CHAPTER XXX.

1670-1671.

The lords commissioners of foreign plantations, in 1670, were Arlington, Ashley, Richard George W. Alington, T. Clifford, S. Trevor, Orlando Bridgeman, C. S. Sandwich, president, Thomas Grey, —— Titus, A. Broucher, H. Slingsby, secretary, Hum. Winch, and Edmund Waller. These, during this year, propounded inquiries to Sir William Berkley, governor, respecting the state and condition of Virginia; and his answers made in the year following present a satisfactory statistical account of the colony. The executive consisted of a governor and sixteen councillors, commissioned by the king, to determine all causes above fifteen pounds; causes of less amount were tried by county courts, of which there were twenty. The assembly met every year, composed of two burgesses from each county. Appeals lay to the assembly; and this body levied the taxes. (This power was delegated for some years to the executive.) The legislative and executive powers rested in the governor, council, assembly, and subordinate officers. The secretary of the colony sent the acts of the assembly to the lord chancellor, or one of the principal secretaries of state. All freemen were bound to muster monthly in their own counties; the force of the colony amounted to upwards of eight thousand horsemen. There were five forts: two on the James, and one on each of the three rivers, Rappahannock, York, and Potomac; the number of cannon was thirty. His majesty, during the late Dutch war, had sent over thirty more, but the most of them were lost at sea. The Indians were in perfect subjection. The eastern boundary of Virginia, on the sea-coast, had been reduced from ten degrees to half of one degree. Tobacco was the only commodity of any great value; exotic mulberry-trees had been planted, and attempts made to manufacture silk. There was plenty of timber; of iron ore but little discovered. The whole population was forty thousand; of which two thousand were negro slaves, and six thousand white servants. (The negroes had increased one hundredfold in fifty years, since 1619, when the first were imported.) The average annual importation of servants was about fifteen hundred; most of them English, a few Scotch, fewer Irish; and not more than two or three ships with negroes in seven years. New plantations were found sickly, and in such four-fifths of the new settlers died. Eighty vessels arrived yearly from England and Ireland for tobacco; a few small coasters came from New England. Virginia had not more than two vessels of her own, and those not over twenty tons. Sir William Berkley complains bitterly of the act of parliament restricting the commerce of Virginia to the British kingdom—a policy injurious to both parties; and he adds that "this is the cause why no small or great vessels are built here; for we are most obedient to all laws, while the New England men break through and trade to any place that their interest leads them to." Sir William gave it as his opinion, that nothing could improve the trade of Virginia, unless she was allowed to export her staves, timber, and corn to other places besides the king's dominions. The only duty levied was that of two shillings on every hogshead of tobacco exported; the exportation of the year 1671 amounting to fifteen thousand hogsheads. Out of this revenue the king allowed the governor one thousand pounds, to which the assembly added two hundred more, making twelve hundred pounds, which was four-fifths of the entire customs revenue for that year. Yet he complains: "I can knowingly affirm, that there is no government of ten years' settlement but has thrice as much allowed him. But I am supported by my hopes, that his gracious majesty will one day consider me."

The king had no revenue in the colony except quit-rents; these were not of much value, and the king gave them to Colonel Henry Norwood. Every man instructed his children at home according to his ability. "There were forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid; by my consent should be better, if they would pray oftener, and preach less. But as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us; and we have had few that we could boast of, since Cromwell's tyranny drove divers men hither. But I thank God there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best governments. God keep us from both!"[273:A]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XXXI.

1673-1675.

The acts of a session were headed as follows: "At a Grand Assembly holden at James City, by prorogation from the 24th day of September, 1672, to the 20th of October, Annoque Regni Regis Caroli Secundi Dei Gratia Angliæ, Scotiæ, Franciæ et Hiberniæ, Regis, fidei Defensoris, &c., Anno Domini 1673. To the glory of Almighty God and public weal, of this his majesty's colony of Virginia, were enacted as followeth."

Provision was made during this year for a supply of arms and ammunition. The commissioners appointed for determining the boundaries of the Counties of Northumberland and Lancaster were Colonel John Washington, Captain John Lee, Captain William Traverse, William Mosely, and Robert Beverley.

