[87:A]The fur trade.
[87:A]The fur trade.
Bacon at once began making ready to continue his oft-interrupted Indian campaign, but first, to be sure of leaving the country safe from Berkeley's ire,—for he feared lest "while he went abroad to destroy the wolves, the foxes, in the mean time, should come and devour the sheep,"—he seized Captain Larrimore's ship, then lying in the James, and manned her with two hundred men and guns. This ship he sent under command of Captain Carver, "a person acquainted with navigation," and Squire Bland, "a gentleman of an active and stirring disposition, and no great admirer of Sir William's goodness," to arrest Sir William Berkeley for the purpose of sending him—as those of earlier times had sent Governor Harvey—home toEngland, to stand trial for his "demerits toward his Majesty's subjects of Virginia," and for the "likely loss of that colony," for lack of defence against the "native savages."
Before leaving "Middle Plantation" the Rebel issued a summons, in the name of the King, and signed by four members of his Majesty's Council, for a meeting of the Grand Assembly, to be held upon September 4, to manage the affairs of the colony in his absence.
Jamestown he left under the command of Colonel Hansford, whom he commissioned to raise forces for the safety of the country, if any should be needed. He then set out, with a mind at rest, upon his Indian warfare. The few who had had the hardihood to openly oppose his plans he left behind him safe within prison bars; others, who were at first unfriendly to him, he had won over to his way of thinking by argument; while any that he suspected might raise any party against him in his absence, he took along with him.
For the third time, then, he marched tothe "Falls of James River," where it is written that he "bestirred himself lustily," to speedily make up for lost time in carrying on the war against the Ockinagees and Susquehannocks; but seems to have been unsuccessful in his search for these tribes, which had probably fled far into the depths of the wilderness to escape Bacon's fury, for he soon abandoned the chase after them and marched over to the "freshes of York," in pursuit of the Pamunkeys, whose "propinquity and neighborhood to the English, and courses among them" was said to "render the rebels suspicious of them, as being acquainted and knowing both the manners, customs and nature of our people, and the strength, situation and advantages of the country, and so, capable of doing hurt and damage to the English."
The "Royal Commissioners" condemn the pursuit of the Pamunkeys, saying that "it was well known that the Queen of Pamunkey and her people had ne'er at any time betrayed or injured the English," and adding, "but among the vulgar it mattersnot whether they be friends or foes, so they be Indians."
It is indeed evident that the war with the Indians was intended to be a war of extermination, for by such war only did the Virginians believe they would ever secure safety for themselves, their homes, and their families.
Governor Berkeley himself had no faith in the friendship of the Indians, however. While Bacon was gone upon his expedition against the Ockinagees, the Governor sent forces under Colonel Claiborne and others to the headwaters of Pamunkey River. They found there the Pamunkey Indians established in a fort in the Dragon Swamp—probably somewhere between the present Essex and King and Queen Counties. The red men said that they had fled to this stronghold for fear of Bacon, but their explanation did not satisfy the Governor, who declared that as soon as his difficulty with Bacon was settled he would advance upon the fort himself. The Queen of Pamunkey herself was in the fort, and when requested by Berkeley to return toher usual place of residence said "she most willingly would return to be under the Governor's protection, but that she did understand the Governor and those gentlemen could not protect themselves from Mr. Bacon's violence."
At the "freshes of York" Bacon was met and joined by "all the northern forces from Potomac, Rappahannock, and those parts," under the command of Colonel Giles Brent, and the two armies marched together to the plantations farthest up York River, where they were brought to an enforced rest by rainy weather, which continued for several days. Even this dismal interruption could not chill Bacon's ardor, but it filled him with anxiety lest the delay should cause his provisions to run short.
Calling his men together he told them frankly of his fears, and gave all leave to return to their homes whose regard for food was stronger than their courage and resolution to put down the savages, and revenge the blood of their friends and neighbors shed by them. He bade them (if there were any such) with all speed begone,for, said he, he knew he would find them the "worst of cowards, serving for number and not for service," starving his best men, who were willing to "bear the brunt of it all," and disheartening others of "half mettle."
In response to this speech, only three of the soldiers withdrew, and these were disarmed and sent home.
