for it.

G.--I conceive a seasonable Submission to the Authority you have your

Commission from, acknowledging such Errors and Excesse, as are yett

past, there may bee hope of remission.

I perceived his cogitations were much on this discourse, hee nominated,

Carolina, for the watch word.

Three days after I asked his leave to goe home, hee sullenly Answered,

you may goe, and since that time, I thank God, I never saw or heard

from him.

[Sidenote: Bacon’s perilous situation.]

This interesting dialogue reveals the nature of the situation into

which Bacon had drifted. As the days went by, he could hardly fail to

see that the king was more likely to take Berkeley’s view of the case

than his. According to that view the deliverer of Virginia from the

Indians was a proscribed rebel who must “fly or hang for it.” There was

little hope for Bacon in “seasonable submission.” He would, therefore,

consider it safer and better for Virginia to hold out until the king

could be induced to take Bacon’s view of the case; or failing this,

it might still be possible to wear out the king’s troops and achieve

independence for Virginia, with the aid of the discontented people in

the neighbouring colonies. These were the speculations of a man whom

circumstances were making desperate, and the effect which they wrought

upon John Goode was likely to be repeated with many who had hitherto

loyally followed his fortunes.

[Sidenote: Berkeley takes the offensive.]

Thus far Bacon’s fighting had been against Indians. His quarrel with

the governor had been confined to fulminations. Now the two men were

to come into armed collision and give Virginia a brief taste of civil

war. Bacon sent Giles Bland, “a gentleman of an active and stirring

disposition,” with four armed vessels, to arrest Berkeley in Accomac,

but Colonel Philip Ludwell, aided by treachery, succeeded in capturing

Bland with his flotilla. Bland was put in irons, and one ship’s captain

was hanged for an example. Meanwhile Berkeley was enlisting troops by

promising as rewards the estates of all the gentlemen who had taken the

oath at Middle Plantation. He also sought to win over the indentured

servants of gentlemen fighting under Bacon by promising to give them

the estates of their masters. Many longshoremen also were enrolled.

Having in these ways scraped together about 1,000 men, the governor

sailed up the river to Jamestown and took possession of the place, from

which Lawrence and Drummond fled in the nick of time.

[Sidenote: The white aprons.]

When this news reached Bacon it found him at West Point, with the work

of subduing the red men practically finished. Not four months had yet

elapsed since the first attack on his plantation. It was clearly no

ordinary young man that had done that summer’s arduous work. Now he

advanced upon Jamestown, and made his headquarters in his adversary’s

comfortable mansion at Green Spring. Sir William had thrown an

earthwork across the neck of the promontory, and Bacon began building

a parallel. It is said that he compelled a number of ladies in white

aprons--wives of leading Berkeleyans--to stand upon the works, and

sent a message to the governor not to fire upon these guardian angels.

“The poor gentlewomen were mightily astonished,” says the chronicle,

“and neither were their bands void of amazement at this subtle

invention.”[54] The incident is an ugly spot in that brief career. One

would gladly disbelieve the story, but our contemporary authority for

it seems unimpeachable, and is friendly withal to Bacon.

[Sidenote: Bacon’s speech.]

The speech made by the young commander to his men at Green Spring

before the final assault is a good specimen of his eloquence:

“Gentlemen and Fellow Soldiers, how I am transported with gladness to

find you thus unanimous, bold and daring, brave and gallant. You have

the victory before the fight, the conquest before the battle.... Your

hardiness will invite all the country along as we march to come in

and second you.... The ignoring of their actions cannot but so much

reflect upon their spirit, as they will have no courage left to fight

you. I know you have the prayers and well wishes of all the people

in Virginia, while the others are loaded with their curses. Come

on, my hearts of gold; he that dies in the field lies in the bed of

honour!”[55]

[Sidenote: Burning of Jamestown.]

[Sidenote: Sufferers at Bacon’s hands.]

The governor’s motley force was indeed no match for these determined

men. In the desultory fighting that ensued about Jamestown he was

badly defeated and at last fled again to Accomac. Jamestown remained

at Bacon’s mercy, and he burned it to the ground, that it might no

longer “harbour the rogues.” We are told that Lawrence and Drummond

took the lead in this work by applying the torch to their own houses

with their own hands. At Green Spring an “oath of fidelity” was drawn

up, which was taken voluntarily by many people and forced upon others.