The restoration, that worst of all governments, re-established an arbitrary and oppressive administration in Virginia in church and state; and as soon as reinstated, tyranny, confident of its power, rioted in wanton and unbridled license.

The grant which had been made by Charles the Second in the first year of his reign, dated at St. Germain en Laye, of the Northern Neck, including four counties and a half, to Lord Hopton, the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Culpepper, etc., was surrendered, in May, 1671, to the crown, and new letters-patent were issued, with some alterations, to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Berkley, Sir William Morton, and others,—to hold the same forever, paying annually the quit-rent of six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence to his majesty and his successors. In February, 1673, the king granted to the Earl of Arlington and Thomas, Lord Culpepper, the entire territory of Virginia, not merely the wild lands, but private plantations long settled and improved, for the term of thirty-one years, at the yearly rent of forty shillings. The patents entitled them to all rents and escheats, with power to convey all vacant lands, nominate sheriffs, escheators, surveyors, etc., present to all churches and endow them with lands, to form counties, parishes, etc. Although the grants to these noblemen were limited to a term of years, yet they were preposterously and illegally authorized to make conveyances in fee simple.[275:A]

Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, said to have been the best bred person at court, like his master, as far as he had any pretension whatever to religion, was a disguised Papist. He became allied to the monarch as father-in-law to the first Duke of Grafton, the king's son by Lady Castlemaine. Arlington had received, while fighting on the royal side in the civil war, a wound on the nose, the scar of which was covered with a black patch. Barbara Villiers, only daughter of William, Viscount Grandison, and wife of Roger Palmer, created Earl of Castlemaine in 1661, distinguished for her beauty and her profligacy, becoming mistress to Charles at his restoration, was made, in 1670, Duchess of Cleveland. Henry Bennet was created Baron of Arlington in 1663, and Viscount Hetford and Earl of Arlington in 1672. He was also Knight of the Garter and chamberlain to the king, his chief favorite, companion in profligate pleasure, and political adviser. He and Culpepper were members of the commission of trade and plantations.

The Virginians grew so impatient under their accumulated grievances that a revolt was near bursting forth in 1674, but no person of note taking the lead, it was suppressed by the advice of "some discreet persons," and the insurgents were persuaded to disperse in compliance with the governor's proclamation. The movement was not entirely ineffectual, for justices of the peace were prohibited from levying any more taxes for their own emolument.[275:B] The assembly determined to make an humble address "to his sacred majesty," praying for a revocation of the fore-mentioned grants of her territory, and for a confirmation of the rights and privileges of the colony. Francis Morrison, Thomas Ludwell, and Robert Smith were appointed agents to visit England and lay their complaints before the king; and their expenses were provided for by onerous taxes, which fell heaviest on the poorer class of people. These expenses included douceurs to be given to courtiers; for without money nothing could be effected at the venal court of Charles the Second.[276:A] Besides the revocation of the patents, the Virginia agents were instructed to endeavor to obtain a new charter for the colony. They prayed "that Virginia shall no more be transferred in parcels to individuals, but may remain forever dependent on the crown of England; that the public officers should be obliged to reside within the colony; that no tax shall be laid on the inhabitants except by the assembly." This petition affords a curious commentary on the panegyrics then but recently lavished by "his majesty's most loyal colony" upon his "most sacred majesty," who repaid their fervid loyalty by an unrelenting system of oppression. The negotiations were long, and display evidence of signal diplomatic ability, together with elevated and patriotic views of colonial rights and constitutional freedom. After many evasions and much delay, the mission eventually proved fruitless.[276:B] Application was also made to Secretary Coventry to secure the place of governor to Sir William Berkley for life.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XXXII.

1675.

The Reverend Morgan Godwyn's Letter describing Condition of the Church in Virginia.