The sullen clouds at length lifted, and the army tramped joyfully onward. Ere long they struck into an Indian trail, leading to a wider one, and supposed from this that they must be near the main camp of some tribe. Some scouts were sent out, but reported only a continuation of the wide path through the woods. The army broke ranks and, to save time, and make the rough march under the sultry August sun as little uncomfortable as possible, followed the trail at random. They soon came in sight of a settlement of the Pamunkey tribe, standing upon a point of high land, surrounded upon three sides by a swamp.
Some ten Indian scouts who served Bacon's army were sent ahead toreconnoiter. The Pamunkeys, seeing the scouts, suffered them to come within range of their guns, and then opened fire upon them. The report of the guns gave the alarm to Bacon and his troops, who were about half a mile distant, and who marched in great haste and confusion to the settlement. The Indians took refuge in the edge of the swamp, which was so miry that their pursuers could not follow, and the only result of the chase, to the Englishmen, was the not over-glorious feat of killing a woman and capturing a child.
It so happened that the "good Queen of Pamunkey," as the "Royal Commissioners" styled her, with some of her chiefs and friends, was in the neighborhood of the settlement. Being warned that Bacon and his men were coming, she took fright and fled, leaving behind her provisions and Indian wares, as a peace offering, and charging her subjects that if they saw any "pale faces" coming they must "neither fire a gun nor draw an arrow upon them." The "pale faces," in their chase, overtook an aged squaw who had been the "goodqueen's" nurse, and took her prisoner, hoping to make her their guide to the hiding-places of the Indians. She led them in quite the opposite way, through the rest of that day and the greater part of the next, however, until, in a rage at finding themselves fooled, they brutally knocked her upon the head and left her dead in the wilderness. They soon afterward came upon another trail which led to a large swamp, where several tribes of Indians were encamped, and made an attack upon them, but with small fruits, as the red men took to their heels, and most of them made good their escape.
Bacon now found himself at the head of an army wearied by the rough march through swamp and forest, weak for want of food, and out of heart at the contemplation of their thus far bootless errand.
Moreover, the time appointed for the meeting of the Assembly was drawing nigh, and he knew that the people at home were looking anxiously for the return of their champion, and expecting glorious tidings of his campaign. In this strait he gave thetroops commanded by Colonel Brent provisions sufficient for two days, and sent them, with any others who were pleased to accompany them, home ahead of him, to make report of the expedition and to carry the news that he would follow soon.
With the four hundred of his own soldiers that were left the indefatigable Bacon now continued to diligently hunt the swamps for the savages, for he was determined not to show his face in Jamestown again without a story to tell of battles won and foes put to confusion. At length he struck a trail on hard ground, which he followed for a great distance without finding the "Indian enemy." What he did find was that his provisions were almost entirely spent, which melancholy discovery forced him to reduce rations to "quarter allowances." His pluck did not desert him, however. In the depths of the wilderness, miles away from white man's habitation, hungry and worn, and with four hundred wearied and half-starved men looking entirely to him, his fortitude was still unbroken, his faith in his mission undimmed, his heart stout.
Finally, he saw that the only hope of escape from death by starvation was to reduce his numbers by still another division of his army. Drawing the forlorn little band up before him he made the dark forest ring with the eloquence that had never failed to quicken the hearts of his followers and which made them eager to endure hardship under his leadership.
"Gentlemen," he said, "the indefatigable pains which hitherto we have taken doth require abundantly better success than as yet we have met with. But there is nothing so hard but by labor and industry it may be overcome, which makes me not without hope of obtaining my desires against the heathen, in meeting with them to quit scores for all their barbarous cruelties done us.
"I had rather my carcass should lie rotting in the woods, and never see Englishman's face in Virginia, than miss of doing that service the country expects of me, and I vowed to perform against these heathen, which should I not return successful in some manner to damnify and affright them,we should have them as much animated as the English discouraged, and my adversaries to insult and reflect on me, that my defense of the country is but pretended and not real, and (as they already say) I have other designs, and make this but my pretense and cloak. But that all shall see how devoted I am to it, considering the great charge the country is at in fitting me forth, and the hopes and expectation they have in me, all you gentlemen that intend to abide with me must resolve to undergo all the hardships this wild can afford, dangers and successes, and if need be to eat chinquapins and horseflesh before he returns. Which resolve I have taken, therefore desire none but those which will so freely adventure; the other to return in, and for the better knowledge of them, I will separate my camp some distance from them bound home."