Bacon seems now to have shown more severity than formerly in sending

men to prison and seizing their property. One deserter he shot, but

from bloodthirstiness he was notably free. Among the gentlemen who

suffered most at his hands were Richard Lee and Sir Henry Chichely, who

were kept several weeks in prison, Philip and Thomas Ludwell, Nicholas

Spencer and Daniel Parke, Robert Beverley and Philip Lightfoot, whose

estates were at various times plundered. John Washington and others

who were denounced as “delinquents” saw their corn and tobacco, cattle

and horses, impressed and carried away. Colonel Augustine Warner,

another great-grandfather of George Washington, “was plundered as much

as any, and yet speaks little of his losses, though they were very

great.”[56] Among the sufferers appears “the good Queen of Pamunkey,”

who was “driven, out into the wild woods and there almost famished,

plundered of all she had, her people taken prisoners and sold; the

queen was also robbed of her rich watchcoat for which she had great

value, and offered to redeem at any rate.” The next paragraph in the

commissioners’ report is delightful: “We could not but present her case

to his Majesty, who, though he may not at present so well or readily

provide remedies or rewards for the other worthy sufferers, yet since a

present of small price may highly oblige and gratify this poor Indian

Queen, we humbly supplicate his Majesty to bestow it on her.”

[Sidenote: Bacon and his cousin.]

One of the accusations against Bacon was that to him a good Indian

meant a dead Indian, so that he did not take the trouble to

discriminate between friends and foes. But what shall we say when we

find him plundering his own kinsman, the affectionate cousin whose

timely warning had once perhaps saved his life? The commissioners

report the losses of Nathaniel Bacon the elder, at the hands of his

“unnatural kinsman,” as at least £1,000 sterling. The old gentleman

was “said to have been a person soe desirous and Industrious to divert

the evil consequences of his Rebell kinsman’s proceedings, that at

the beginning hee freely proposed and promised to invest him in a

considerable part of his Estate in present, and to leave him the

Remainder in Reversion after his and his wife’s death, offering him

other advantages upon condicion hee would lay downe his Armes, and

become a good subject to his Majestie, that that colony might not be

disturbed or destroyed, nor his owne ffamily stained with soe foule a

Blott.”

[Sidenote: Death of Bacon, Oct. 1, 1676.]

At the burning of Jamestown the end of Bacon and of his rebellion

was not far off. “This Prosperous Rebell, concluding now the day his

owne, marcheth with his army into Gloster County, intending to visit

all the northern part of Virginia ... and to settle affairs after his

own measures.... But before he could arrive to the Perfection of his

designes (w^{ch} none but the eye of omniscience could Penetrate)

Providence did that which noe other hand durst (or at least did) doe

and cut him off.” Malarious Jamestown wreaked its own vengeance upon

its destroyer. When Bacon marched away from it he was already ill

with fever, and on the first day of October, at the house of a friend

in Gloucester, he “surrendered up that fort he was no longer able to

keep, into the hands of the grim and all-conquering Captain, Death.”

Accusations of poison were raised, but it is not likely that any other

poison was concerned than impure water and marsh gases. The funeral

was conducted with extraordinary secrecy. If a sudden turn of fortune

should put Berkeley in possession of the body, he would surely hang it

on a gibbet; so thoughtful Mr. Lawrence took measures to prevent any

such indignity. One chronicler darkly hints that Bacon’s remains were

buried in some very secret place in the woods, but another mentions

stones laid in the coffin, which suggests that it was sunk beneath the

waves of York River, as Soto was buried in the Mississippi and mighty

Alaric in the Busento.

[Sidenote: Collapse of the Rebellion.]

[Sidenote: Arrival of royal commissioners, January, 1677.]

[Sidenote: Outrageous conduct of Berkeley.]