The Bishop of Winchester, during the whole negotiation, lent his assistance to the agents; he also brought to their notice a libel which had been published against all the Anglo-American plantations, especially Virginia. It was written by the Rev. Morgan Godwyn, who had served some time in Virginia; and he had given a copy of it to each of the bishops. The agents make mention of him as "the fellow," and "the inconsiderable wretch." They sent a copy of it to Virginia, thinking it necessary that a reply should be prepared, and addressed to the Bishop of Winchester and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is probable that this pamphlet is no longer extant; but the character of its contents may be inferred from a letter addressed by the author to Sir William Berkley, and appended to a pamphlet published by him in 1680, entitled the "Negro's and Indian's Advocate." Indeed this letter may have been itself the libellous pamphlet circulated in England in 1674, and referred to by the Virginia agents. In this letter Godwyn gives the following account of the state of religion, as it was in that province some time before the late rebellion, i.e. Bacon's, which occurred in 1676. Godwyn acknowledges that Berkley had, "as a tender father, nourished and preserved Virginia in her infancy and nonage. But as our blessed Lord," he reminds him, "once said to the young man in the gospel, 'Yet lackest thou one thing;' so," he adds, "may we, and I fear too truly, say of Virginia, that there is one thing, the propagation and establishing of religion in her, wanting." And this he essays to prove in various ways: saying that "the ministers are most miserably handled by their plebeian juntos, the vestries, to whom the hiring (that is the usual word there) and admission of ministers is solely left. And there being no law obliging them to any more than to procure a lay reader, (to be obtained at a very moderate rate,) they either resolve to have none at all, or reduce them to their own terms; that is, to use them how they please, pay them what they list, and to discard them whensoever they have a mind to it. And this is the recompense of their leaving their hopes in England, (far more considerable to the meanest curate than what can possibly be apprehended there,) together with the friends and relations and their native soil, to venture their lives into those parts among strangers and enemies to their profession, who look upon them as a burden; as being with their families (where they have any) to be supported out of their labor. So that I dare boldly aver that our discouragements there are much greater than ever they were here in England under the usurper." After citing various evidences in support of these statements, among which he specifies the hiring of the clergy from year to year, and compelling them to accept of parishes at under-rates, Godwyn thus proceeds: "I would not be thought to reflect herein upon your excellency, who have always professed great tenderness for churchmen. For, alas! these things are kept from your ears; nor dare they, had they opportunity, acquaint you with them, for fear of being used worse. And there being no superior clergyman, neither in council nor any place of authority, for them to address their complaints to, and by his means have their grievances brought to your excellency's knowledge, they are left without remedy. Again, two-thirds of the preachers are made up of leaden lay priests of the vestry's ordination; and are both the shame and grief of the rightly ordained clergy there. Nothing of this ever reaches your excellency's ear; these hungry patrons knowing better how to benefit by their vices than by the virtues of the other." And here Godwyn cites an instance of a writing-master, who came into Virginia, professing to be a doctor in divinity, showing feigned letters of orders, and under different names continuing in various places to carry on his work of fraud. He states also that owing to a law of the colony, which enacted that four years' servitude should be the penalty exacted of any one who permitted himself to be sent thither free of charge, some of the clergy, through ignorance of the law, were left thereby under the mastery of persons who had given them the means of gratuitous transport; and that they could only escape from such bondage by paying a ransom four or five times as large as that to which the expenses of their passage would have amounted. Moreover, he describes the parishes as extending, some of them, sixty or seventy miles in length, and lying void for many years together, to save charges. Jamestown, he distinctly states, had been left, with short intervals, in this destitute condition for twenty years. "Laymen," he adds, "were allowed to usurp the office of ministers, and deacons to undermine and thrust out presbyters; in a word, all things concerning the church and religion were left to the mercy of the people." And, last of all: "To propagate Christianity among the heathen—whether natives or slaves brought from other parts—although (as must piously be supposed) it were the only end of God's discovering those countries to us, yet is that looked upon by our new race of Christians, so idle and ridiculous, so utterly needless and unnecessary, that no man can forfeit his judgment more than by any proposal looking or tending that way." Such is the Rev. Mr. Godwyn's account of the state of religion and the condition of the clergy in Virginia during Sir William Berkley's administration.[279:A]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XXXIII.