Next morning, as the sun arose above the tree-tops it looked down upon the divided forces—one body moving with heavy step, but doubtless lightened hearts, towardJamestown, the other pressing deeper into the wilds.
A few hours after the parting Bacon's remnant fell upon a party of the Pamunkey tribe, whom they found encamped—after the wonted Indian fashion—upon a piece of wooded land bounded by swamps. The savages made little show of resistance, but fled, the English giving close chase. Forty-five Indian captives were taken, besides three horse-loads of plunder, consisting of mats, baskets, shell-money, furs, and pieces of English linen and cloth.
A trumpet blast was the signal for the prisoners to be brought together and delivered up to Bacon, by whom some of them were afterward sold for slaves while the rest were disposed of by Sir William Berkeley, saving five of them, whom Ingram, Bacon's successor, presented to the Queen of Pamunkey.
As for the poor queen, the story goes that she fled during the skirmish between Bacon's men and her subjects, and, with only a little Indian boy to bear hercompany, was lost in the woods for fourteen days, during which she was kept alive by gnawing upon the "leg of a terrapin," which the little boy found for her when she was "ready to die for want of food."
While Bacon was scouring the wilderness in his pursuit of the Indians, the colony, which he was pleased to think he had left safe from serious harms, was in a state of wildest panic.
A plot had been formed by Governor Berkeley and Captain Larrimore to recapture the ship which, it will be remembered, Bacon had sent to the Eastern Shore after the Governor. When the ship cast anchor before Accomac, Berkeley sent for her commander, Captain Carver, to come ashore and hold a parley with him, promising him a safe return. Unfortunately for himself, the Captain seems to have forgotten for the moment how little Governor Berkeley's promises were worth. Leaving his ship in charge of Bland, he went well armed, and accompanied by his most trusty men, toobey the summons. While Sir William was closeted with Captain Carver, trying to persuade him to desert the rebel party, Captain Larrimore, who had a boat in readiness for the purpose, rowed a party of men, under command of Colonel Philip Ludwell, of the Council, out to the ship. The Baconians, supposing that the approaching boat came in peace, were taken entirely by surprise, and all on board were made prisoners. Soon afterward, Captain Carver, his conference with Sir William over, set out for the ship, in blissful ignorance of what had happened in his absence until he came within gun-shot, when he, too, fell an easy prey into the trap, and soon found himself in irons with Bland and the others.
A few days later Sir William Berkeley rewarded the unfortunate Captain Carver for his thus thwarted designs against the liberty of his Majesty's representative, with the ungracious "gift of the halter."
Governor Berkeley was now having his turn in sweeping things before him. At the time of the seizure by Carver and Bland of Captain Larrimore's ship, another ship,lying hard by, in the James, commanded by Captain Christopher Evelyn, eluded the efforts of the Baconians to seize her also, and some days later slipped away to England, carrying aboard her a paper setting forth the Governor's own story of the doings of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., in Virginia.
It was upon the first day of August that the Baconians had seized Captain Larrimore's ship and made her ready to go to Accomac after Berkeley. Upon the seventh of September Berkeley set sail for Jamestown, not as a prisoner, but with a fleet consisting of the recaptured ship and some sixteen or seventeen sloops manned by six hundred sturdy denizens of Accomac, whom he is said to have bribed to his service with promises of plunder of all who had taken Bacon's oath,—"catch that catch could,"—twenty-one years' exemption from all taxes except church dues, and regular pay of twelvepence per day so long as they should serve under his colors. He was, moreover, said to have offered like benefits, and their freedom besides, to allservants of Bacon's adherents who would take up arms against the Rebel.
The direful news of Sir William's approach, and of the strength with which he came, "outstripping the canvas wings," reached Jamestown before any signs of his fleet were spied from the landing. The handful of Baconians who had been left on guard there to "see the King's peace kept by resisting the King's vice-gerent," as their enemies sarcastically put it, were filled with dismay, for they realized themselves to be "a people utterly undone, being equally exposed to the Governor's displeasure and the Indians' bloody cruelties."