A strange meteoric career was that of young Bacon, begun and ended as

it was in the space of about twenty weeks. On the news of his death

the rebellion collapsed with surprising suddenness. His followers soon

began giving in their submissions to the governor; the few that held

out were dispersed or captured. Although it was not until January

that the work of suppression was regarded as complete, yet that work

consisted chiefly in catching fugitives. In January an English fleet

arrived, with a regiment of troops, and a commission for investigating

the affairs of Virginia. The commissioners were Sir John Berry, Sir

Herbert Jeffries, and Colonel Francis Morison, three worthy and

fair-minded gentlemen. They found nothing left for soldiers to do. They

had authority for trying rebels, but in that business Berkeley had been

beforehand. Soon after Bacon’s death one of his best officers, Colonel

Thomas Hansford, was captured by Robert Beverley, and carried over to

Accomac. He asked no favour save that he might be “shot like a soldier

and not hanged like a dog,” but this was not granted. Hansford has

been called “the first native martyr to American liberty.”[57] Soon

afterward two captains were hanged, and the affair of Major Edward

Cheesman seems to have occurred while Berkeley was still at Accomac. It

is the foulest incident recorded in Berkeley’s career. When Cheesman

was brought before him, the governor fiercely demanded, “Why did you

engage in Bacon’s designs?” Before the prisoner could answer, his

young wife stepped forward and said, “It was my provocations that made

my husband join the cause; but for me he had never done what he has

done.” Then falling on her knees before the governor, she implored him

that she might be hanged as the guilty one instead of her husband.[58]

The old wretch’s answer was an insult so atrocious that the royalist

chronicler can hardly abide it. “His Honour” must have been beside

himself with anger and could not have meant what he said; for no woman

could have “so small an affection for her husband as to dishonour him

by her dishonesty, and yet retain such a degree of love, that rather

than he should be hanged she will be content to submit her own life

to the sentence.” Perhaps the governor’s thirst for vengeance was

satisfied by his ruffian speech, for Major Cheesman was not put to

death, but remanded to jail, where he died of illness.

[Sidenote: Execution of Drummond.]

After Berkeley had occupied the York peninsula little work remained for

him but that of the hangman. Not all the leaders were easy to find.

Richard Lawrence, thoughtful as always, escaped from the scene. “The

last account of him,” says T. M., “was from an uppermost plantation,

whence he and four other desperadoes, with horses, pistols, etc.,

marched away in a snow ankle-deep.” Here the scholarly rebel vanishes

from our sight, and whether he perished in the wilderness or made his

way to some safer country, we do not know. On a cold day in January

his friend Drummond, hiding in White Oak Swamp was found and taken

to the governor. “Aha!” cried the old man, with a low bow, “you are

very welcome. I would rather see you just now than any other man in

Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour!” “What

your honour pleases,” said the undaunted Scotchman. He was strung up

that afternoon, but not until his wife’s ring had been pulled from

his finger, for rapacity vied with ferocity in the governor’s breast.

Before the end of January some twenty more had been hanged. An election

was then going on, and the newly-elected assembly called upon Berkeley

to desist from this carnival of blood. “If we had let him alone,” said

Presley, the venerable member for Northampton, to T. M., the member for

Stafford, “he would have hanged half the country!”

[Sidenote: Death of Berkeley.]

The governor’s rage had carried him too far. His conduct did not

meet with the approval of the commissioners, whose report on the

disturbances is written in a fair and impartial spirit. He treated the

commissioners with crazy rudeness. It is said that when they had called

on him at Green Spring and were about to return to their boat on the

river, he offered them his state-coach with the hangman for driver!

whereupon they preferred to walk to the landing-place. Fresh seeds

of contention were sown, to bear fruit in the future. The complaints

of Drummond’s widow and others found their way to the throne. “As I

live,” quoth the king, “the old fool has put to death more people in

that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father.” In the

spring the royal order for Berkeley’s removal arrived, and on April 27

he sailed for England, apparently expecting to return, for he left his

wife at Green Spring. Sir Herbert Jeffries, one of the commissioners,

succeeded him with a special commission as lieutenant governor.

Berkeley’s departure was joyfully celebrated with bonfires and salutes

of cannon. He cherished hopes of justifying himself in a personal

interview with the king, but the interview was delayed until, about the

middle of July, the old man fell sick and died. It was believed that

his death was caused by vexation and chagrin. A few weeks afterward the

other two commissioners, Sir John Berry and Colonel Morison, returned

to England; and we are told that one day the late governor’s brother,

Lord Berkeley, meeting Sir John Berry in the council chamber, told him

“with an angry voice and a Berkeleyan look,” that he and Morison had

murdered his brother.[59] In October a royal order for the relief of

Sarah Drummond declared that her husband “had been sentenced and put to

death contrary to the laws of the kingdom.”

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Significance of the rebellion.]