1675.

The lands at Greenspring, near Jamestown, were settled during this year on Sir William Berkley, the preamble to the act reciting among his merits, "the great pains he hath taken and hazards he has run, even of his life, in the government and preservation of the country from many attempts of the Indians, and also in preserving us in our due allegiance to his majesty's royal father of blessed memory, and his now most sacred majesty, against all attempts, long after all his majesty's other dominions were subjected to the tyranny of the late usurpers; and also seriously considering that the said Sir William Berkley hath in all time of his government, under his most sacred majesty and his royal father, made it his only care to keep his majesty's country in a due obedience to our rightful and lawful sovereign," etc. The Rev. John Clayton, (supposed to be father of the Virginia naturalist,) writing in 1688, says: "There is a spring at my Lady Berkley's called Green Spring, whereof I have been often told, so very cold, that 'tis dangerous drinking thereof in summer time, it having proved of fatal consequence to several. I never tried anything of what nature it is of."

The Indians having renewed their incursions upon the frontier, the people petitioned the governor for protection. Upon the meeting of the assembly, war was declared against them in March, 1676; five hundred men enlisted, and the forts garrisoned. The force raised was put under command of Sir Henry Chicheley, who was ordered to disarm the neighboring Indians. The forts were on the Potomac, at the falls of the Rappahannock, (now Fredericksburg,) on the Matapony, on the Pamunkey, at the falls of the Appomattox, (now Petersburg,) either at Major-General Wood's, or at Fleets', on the opposite side of the river, on the Blackwater, and at the head of the Nansemond. Provision was made for employing Indians; articles of martial law were adopted; arms to be carried to church; the governor authorized to disband the troops when expedient; days of fasting appointed. The Indians having been emboldened to commit depredations and murders by the arms and ammunition which they had received, contrary to law, from traders, a rigorous act was passed to restrain such. When Sir Henry Chicheley was about to march against the Indians he was ordered by Sir William Berkley to disband his forces, to the general surprise and dissatisfaction of the colony.

There had now been no election of burgesses since the restoration, in 1660, the same legislature since that time having continued, to hold its sessions by prorogation. It may be called the Long Parliament of Virginia in respect to its duration. Among its members may be mentioned Colonel William Clayborne, Captain William Berkley, Captain Daniel Parke, Adjutant-General Jennings, Colonel John Washington, Colonel Edward Scarburgh. Robert Wynne was made speaker shortly after the restoration, and so continued until 1676, when he was succeeded by Augustine Warner, of Gloucester. James Minge, of Charles City, was now the clerk, and had been for several years.

The price of tobacco was depressed by the monopoly of the English navigation act, and the cost of imported goods, enhanced. Duties were laid on the commerce between one colony and another, and the revenue thence derived was absorbed by the collecting officers. The planters, it is said,[281:A] had been driven to seek a remedy by destroying the crop in the fields, called "plant cutting." The endeavors of the agents in England to obtain a release from the grants to the lords and a new charter, appeared abortive. The Indian incursions occurring at this conjuncture, filled the measure of panic and exasperation. Groaning under exactions and grievances, and tortured by apprehensions, the Virginians began to meditate violent measures of relief. Many of the feudal institutions of England, the hoary buttresses of mediæval power, could have no existence in America; a new position gradually moulded a new system; and men transplanted to another hemisphere changed opinions as well as clime. Thus, in Virginia, the most Anglican, oldest, and most loyal of the colonies, a spirit of freedom and independence infused itself into the minds of the planters. The ocean that separated them from England lessened the terror of a distant sceptre. The supremacy of law being less firmly established, especially in the frontier, a wild spirit of justice had arisen which was apt to decline into contempt of authority. Added to this, the colony contained malecontent Cromwellian soldiers reduced to bondage, perhaps some of them men of heroic soul, victims of civil war, ripe for revolt. The Indian massacres of former years made the colonists sensitive to alarms, and impatient of indifference to their cruel apprehensions, which can hardly be realized by those who have never been subjected to such dangers. The fatigues, privations, hardships, perils of a pioneer life, imparted energy; the wild magnificence of nature, the fresh luxuriance of a virgin soil, unpruned forests, great rivers and hoary mountains, these contributed to kindle a love of liberty and independence. Moreover, the disaffection of the colonists was somewhat emboldened by the civil dissensions of England, which appeared now again to threaten the stability of the throne.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XXXIV.