To prove the too great truth of the report, the Governor's ships were before long seen sailing up the river, and the Governor's messenger soon afterward landed, bearing commands for the immediate surrender of the town, with promise of pardon to all who would desert to the Governor's cause, excepting only Bacon's two strongest friends, Mr. Drummond and "thoughtful Mr. Lawrence."
The Baconians had caught too much of the spirit of their leader to consider such terms as were offered them, and scornfully spurned them; but seeing that it would be madness to attempt to hold the town against such numbers, made their escape, leaving abundant reward in the way of plunder for the Governor and his six hundred men of Accomac. Mr. Lawrence, whose leave-taking was perhaps the more speedy by reason of the compliment Sir William had paid him in making him one of the honorable exceptions in his offer of mercy, left "all his wealth and a fair cupboard of plate entire standing, which fell into the Governor's hands the next morning."
About noonday, on September 8, the day following the evacuation, Sir William entered the little capital. He immediately fortified it as strongly as possible, and then once more proclaimed Nathaniel Bacon and his followers rebels and traitors, threatening them with the utmost extremity of the law.
Let us now return to the venturesome young man who was voluntarily placing himself under this oft-repeated and portentous ban. We will find him and his ragged and foot-sore remnant on their way back to Jamestown, for after the successful meeting with the Pamunkeys he withdrew his forces from the wilderness and turned his face homewards to gather strength for the next march. He had already been met by the news of the reception that awaited him at Jamestown from Sir William. His army consisted now of only one hundred and thirty-six tired-out, soiled, tattered and hungry men—not a very formidable array with which to attack the fortified town, held by his wrathful enemy and the six hundred fresh men-at-arms from Accomac.Pathetic a show as the little band presented, however, the gallant young General called them about him, and with the frankness with which he always opened the eyes of his soldiers to every possible danger to which they might be exposed in his service, laid before them Governor Berkeley's schemes for their undoing. Verily must this impetuous youth have had magic in his tongue. Perhaps it was because he was able to throw into his tones his passion for the people's cause and earnest belief in the righteousness of the Rebellion, that his voice had ever the effect of martial music upon the spirits of his followers. Their hearts were never so faint but the sound of it could make them stout, their bodies never so weary but they were ready to greet a word from him with a hurrah.
Nothing daunted by the appalling news he told them, the brave men shouted that they would stand by their General to the end. Deeply touched by their faithfulness, Bacon was quick to express his appreciation.
"Gentlemen and Fellow Soldiers," he cried: "How am I transported with gladness to find you thus unanimous, bold and daring, brave and gallant. You have the victory before you fight, the conquest before battle. I know you can and dare fight, while they will lie in their place of refuge and dare not so much as appear in the field before you. Your hardiness shall invite all the country along, as we march, to come in and second you.
"The Indians we bear along with us shall be as so many motives to cause relief from every hand to be brought to you. The ignominy of their actions cannot but so reflect upon their spirits as they will have no courage left to fight you. I know you have the prayers and well wishes of all the people of Virginia, while the others are loaded with their curses."
As if "animated with new courage," the bit of an army marched onward toward Jamestown, with speed "out-stripping the swift wings of fame," for love and faith lightened their steps. The only stop was in New Kent County, where, halting longenough to gain some new troops, their number was increased to three hundred. Weak and weary, ragged and soiled as was the little army, the home-coming was a veritable triumphal progress. The dwellers along the way came out of their houses praying aloud for the happiness of the people's champion, and railing against the Governor and his party. Seeing the Indian captives whom Bacon's men led along, they shouted their thanks for his care and his pains for their preservation, and brought forth fruits and bread for the refreshment of himself and his soldiers. Women cried out that if need be they would come and serve under him. His young wife proudly wrote a friend in England: "You never knew any better beloved than he is. I do verily believe that rather than he should come to any hurt by the Governor or anybody else, they would most of them lose their lives."
Rumors of the Governor's warlike preparations for his coming were received by Bacon with a coolness bound to inspire those under him with confidence in his and their own strength. Hearing that Sir Williamhad with him in Jamestown a thousand men, "well armed and resolute," he nonchalantly made answer that he would soon see how resolute they were, for he was going to try them. When told that the Governor had sent out a party of sixty mounted scouts to watch his movements, he said, with a smile, that they were welcome to come near enough to say "How d'ye," for he feared them not.