Thus ended the first serious and ominous tragedy in the history of

the United States, a story preserved for us in many of its details

with striking vividness, yet concerning the innermost significance of

which we would fain know more than we do. It may fairly be pronounced

the most interesting episode in our early history, surpassing in this

regard the Leisler affair at New York, which alone can be compared with

it for intensity of human interest. As ordinarily told, however, the

story of Bacon presents some features that are unintelligible. It is

customary to liken the little rebellion of 1676 to the great rebellion

of 1776, and we are thus led to contemplate Bacon and Virginia as

arrayed against Berkeley and England. In such a view the facts are

unduly simplified and strangely distorted. If it were possible thus

fully to identify Bacon’s cause with the cause of Virginia, it would

become impossible to explain the ease with which his followers were

suppressed by Virginians, without any aid from England. But when all

the facts are considered, we can see at once that such a result was

inevitable.

Careful inspection of the relevant facts will show us that Bacon was

contending against four things:--

1. The Indian depredations.

2. The misrule of Sir William Berkeley.

3. The English navigation laws.

4. The tendency toward oligarchical government which had been rapidly

growing since the beginning of the great influx of Cavaliers in 1649.

[Sidenote: How far Bacon represented public sentiment in Virginia.]

Under the first three heads little need be said. The facts have been

generally recognized. It was by Bacon’s zeal and success in suppressing

the Indian power that he acquired public favour. As for the peculation

and extortion practised or permitted by Berkeley, it cannot for a

moment be supposed that such men as John Washington, Richard Lee, etc.,

were inclined to tolerate or connive at it. As for the navigation laws,

it was a common remark, after the oath at Middle Plantation, that now

Virginians might look forward hopefully to trading with all countries.

It is therefore altogether probable that on all these grounds the

public sentiment of Virginia was overwhelmingly on the side of Bacon.

[Sidenote: The leading families were in general opposed to him.]

Under the fourth head some explanation is needed, for historians have

generally overlooked or disregarded it. One of the most conspicuous

facts in the story of Bacon’s rebellion is the fact that a great

majority of the wealthiest and most important men in the colony were

opposed to him from first to last. The list of those who were pillaged

by his followers is largely a list of the names most honoured in

Virginia, the great-grandfathers of the illustrious men who were among

the foremost in winning independence for the United States and in

building up our federal government. It is also largely a list of the

names of Cavaliers who had come from England to Virginia since 1649.

The political ideas of these men were surely not democratic. If they

were devout disbelievers in popular government, the fact is in nowise

to their discredit. Popular government is still on its trial in the

world, and the last word on the subject has not yet been said. In

our day the men who do the most to throw discredit upon it are often

those who prate most loudly in its favour; political blatherskites,

like the famous “Colonel Yell of Yellville,” whose accounts were

sadly delinquent though his heart beat with fervour for his native

land. The Cavaliers who came to Virginia were staunch and honourable

men who believed--with John Winthrop and Edmund Burke and Alexander

Hamilton--that society is most prosperous when a select portion of

the community governs the whole. Such a doctrine seems to me less

defensible than the democratic views of Samuel Adams and Thomas

Jefferson and Herbert Spencer, but it is still entitled to all the

courtesies of debate. Two centuries ago it was of course the prevailing

doctrine.

[Sidenote: Political changes since 1660; the close vestry.]

[Sidenote: Restriction of the suffrage.]

In the preceding chapter I pointed out that the period of Cavalier

immigration, between 1650 and 1670, was characterized by a rapid

increase in the dimensions of landed estates and in the employment of

servile labour. The same period witnessed a change of an eminently

symptomatic kind in local government. In any state the local

institutions are the most vitally important part of the whole political

structure. Now, as I have already mentioned,[60] the English parish

was at an early time reproduced in Virginia, and its authority was

exercised by a few chosen men, usually twelve, who constituted a

vestry. At first, and until after 1645,[61] the vestrymen were elected

by the people of the parish, so that they were analogous to the

selectmen of New England. A vestry thus elected is called an open

vestry. Now soon after the Long Assembly had begun its sessions in

1661, in the fall tide of royalist reaction, we find on its records

a statute which transformed the open vestry into a close vestry.