1675-1676.

"About the year 1675," says an old writer, "appeared three prodigies in that country, which, from the attending disasters, were looked upon as ominous presages. The one was a large comet, every evening for a week or more at southwest, thirty-five degrees high, streaming like a horse-tail westward, until it reached (almost) the horizon, and setting toward the northwest. Another was flights of wild pigeons, in breadth nigh a quarter of the mid-hemisphere, and of their length was no visible end; whose weights broke down the limbs of large trees whereon these rested at nights, of which the fowlers shot abundance, and ate them; this sight put the old planters under the more portentous apprehensions because the like was seen (as they said) in the year 1644, when the Indians committed the last massacre; but not after, until that present year, 1675. The third strange phenomenon was swarms of flies about an inch long, and big as the top of a man's little finger, rising out of spigot holes in the earth, which ate the new-sprouted leaves from the tops of the trees, without other harm, and in a month left us."[283:A]

The author of this account, whose initials are T. M., says of himself, that he lived in Northumberland County, on the lower part of the Potomac, where he was a merchant; but he had a plantation, servants, cattle, etc., in Stafford County, on the upper part of that river; and that he was elected a burgess from Stafford in 1676, Colonel Mason being his colleague. T. M., perhaps, was Thomas Matthews, son of Colonel Samuel Matthews, some time governor. He owned lands acquired from the Wicocomoco Indians in Northumberland, and it is probable that his son, Thomas Matthews, came into possession of them.[284:A] He appears to have lived at a place called Cherry Point, probably on the Potomac, in 1681.[284:B]

On a Sunday morning, in the summer of 1675, a herdsman, named Robert Hen, together with an Indian, was slain in Stafford County, by a party of the hostile tribe of Doegs, and the victims were found by the people on their way to church.[284:C] Colonel Mason and Captain Brent, with some militia, pursued the offenders about twenty miles up the river, and then across into Maryland, and, coming upon two parties of armed warriors, slaughtered indiscriminately a number of them and of the Susquehannocks, a friendly tribe. These latter, recently expelled from their own country, at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, by the Senecas, a tribe of the Five Nations, now sought refuge in a fort of the Piscataways, a friendly tribe near the head of the Potomac, supposed to be near the spot where now stands the City of Washington. In a short time several Marylanders were murdered by the savages, and some Virginians in the County of Stafford. The fort on the north bank of the Piscataway consisted of high earth-works having flankers pierced with loop-holes, and surrounded by a ditch. This again was encircled by a row of tall trees from five to eight inches in diameter, set three feet in the earth and six inches apart, and wattled in such a manner as to protect those within, and, at the same time, to afford them apertures for shooting through. It was probably an old fort erected by Maryland as a protection to the frontier, but latterly unoccupied. The Susquehannocks, to the number of one hundred warriors, with their old men, women, and children, entrenched themselves in this stronghold. Toward the end of September they were besieged by a thousand men from Virginia and Maryland, united in a joint expedition, at the instance of the latter. The Marylanders were commanded by Major Thomas Truman, the Virginians by Colonel John Washington.[285:A] John Washington had emigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Virginia in 1657, and purchased lands in Westmoreland. Not long after, being, as has been conjectured, a surveyor, he made a location of lands, which, however, was set aside until the Indians, to whom these lands had been assigned, should vacate them. In the year 1667 he was a member of the house of burgesses.[285:B]