Toward evening upon September 13, after a march of between thirty and forty miles since daybreak, the army reached "Green Spring," Sir William Berkeley's own fair estate near Jamestown—the home which had been the centre of so much that was distinguished and charming in the social life of the colony during the Cavalier days. In a green field here Bacon again gathered his men around him for a final word to them before marching upon the capital. In a ringing appeal he told them that if they would ever fight they would do so now, against all the odds that confronted them—the enemy having every advantage of position, places of retreat, and menfresh and unwearied, while they were "so few, weak, and tired."
"But I speak not this to discourage you," he added, "but to acquaint you with what advantages they will neglect and lose." He assured them that their enemies had not the courage to maintain the charges so boldly made that they were rebels and traitors.
"Come on, my hearts of gold!" he cried. "He that dies in the field, lies in the bed of honor!"
With these words the Rebel once more moved onward, and drew up his "small tired body of men" in an old Indian field just outside of Jamestown. He promptly announced his presence there in the dramatic and picturesque fashion that belonged to the time. Riding forward upon the "Sandy Beach"—a narrow neck of land which then connected the town with the mainland, but has since been washed away, making Jamestown an island—he commanded a trumpet-blast to be sounded, and fired off his carbine. From out the stillness of the night the salute was heard, andimmediately, and with all due ceremony, answered by a trumpeter within the town. These martial greetings exchanged, Bacon dismounted from his horse, surveyed the situation and ordered an earthwork to be cast up across the neck of land, thus cutting off all communication between the capital and the rest of the colony except by water. Two axes and two spades were all the tools at the Rebel's command, but all night long his faithful men worked like beavers beneath the bright September moon. Trees came crashing down, bushes were cut and earth heaped up, and before daybreak the fortification was complete and the besiegers were ready for battle.
When Sir William Berkeley looked abroad next morning and found the gateway between town and country so hostilely barred he did not suffer his complacency to forsake him for a moment, for he at once resolved to try his old trick, in which he had perfect confidence, of seeking to disarm the enemy by an affectation of friendship. He could not believe that Bacon would have the hardihood to open war withsuch a pitiful force against his Majesty's representative, and pretending to desire a reconciliation with the Rebel on account of his service against the Indians, he ordered his men not to make attack.
But Sir William Berkeley had played his favorite trick at least twice too often. Moreover, he little knew of what stern stuff Bacon and his handful of ragamuffins were made, though they were far too well acquainted with the silver-haired old Cavalier's ways and wiles to pin any faith to the fair words that could so glibly slip off of his tongue and out of his memory.
Early that morning the beginning of the siege was formally announced by six of Bacon's soldiers, who ran up to the palisades of the town fort, "fired briskly upon the guard," and retreated safely within their own earthwork. The fight now began in earnest. Upon a signal from within the town the Governor's fleet in the river shot off their "great guns," while at the sametime the guard in the palisades let fly their small shot. Though thus assailed from two sides at once, the rebels lying under their earthwork were entirely protected from both, and safe in their little fortress, returned the fire as fast as it was given. Even under fire, Bacon, the resourceful, strengthened and enlarged his fort by having a party of his soldiers to bind fagots into bundles, which they held before themselves for protection while they made them fast along the top and at the ends of the earthwork.
A sentinel from the top of a chimney upon Colonel Moryson's plantation, hard by Jamestown, watched Berkeley's maneuvers all day, and constantly reported to Bacon how the men in town "posted and reposted, drew on and off, what number they were and how they moved."
For three days the cross-firing continued, during which the besiegers were so well shielded that they do not seem to have lost a single man.
Upon the third day the Governor decided to make a sally upon the rebels. It is writtenthat when he gave the order for the attack some of his officers made such "crabbed faces" that the "gunner of York Fort," who, it seems, was humorously inclined, offered too buy a colonel's or a captain's commission for whomsoever would have one for "a chunk of a pipe."
It is also written that the Governor's Accomac soldiers "went out with heavy hearts, but returned with light heels," for the Baconians received them so warmly that they retired in great disorder, throwing down their arms and leaving them and their drum on the field behind them, with the dead bodies of two of their comrades, which the rebels took into their trenches and buried with their arms.
