a member of the council, with four of his colleagues, sent forth a proclamation "inviting the gentlemen of Virginia to come in and consult with him for the present settlement of his majesty's distracted colony, to preserve its future peace, and to advance the effectual prosecuting of the Indian war."

The discontent increased throughout the province, when, after a year's patience under accumulated oppressions, the envoys of the colonies, themselves by their heavy expenses a new burden, reported no hope of a charter or any remedy of their grievances from England. The call to Virginia was answered; none were willing to sit idle in the time of general calamity. Her most eminent men came together at Middle Plantation. Bacon excelled them all in argument; the public mind was swayed by his judgment, and an oath was taken by the whole convention to support him against the Indians, and, if possible, to prevent a civil war; should the governor persevere in his obstinate self-will, to protect him against every armed force; and even if troops should arrive from England, to resist them, till an appeal could reach the king in person. Copies of this oath were sent to the counties of Virginia; and by the magistrates, and others of the respective precincts, it was administered to the people, "none, or very few, refusing." The wives of Virginia statesmen shared the enthusiasm. "The child that is unborn," said Sarah Drummond, "a notorious and wicked rebel," "shall have cause to rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country." "Should we overcome the governor," said Ralph Weldinge, "we must expect a greater power from England, that would certainly be our ruin." Sarah Drummond remembered that England was divided into hostile factions for the Duke of York and the Duke of Monmouth. Taking from the ground a small stick, she broke it in twain, adding: "I fear the power of England no more than a broken straw." Relief from the hated navigation acts seemed certain. Now "we can build ships," it was urged, "and, like New England, trade to any part of the world."

Fortified by the unanimity of the gentlemen of Virginia assembled at Williamsburg, and of the people in their several counties, Bacon led his troops against the savages. Meantime,

Sir William Berkeley collected in Accomack a crowd of base and cowardly followers, allured by the passion for plundering; promising freedom to the servants and slaves of the insurgents, if they would rally under his banner. The English vessels in the harbors joined his side. With a fleet of five ships and ten sloops, attended by a rabble of hirelings, the cavalier sailed for Jamestown, where he landed without opposition. Entering the town, he fell on his knees, returning thanks to God for his safe arrival; and again proclaimed Bacon and his party traitors and rebels.

The cry resounded through the forests for "the countrymen" to come down. "Speed," it was said, "or we shall all be made slaves-inan, woman, and child." "Your sword," said Drummond to Lawrence, "is your commission, and mine too; the sword must end it;" and both prepared for resist

ance.

Having returned from a successful expedition and disbanded his troops, Bacon had retained but a small body of men when the tidings of the armed occupation of Jamestown surprised him in his retirement. His eloquence inspired his few followers with courage. "With marvellous celerity" they hastened toward their enemy. On the way they secured as hostages the wives of royalists who were with Berkeley. They soon appeared under arms before the town, sounded defiance, and, under the mild light of a September moon, threw up a rude intrenchment. Bacon, who valued his friends too much to risk the life of one of them without necessity, could with difficulty hold them back from storming the place.

The followers of Berkeley were too cowardly to succeed in a sally, and made excuses to desert. No considerable service was done, except by the seamen. What availed the passionate fury and desperate courage of a brave, irascible old man? Unable to hold his position, from the cowardice of his men, he retreated from the town by night.

On the morning after the retreat, Bacon entered the little capital of Virginia. There lay the ashes of Gosnold; there the gallant Smith had told the tale of his adventures; there Pocahontas had sported in the simplicity of innocence. For nearly seventy years it had been the abode of Anglo-Saxons.

As it was well fortified, a council of war resolved to burn the only town in Virginia, that it might not afford shelter for an enemy. When the shades of night descended, and the records of the colony had been removed by Drummond to a place of safety, the village was set on fire. Two of the best houses belonged to Lawrence and Drummond; each of them, with his own hand, kindled the flames that were to lay his dwelling in ashes. The little church, the oldest in the dominion, the newly erected statehouse, were consumed. The ruins of the tower of the church, and memorials in the adjacent graveyard, still mark the peninsula of Jamestown.

The burning of the town appears to have been unwarranted; it may have been the rash counsel of despair. It is chiefly this deed that suspends judgment on the character of the insurrection. Leaving the smoking ruins, Bacon hastened to meet the royalists from the Rappahannock. No engagement ensued; the troops in a body joined the patriot party; and Brent, their leader, was left at the mercy of the insurgents. Even the inhabitants of Gloucester gave pledges of adhesion. Nothing remained but to cross the bay, and revolutionize the eastern shore.