To return to the siege: six of the Indian chiefs were sent out from the fort on a parley proposed by Major Truman. These chiefs, on being interrogated, laid the blame of the recent outrages perpetrated in Virginia and Maryland upon the Senecas. Colonel Washington, Colonel Mason, and Major Adderton now came over from the Virginia encampment, and charged the chiefs with the murders that had been committed on the south side of the Potomac. On the next day the Virginia officers renewed the charges against the Susquehannock chiefs; at this juncture a detachment of rangers arrived, bringing with them the mangled bodies of some recent victims of Indian cruelty. Five of the chiefs were instantly bound, and put to death—"knocked on the head." The savages now made a desperate resistance; but their sorties were repelled, and they had to subsist partly on horses captured from the whites. At the end of six weeks, seventy-five warriors, with their women and children, (leaving only a few decrepid old men behind,) evacuated the fort during the night, marching off by the light of the moon, killing ten of the militia found asleep, as they retired, and making the welkin ring with the war-whoop and yells of defiance. They pursued their way by the head-waters of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the York, and the James, joining with them the neighboring Indians, slaying such of the inhabitants as they met with on the frontier, to the number of sixty—sacrificing ten ordinary victims for each one of the chiefs they had lost. The Susquehannocks now sent a message to Governor Berkley, complaining of the war waged upon them, and of the murder of their chiefs, and proposing, if the Virginians, their old friends, would make them reparation for the damages which they had suffered, and dissolve their alliance with the Marylanders, they would renew their ancient friendship; otherwise they were ready for war.[286:A]

At the falls of the James the savages had slain a servant of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., and his overseer, to whom he was much attached. This was not the place of Bacon's residence; Bacon Quarter Branch, in the suburbs of Richmond, probably indicates the scene of the murder. Bacon himself resided at Curles, in Henrico county, on the lower James River.[286:B] It is said that when he heard of the catastrophe he vowed vengeance. In that time of panic, the more exposed and defenceless families, abandoning their homes, took shelter together in houses, where they fortified themselves with palisades and redoubts. Neighbors banding together, passed in co-operating parties, from plantation to plantation, taking arms with them into the fields where they labored, and posting sentinels, to give warning of the approach of the insidious foe. No man ventured out of doors unarmed. Even Jamestown was in danger. The red men, stealing with furtive glance through the shade of the forest, the noiseless tread of the moccasin scarce stirring a leaf, prowled around like panthers in quest of prey. At length the people at the head of the James and the York, having in vain petitioned the governor for protection, alarmed at the slaughter of their neighbors, often murdered with every circumstance of barbarity, rose tumultuously in self-defence, to the number of three hundred men, including most, if not all the officers, civil and military, and chose Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., for their leader. According to another authority, Bacon, before the murder of his overseer and servant, had been refused the commission, and had sworn that upon the next murder he should hear of, he would march against the Indians, "commission or no commission." And when one of his own family was butchered, "he got together about seventy or ninety persons, most good housekeepers, well armed," etc. Burk[287:A] makes their number "near six hundred men," and refers to ancient (MS.) records.

Bacon had been living in the colony somewhat less than three years, having settled at Curles, on the lower James, in the midst of those people who were the greatest sufferers from the depredations of the Indians, and he himself had frequently felt the effects of their inroads. In the records of the county court of Henrico there is a deed from Randolph to Randolph, dated November 1st, 1706, conveying a tract of land called Curles, lately belonging to Nathaniel Bacon, Esq., and since found to escheat to his majesty. At the breaking out of these disturbances he was a member of the council. He was gifted with a graceful person, great abilities, and a powerful elocution, and was the most accomplished man in Virginia; his courage and resolution were not to be daunted, and his affability, hospitality, and benevolence, commanded a wide popularity throughout the colony.

The men who had put themselves under Bacon's command made preparations for marching against the Indians, but in the mean time sent again to obtain from the governor a commission of general for Bacon, with authority to lead out his followers, at their own expense, against the enemy. He then stood so high in the council, and the exigency of the case was so pressing, that Sir William Berkley, thinking it imprudent to return an absolute refusal, concluded to temporize. Some of the leading men about him, it was believed, took occasion to foment the difference between him and Bacon, envying a rising luminary that threatened to eclipse them. This conduct is like that of some of the leading men in Virginia who, one hundred years later, compelled Patrick Henry to resign his post in the army.