This taste of success made the besiegers so bold and daring that Bacon could hardly keep them from attempting to storm and capture Jamestown forthwith; but he warned them against being over rash, saying that he expected to take the town without loss of a man, in due season, and that one of their lives was worth more to him than the whole world.
Upon the day after the sally some of Bacon's Indian captives were exhibited on top of the earthworks, and this primitive bit of bravado served as an object-lesson to quicken the enthusiasm of the neighborhood folk, who were coming over to the Rebel in great numbers.
News was brought that "great multitudes" were also declaring for the popular cause in Nansemond and Isle of Wight Counties, "as also all the south side of the river."
Bacon sent a letter from camp to two of his sea-faring friends, Captain William Cookson and Captain Edward Skewon, describing the progress of the siege and urging them to protect the "Upper parts of the country" against pirates, and to bid his friends in those parts "be courageous, for that all the country is bravely resolute."
In the midst of the siege Bacon resorted to one measure which for pure originality has not been surpassed in the history of military tactics, and which, though up to the present writing no other general sufficiently picturesque in his methods toimitate it has arisen, has furnished much "copy" for writers of historical romances.
The Rebel had the good fortune to capture two pieces of artillery, but a dilemma arose as to how he should mount them without endangering the lives of some of his men. His ingenious brain was quick to solve the riddle. Dispatching some of his officers to the plantations near Jamestown, he had them to bring into his camp Madam Bacon (the wife of his cousin Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., President of the Council), Madam Bray, Madam Page, Madam Ballard, and other ladies of the households of members of his Majesty's Council who had remained loyal to the Governor. He then sent one of these fair ones, under escort, into Jamestown, to let her husband and the husbands of her companions know with what delicate and precious material their audacious foe was strengthening his fort, and to give them fair warning not to shoot. The remaining ladies (alas for the age of chivalry!) he stationed in front of his breastworks and kept them there until the captured "great guns" had been dulymounted; after which he sent them all safely home.
Most truly was it said that Bacon "knit more knots by his own head in one day than all the hands in town were able to untie in a whole week!"
So effectual a fortification did the glimmer of a few fluttering white aprons upon his breastworks prove to be, that, as though confronted by a line of warriors from Ghostland, the Governor's soldiers stood aghast, and powerless to level a gun, while to add still further to their discomfiture they had to bear with what grace they could command having their ladies dubbed the "guardian angels" of the rebel camp.
The cannon mounted under such gentle protection were never given a chance to prove their service.
Jamestown stood upon low ground, full of marshes and swamps. The climate, at all times malarious and unhealthy, was at this season made more so than usual by the hot September suns. There were no fresh water springs, and the water from the wells was brackish and unwholesome, making theplace especially "improper for the commencement of a siege." While the Governor had the advantage of numbers, and his men were fresh and unwearied, Bacon had the greater advantage of motive. Sir William Berkeley's soldiers were bent upon plunder, and when they found that the Rebel's determined "hearts of gold" meant to keep them blocked up in such comfortless quarters, and that the prospects were that there was nothing to be gained in Sir William's service, they began to fall away from him in such numbers that, upon the day after the placing of Bacon's great guns, the old man found that there was nothing left for him but a second flight. That night he, with the gentlemen who remained true to him—about twenty in all—stole out of their stronghold in great secrecy, and taking to the ships, "fell silently down the river." The fleet came to anchor a few miles away, perhaps that those on board might reoccupy the town again as soon as the siege should be raised, perhaps that they might, in turn, block up the rebels in it if they should quarter there.
Bacon found a way to thwart either design.
The first rays of morning light brought knowledge to the rebels that the Governor had fled, and that they were free to take possession of the deserted capital. That night, as Berkeley and his friends rocked on the river below, doubtless straining eyes and ears toward Jamestown, and eagerly awaiting news of Bacon's doings there, the sickening sight of jets of flame leaping skyward through the darkness told them in signals all too plain that the hospitable little city would shelter them nevermore.
Filled with horror, they weighed anchor and sailed with as great speed as the winds would vouchsafe to bear them out of James River and across the Chesapeake's broad waters, where Governor Berkeley found, for a second time, a haven of refuge upon the shores of Accomac County.