In March, 1662, it was enacted that “in case of the death of any

vestryman, or his departure out of the parish, ... the minister and

vestry make choice of another to supply his room.”[62] The speedy

effect of this was to dispense with the popular election and to convert

the vestry into a self-perpetuating close corporation. When we consider

the great powers wielded by the vestry, we realize the importance

of this step. The vestry made up the parish budget, apportioned the

taxes, and elected the churchwardens, who were in many places the

tax-collectors. By its “processioning of the bounds of every person’s

land,” the vestry exercised control over the record of land-titles. Its

supervision of the counting of tobacco was also a function of no mean

importance. The vestry also presented the minister for induction. All

the local government not in the hands of the vestry was administered by

the county court, which consisted of eight justices appointed by the

governor. So that when the people lost the power of electing vestrymen

they parted with the only share they had in the local government.[63]

Nothing was left them except the right to vote for burgesses, and not

only was this curtailed in 1670 by a property qualification, but it was

of no avail while the Long Assembly lasted, since during those fifteen

years there were no elections. That political power should thus rapidly

become concentrated in the hands of the leading families was under the

circumstances but natural. That the deprivation of suffrage was by

many people felt to be a grievance is unquestionable.[64] No testimony

can outweigh that of the statute book, and two of the notable acts of

Bacon’s assembly in June, 1676, were those which restored universal

suffrage and the popular election of vestrymen, and limited the terms

of service of vestrymen to three years. The first assembly after the

rebellion, which met at Green Spring in February, 1677, with Augustine

Warner as speaker, declared all the acts of Bacon’s assembly null and

void. Then in the course of that year and the three years following

several of those wholesome acts were reënacted, especially those which

related to exorbitant fees and the misuse of public money. Great pains

were taken to guard against extortion and corruption,[65] but the

provisions concerning vestrymen were not reënacted. A law was passed

allowing the freeholders and housekeepers in each parish to elect six

“sober and discreet” representatives to sit with the vestry and have

equal votes with the vestrymen in assessing the parish taxes; in case

the parish should neglect to choose such representatives, or in case

they should fail to appear at the time appointed, the vestry was to

proceed without them.[66] This act seems to have had little effect, and

the law of 1662, which created the close vestry, still remained law

after more than a century had passed.[67] As for the right to vote for

burgesses, the royal instructions received from Charles II. in January,

1677, restricted it to “ffreeholders, as being more agreeable to the

custome of England, to which you are as nigh as you conveniently can

to conforme yourselves.”[68] According to the same instructions the

assembly was to be called together only once in two years, “unlesse

some emergent occasion shall make it necessary;” and it was to sit

“ffourteene days ... and noe longer, unlesse you find goode cause to

continue it beyond that tyme;” qualifications which could easily be

made to defeat the restriction.

[Sidenote: How the aristocrats regarded Bacon’s followers.]

The legislation of Bacon’s assembly concerning the suffrage and

the vestries proves that the people whom he represented were not

in sympathy with the political and social changes which had been

growing up since the middle of the century. These enactments were a

protest against the increasing tendency toward a more aristocratic

type of society. It was, therefore, natural that a large majority

of the aristocrats should have been opposed to Bacon. Doubtless

they sympathized with his protests against legislative oppression

and official corruption, but they did not approve of his levelling

schemes. Their language concerning Bacon’s followers shows how they

felt about them and toward them. William Sherwood calls them “y^e scum

of the Country.”[69] According to Philip Ludwell, deputy secretary and

member of the council, Bacon “gathers about him a Rabble of the basest

sort of People, whose Condicion was such, as by a chaunge could not

admitt of worse, w^{th} these he begins to stand at Defyance ag’t the

Governm’t.”[70] Again, “Mr. Bacon had Gotten at severall places about

500 men, whose fortune and Inclinations being equally desperate, were

ffit for y^e purpose there being not 20 in y^e whole Route, but what

were Idle & will not worke, or such whose Debaucherie or Ill Husbandry

has brought in Debt beyond hopes or thought of payment these are the

men that are sett up ffor the Good of ye Countrey; who for ye ease of

the poore will have noe taxes paied, though for ye most p^t of them,

they pay none themselves, would have all magistracie & Governm’nt

taken away & sett up one themselves, & to make their Good Intentions

more manifest _stick not to talk openly of shareing mens Estates among

themselves_,[71] with these (being Drawne together) Mr. Bacon marches

speedly toward the towne, etc.”[72] Governor Berkeley’s testimony

should not be omitted; he wrote to the king in June, “I have above

thirty-five years governed the most flourishing country the sun ever

shone over, but am now encompassed with rebellion like waters in every

respect like to that of Masaniello except their leader.”[73] In other

words, the rebels were a mere rabble, except their leader, who was not

a humble fisherman like the Italian, but a gentleman of high birth and

breeding. According to the careful and fair-minded commissioners, Bacon

“seduced the Vulgar and most ignorant People (two-thirds of each county

being of that Sort) Soe that theire whole hearts and hopes were set now

upon” him.[74]

[Sidenote: The real state of the case.]