During the siege of Jamestown, the insurgent army had been exposed to the dews and night air of the lowlands. Bacon suddenly sickened, struggled vainly with a most malignant disease, and on the first day of October died. Seldom has a political leader been more honored by his friends. "Who is there now," said they, "to plead our cause? His eloquence could animate the coldest hearts; his pen and sword alike compelled the admiration of his foes, and it was but their own guilt that styled him a criminal. His name must bleed for a season; but when time shall bring to Virginia truth crowned with freedom and safe against danger, posterity shall sound his praises."

The death of Bacon left his party without a head. A series of petty insurrections followed; but in Robert Beverley the royalists found an agent superior to any of the remaining insurgents. The ships in the river, including one which had been recovered from the party of Bacon, were at his disposal, and a warfare in detail restored the supremacy of the governor.

Thomas Hansford, a native Virginian, was the first partisan leader whom Beverley surprised. Young, gay, and gallant, impatient of restraint, keenly sensitive to honor, "a valiant stout man and a most resolved rebel," he disdained to shrink from the malice of destiny, and Berkeley condemned him to be hanged. Neither at his trial nor afterward did he show any diminution of fortitude. He demanded no favor, but that "he might be shot like a soldier, and not hanged like a dog." "You die," it was answered, "not as a soldier, but as a rebel." During the short respite after sentence, he reviewed his life, and expressed penitence for every sin. What was charged on him as rebellion, he denied to have been a sin. "Take notice," said he, as he came to the gibbet, “I die a loyal subject and a lover of my country." That country was Virginia.

Having the advantage of naval superiority, a party of royalists entered York river, and surprised the troops that were led by Edmund Cheesman and Thomas Wilford. The latter, a younger son of a royalist knight, who had fallen in the wars for Charles I., a truly brave man, and now by his industry a successful emigrant, lost an eye in the skirmish. "Were I stark blind," said he, "the governor would afford me a guide to the gallows." When Cheesman was arraigned for trial, Berkeley demanded: "Why did you engage in Bacon's designs?" Before the prisoner could frame an answer, his young wife pleaded that he had acted under her influence, and falling on her knees said: "My provocations made my husband join in the cause for which Bacon contended; but for me, he had never done what he has done; let me bear the punishment; but let my husband be pardoned." She spoke truth; but the governor answered her only with insult.

Offended pride is merciless; it remembers a former affront as proof of weakness, and seeks to restore self-esteem by a flagrant exercise of recovered power. No sentiment of clemency was tolerated. From fear that a jury would bring in verdicts of aquittal, men were hurried to death from courtsmartial. "You are very welcome," exulted Berkeley, with a low bow, on meeting William Drummond, as his prisoner; "I

In

am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia; you shall be hanged in half an hour." The patriot, on the twentieth of January, 1677, avowing the part he had acted, was condemned at one o'clock and hanged at four. His children and wife were driven from their home, to depend on the charity of the planters. When it was deemed safe to resort to the civil tribunal, the judges proceeded with the virulence of accusers. A panic paralyzed the juries. Of those put on trial, none escaped being convicted and sent to the gallows. defiance of remonstrances, executions continued for ten days, till twenty-two had been hanged. Three others had died of cruelty in prison; three more had fled before trial; two had escaped after conviction. "The old fool," said the kindhearted Charles II., with truth, "has taken away more lives in that naked country than I for the murder of my father." And in a public proclamation he censured the conduct of Berkeley, as contrary to his commands and derogatory to his clemency. Nor is it certain when the carnage would have ended, had not the assembly in February voted an address, "that the governor would spill no more blood." "Had we let him alone, he would have hanged half the country," said the member from Northampton to his colleague from Stafford. Berkeley was as rapacious as cruel, amassing property by penalties and confiscations. The king promptly superseded him by a special commission to a lieutenant-governor; but he pleaded his higher authority as governor, and refused to give way. When the fair-minded royal commissioners of inquiry visited him, he sought out the hangman of the colony to drive them from his home to their boat in the river; so that they chose to go on foot to the landing-place. Most peremptory orders arrived for his removal. Guns were fired and bonfires kindled at his departure. Public opinion in England. censured his conduct with equal severity; and the report of the commissioners in Virginia was fatal to his reputation. He died soon after he reached England.

The memory of those who have been wronged is always pursued by the ungenerous. England, ambitious of absolute colonial supremacy, could not render justice to the principles by which Bacon was swayed. No printing-press was allowed