This great city of Jamestown, which though insignificant in number of inhabitants and in the area it covered, was a truly great city, for its achievements had been great, was thus laid low at the veryheight of its modest magnificence and power. Though but little more than a half century old, it was already historic Jamestown, for with its foundations had been laid, in the virgin soil of a new world, the foundations of the Anglo-Saxon home, the Anglo-Saxon religion, and Anglo-Saxon law. This town, so small in size, so great in import, could proudly boast of a brick church, "faire and large," twelve new brick houses and half a dozen frame ones, with brick chimneys. There was also a brick state house the foundations of which have lately been discovered.
The inhabitants are facetiously described by a writer of the time as for the most part "getting their livings by keeping ordinaries atextra-ordinary rates."
"Thoughtful Mr. Lawrence"—devoted Mr. Lawrence (whose silver plate the Governor had not forgotten to carry off with him, for all his leave-taking was so abrupt)—and Mr. Drummond heroically began the work of ruin by setting the torch to their own substantial dwellings. The soldiers were quick to follow this example, and soonall that remained of Jamestown was a memory, a heap of ashes, and a smoke-stained church tower, which still reaches heavenward and tells the wayfarer how the most enduring pile the builders of that first little capital of Virginia had heaped up was a Christian temple.
Mr. Drummond (to his honor be it said) rushed into the burning State House and rescued the official records of the colony.
In a letter written the following February Sir William Berkeley said that Bacon entered Jamestown and "burned five houses of mine and twenty of other gentlemen's, and a very commodious church. They say he set to with his own sacrilegious hand."
The firebrand's uncanny work complete, Bacon marched his men back to "Green Spring" and quartered them there. That commodious plantation, noted among other things for its variety of fruits and its delightful spring water, must have been a welcome change from the trenches before Jamestown, haunted by malaria and mosquitoes.
Comfortably established in Sir William Berkeley's own house, the Rebel's next step was to draw up an oath of fidelity to the people's cause, denouncing Sir William as a traitor and an enemy to the public good, and again binding his followers to resist any forces that might be sent from England until such time as his Majesty should "fully understand the miserable case of the country,and the justice of our proceedings," and if they should find themselves no longer strong enough to defend their "lives and liberties," to quit the colony rather than submit to "any such miserable a slavery" as they had been undergoing.
Though the "prosperous rebel," as the Royal Commissioners call Bacon, had now everything his own way, his hour of triumph was marked by dignity and moderation. Even those who opposed him bore witness that he "was not bloodily inclined in the whole progress of this rebellion." He had only one man—a deserter—executed, and even in that case he declared that he would spare the victim if any single one of his soldiers would speak a word to save him. The Royal Commissioners, who had made a careful study of Bacon's character, expressed the belief that he at last had the poor fellow's life taken, not from cruelty, but as a wholesome object-lesson for his army.
He suggested an exchange of prisoners of war to Berkeley—offering the Reverend John Clough (minister at Jamestown),Captain Thomas Hawkins, and Major John West, in return for Captain Carver (of whose execution, it seems, he had not heard), Bland, and Farloe. Governor Berkeley scorned to consider the proposition, and instead of releasing the gentlemen asked for, afterward sent the remaining two after the luckless Captain Carver, although Bacon spared the lives of all those he had offered in exchange, and though Mr. Bland's friends in England had procured the King's pardon for him, which he pleaded at his trial was even then in the Governor's pocket.
Though Bacon himself was never accused of putting any one to death in cold blood, or of plundering any house, he found that the people began to complain bitterly of the depredations, rudeness, and disorder of his men. He therefore set a strict discipline over his army and became more moderate than ever himself.
After a few days' rest at "Green Spring" the Rebel marched on to Tindall's Point, Gloucester County, where he made the homeof Colonel Augustine Warner, Speaker of the House of Burgesses, his headquarters. From there he sent out a notice to all the people of the county to meet him at the court-house for the purpose of taking his oath.
His plans were now suddenly interrupted by a report from Rappahannock County that Colonel Brent, who, it seems, had gone over to the Governor's side, was advancing upon him at the head of eleven hundred militia. No sooner had he heard this news than he ordered the drums to beat up his soldiers, under their colors, and told them of the strength of the approaching army, and of Brent's "resolution" to fight him, and "demanded theirs."