Sir William Berkley sent his evasive reply to the application for a commission, by some of his friends, and instructed them to persuade Bacon to disband his forces. He refused to comply with this request, and having in twenty days mustered five hundred men, marched to the falls of the James. Thereupon the governor, on the 29th day of May, 1676, issued a proclamation, declaring all such as should fail to return within a certain time, rebels. Bacon likewise issued a declaration, setting forth the public dangers and grievances, but taking no notice of the governor's proclamation.[288:A] Upon this the men of property, fearful of a confiscation, deserted Bacon and returned home; but he proceeded with fifty-seven men. Sir William Berkley, with a troop of horse from Middle Plantation, pursued Bacon as far as the falls, some forty miles, but not overtaking him, returned to Jamestown, where the assembly was soon to meet. During his absence the planters of the lower country rose in revolt, and declared against the frontier forts as a useless and intolerable burden; and to restore quiet they were dismantled, and the assembly, the odious Long Parliament of Virginia, was at last dissolved, and writs for a new election issued. This revolt in the lower country, with which Bacon had no immediate connection, demonstrates how widely the leaven of rebellion, as it was styled, pervaded the body of the people, and how unfounded is the notion, that it was the result merely of personal pique and ambition in Bacon. Had he never set his foot on the soil of Virginia there can be little doubt but that an outbreak would have occurred at this time. There was no man in the colony with a brighter prospect before him than Bacon, and he could hardly have engaged in this popular movement without a sacrifice of selfish considerations, nor with out incurring imminent risk. The movement was revolutionary—a miniature prototype of the revolution of 1688 in England, and of 1776 in America. But Bacon, as before mentioned, with a small body of men proceeded into the wilderness, up the river, his provisions being nearly exhausted before he discovered the Indians. At length a tribe of friendly Mannakins were found entrenched within a palisaded fort on the further side of a branch of the James. Bacon endeavoring to procure provisions from them and offering compensation, they put him off with delusive promises till the third day, when the whites had eaten their last morsel. They now waded up to the shoulder across the branch to the fort, again soliciting provisions and tendering payment. In the evening one of Bacon's men was killed by a shot from that side of the branch which they had left, and this giving rise to a suspicion of collusion with Sir William Berkley and treachery, Bacon stormed the fort, burnt it and the cabins, blew up their magazine of arms and gunpowder, and with a loss of only three of his own party, put to death one hundred and fifty Indians. It is difficult to credit, impossible to justify, this massacre. The Virginians, a hundred years afterwards, suspected Governor Dunmore of colluding with Indians. Bacon with his followers returned to their homes, and he was shortly after elected one of the burgesses for the County of Henrico. Brewse or Bruce, his colleague and a captain of the insurgents, was not less odious to the governor. It was subsequently charged by the king's commissioners that the malecontent voters on this occasion illegally returned freemen, not being freeholders, for burgesses.[289:A] The charge was well founded. It is probable also that others were allowed to vote besides freeholders and housekeepers. Bacon, upon being elected, going down the James River with a party of his friends, was met by an armed vessel, ordered on board of her, and arrested by Major Howe, High Sheriff of James City, who conveyed him to the governor at that place, by whom he was accosted thus: "Mr. Bacon, you have forgot to be a gentleman." He replied, "No, may it please your honor." The governor said, "Then I'll take your parole;" which he accordingly did, and gave him his liberty; but a number of his companions, who had been arrested with him, were still kept in irons.