Allowance for prejudice must of course be made in considering the

general statements of hostile witnesses, such as Berkeley and Sherwood

and Philip Ludwell. It is quite clear that Bacon’s followers were

by no means all of the baser sort. This is distinctly recognized in

a letter to the king by Thomas Ludwell and Robert Smith, containing

proposals for reducing the rebels. In a certain event, they say, “there

will be a speedy separation of the sound parts from the rabble.”[75]

Here we have an explicit admission that there was a “sound part.”

It will be remembered that Drummond had been a colonial governor,

and that his house and Lawrence’s were the best in Jamestown. The

officers we have met in the story, Hansford and Bland and Cheesman,

were men of good family; and among the foremost men in the colony we

are told that Colonel George Mason was inclined to sympathize with the

insurgents.[76] In this he was clearly by no means alone. On the whole,

however, there can be no doubt that Bacon’s cause was to a considerable

extent the cause of the poor against the rich, of the humble folk

against the grandees.

[Sidenote: Effect of hard times.]

[Sidenote: Populist aspects of the rebellion.]

[Sidenote: Its sound aspects.]

When we take into account this aspect of the case, which has never

received the attention it deserves, the whole story becomes consistent

and intelligible. The years preceding the rebellion were such as are

commonly called “hard times.” People felt poor and saw fortunes made

by corrupt officials; the fault was with the Navigation Act and with

the debauched civil service of Charles II. and Berkeley. Besides these

troubles, which were common to all, the poorer people felt oppressed by

taxation in regard to which they were not consulted and for which they

seemed to get no service in return.[77] The distribution of taxation

by polls, equal amounts for rich and for poor, was resented as a cruel

injustice.[78] The subject of taxation was closely connected with the

Indian troubles, for people paid large sums for military defence and

nevertheless saw their houses burned and their families massacred.

Under these circumstances the sudden appearance of the brave and

eloquent Bacon seemed to open the way of salvation. The indomitable

queller of Indians could also curb the tyrant. Naturally, along with

a more respectable element, the rabble gathered under his standard;

it is always the case in revolutions with the men who have little or

nothing to lose. It is likewise usual for men with much property at

stake to be conservative on such occasions. Philip Ludwell’s statement,

that some of the rebels entertained communistic notions, is just

what one might have expected. There is always more or less socialist

tomfoolery at such times. In some of its aspects there is a resemblance

between Bacon’s rebellion and that of Daniel Shays in Massachusetts one

hundred and ten years later. But the Massachusetts leader was a weak

and silly creature, and his resistance to government had nothing to

justify it, though there were palliating circumstances. The course of

Bacon, on the other hand, was in the main a justifiable protest against

misgovernment, and until after the oath at Middle Plantation a great

deal of the sound sentiment in Virginia must have sympathized with him.

In the unwillingness of some of the gentlemen present to take the oath,

we seem to see the first ebbing of the tide. Evidently there began to

be, as Thomas Ludwell had predicted, “a separation of the sound parts

from the rabble;” and this appears very distinctly in the defection of

Goode about four weeks later.

In the intention of resisting the king’s troops, which thus weakened

Bacon’s position, he certainly showed more zeal than judgment. It has

the look of the courage that comes from desperation. Had he lived to

persist in this course, the policy most likely to strengthen him would

have been to make his foremost demand the repeal of the Navigation Act

which all Virginians detested and even Berkeley disapproved. But it

is not likely that anything could have saved him from defeat and the

scaffold. Death seems to have intervened in kindness to him and to

Virginia.[79]

In the early history of our country Bacon must ever remain one of the

bright and attractive figures. Our heart is always with the man who

boldly stands out against corruption and oppression. To many persons

the name of rebel seems fraught with blame and reproach; but the career

of mankind so abounds in examples of heroic resistance to intolerable

wrongs that to any one familiar with history the name of rebel is often

a title of honour. Bacon’s brief career was an episode in the perennial

fight against taxation without representation, the ancient abuse of

living on other men’s labour. We cannot fail to admire his quick

incisiveness, his cool head, his determined courage; and the spectacle

of this young Cavalier taking the lead, like Tiberius Gracchus, in a

movement for justice and liberty will always make a pleasing picture.