On the 5th day of June, 1676, the members of the new assembly, whose names are not recorded, met in the chamber over the general court, and having chosen a speaker, the governor sent for them down, and addressed them in a brief abrupt speech on the Indian disturbances, and in allusion to the chiefs who had been slain, exclaimed: "If they had killed my grandfather and my 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." After a short interval, he again rose and said: "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." Bacon appearing, was compelled upon one knee, at the bar of the house, to confess his offence, and beg pardon of God, the king, and governor, in the following words:[290:A] "I, Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., Esq., of Henrico County, in Virginia, do hereby most readily, freely, and most humbly acknowledge that I am, and have been guilty of divers late unlawful, mutinous, and rebellious practices, contrary to my duty to his most sacred majesty's governor, and this country, by beating up of drums; raising of men in arms; marching with them into several parts of his most sacred majesty's colony, not only without order and commission, but contrary to the express orders and commands of the Right Honorable Sir William Berkley, Knt., his majesty's most worthy governor and captain-general of Virginia. And I do further acknowledge that the said honorable governor hath been very favorable to me, by his several reiterated gracious offers of pardon, thereby to reclaim me from the persecution of those my unjust proceedings, (whose noble and generous mercy and clemency I can never sufficiently acknowledge,) and for the re-settlement of this whole country in peace and quietness. And I do hereby, upon my knees, most humbly beg of Almighty God and of his majesty's said governor, that upon this my most hearty and unfeigned acknowledgment of my said miscarriages and unwarrantable practices, he will please to grant me his gracious pardon and indemnity, humbly desiring also the honorable council of state, by whose goodness I am also much obliged, and the honorable burgesses of the present grand assembly to intercede, and mediate with his honor, to grant me such pardon. And I do hereby promise, upon the word and faith of a Christian and a gentleman, that upon such pardon granted me, as I shall ever acknowledge so great a favor, so I will always bear true faith and allegiance to his most sacred majesty, and demean myself dutifully, faithfully, and peaceably to the government, and the laws of this country, and am most ready and willing to enter into bond of two thousand pounds sterling, and for security thereof bind my whole estate in Virginia to the country for my good and quiet behavior for one whole year from this date, and do promise and oblige myself to continue my said duty and allegiance at all times afterwards. In testimony of this, my free and hearty recognition, I have hereunto subscribed my name, this 9th day of June, 1676.

"NATH. BACON."

The intercession of the council was in the following terms: "We, of his majesty's council of state of Virginia, do hereby desire, according to Mr. Bacon's request, the right honorable the governor, to grant the said Mr. Bacon his freedom.

"Dated the 9th of June, 1676."

When Bacon had made his acknowledgment, the governor exclaimed: "God forgive you, I forgive you;" repeating the words thrice. Colonel Cole, of the council, added, "and all that were with him." "Yea," echoed the governor, "and all that were with him." Sir William Berkley, starting up from his chair for the third time, exclaimed: "Mr. Bacon, if you will live civilly but till next quarter court, I'll promise to restore you again to your place there," (pointing with his hand to Mr. Bacon's seat,) he having, as has been already mentioned, been of the council before those troubles, and having been deposed by the governor's proclamation. But instead of being obliged to wait till the quarter court, Bacon was restored to his seat on that very day; and intelligence of it was hailed with joyful acclamations by the people in Jamestown. This took place on Saturday. Bacon was also promised a commission to go out against the Indians, to be delivered to him on the Monday following. But being delayed or disappointed, a few days after (the assembly being engaged in devising measures against the Indians) he escaped from Jamestown. He conceived the governor's pretended generosity to be only a lure to keep him out of his seat in the house of burgesses, and to quiet the people of the upper country, who were hastening down to Jamestown to avenge all wrongs done him or his friends. According to another account, he obtained leave of absence to visit his wife, "sick, as he pretended;" but from T. M.'s Account, and others, this version appears to be unfounded.

There was in the council at this time one Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, a near relative of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., who was not yet thirty years of age. The elder Bacon was a wealthy politic old man, childless, and intending to make his namesake and cousin his heir. It was by the pressing solicitations of this old gentleman, as was believed, that young Bacon was reluctantly prevailed upon to repeat at the bar of the house the recantation written by the old gentleman. It was he also, as was supposed, who gave timely warning to the young Bacon to fly for his life. Three or four days after his first arrest, many country people, from the heads of the rivers, appeared in Jamestown; but finding him restored to his place in the council, and his companions at liberty, they returned home satisfied. But in a short time the governor, seeing all quiet, issued secret warrants to seize him again, intending probably to raise the militia, and thus prevent a rescue.

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