With their wonted heartiness, his men made answer in "shouts and acclamations, while the drums thunder a march to meet the promised conflict."
Thus encouraged, Bacon set out without delay to give the enemy even an earlier chance to unload his guns than he had bargained for. He had been on the march for several days when, instead of meeting ahostile army, he was greeted with the cheerful tidings that Brent's followers, who were described as "men, not soldiers," had left their commander to "shift for himself." They had heard how the Rebel had beat the Governor out of town, and lest he should "beat them out of their lives," some of them determined to keep a safe distance from him, while most of them unblushingly deserted to him, deeming it the part of wisdom "with the Persians, to go and worship the rising sun."
Bacon now hastened back to Gloucester Court House to meet the county folk there, in accordance with his appointment. The cautious denizens of Gloucester, reckoning that in such uncertain times there might be danger in declaring too warmly for either the one side or the other, petitioned through Councillor Cole, who acted as spokesman, that they might be excused from taking the oath of fidelity, and "indulged in the benefit of neutrality." Lukewarmness in his service was a thing wholly new to Bacon, and utterly contemptible in his eyes. He haughtily refused to grant so unworthy arequest, telling those who made it that they put him in mind of the worst of sinners, who desired to be saved with the righteous, "yet would do nothing whereby they might obtain their salvation."
He was about to leave the place in disgust when one of the neutrals stopped him and told him that he had only spoken "to the horse"—meaning the troopers—and had said nothing to the "foot."
Bacon cuttingly made answer that he had "spoken to the men, and not to the horse, having left that service for him to do, because one beast would best understand the meaning of another."
Mr. Wading, a parson, not only refused to take the oath himself, but tried to persuade others against it, whereupon Bacon had him arrested, telling him that "it was his place to preach in the church—not in the camp," and that in the one place he might say what he pleased, in the other only what Bacon pleased, "unless he could fight better than he could preach."
It was clearly the clause regarding resistance of the English forces that made thepeople suspicious and afraid of the oath. John Goode, a Virginia planter, and a near neighbor of Bacon's, had been one of the first among the volunteers to enlist under him, but afterward went over to Governor Berkeley. He wrote the Governor a letter reporting a conversation between himself and Bacon which he said they had had upon the second of September. This must have been during Bacon's last Indian march, and about ten days before the siege of Jamestown.
According to Goode, Bacon had spoken to him of a rumor that the King had sent two thousand "red-coats" to put down the insurgents, saying that if it were true he believed that the Virginians could beat them—having the advantages of knowing the country, understanding how to make ambuscades, etc., and being accustomed to the climate—which last would doubtless play havoc in the King's army.
Goode writes that he discouraged resistance of the "red-coats," and charged Bacon with designing a total overthrow of the Mother Country's government in Virginia—towhich Bacon coolly made answer, "Have not many princes lost their dominions in like manner?" and frankly expressed the opinion that not only Virginia, but Maryland and Carolina would cast off his Majesty's yoke as soon as they should become strong enough.
The writer adds that Bacon furthermore suggested that if the people could not obtain redress for their grievances from the Crown, and have the privilege of electing their own governors, they might "retire to Roanoke," and that he then "fell into a discourse of seating a plantation in a great island in the river as a fit place to retire to for a refuge."
Goode describes his horror at such a daring suggestion, and says he assured Bacon that he would get no aid from him in carrying it out, and that the Rebel replied that he was glad to know his mind, but charged that "this dread of putting his hand to the promoting" of such a design was prompted by cowardice, and that Goode's attitude would seem to hint that a gentlemanengaged as he (Bacon) was, must either "fly or hang for it."
The writer says that he suggested to the Rebel that "a seasonable submission to authority and acknowledgment of errors past" would be the wisest course for one in his ticklish position, and, after giving this prudent advice, Mr. Goode, fearing that alliance with Bacon was growing to be a risky business, asked leave to go home for a few days, which was granted, and he never saw the Rebel again—for which, he piously adds, he was very thankful.
Gloucester folk, who evidently did not realize as fully as Mr. Goode that discretion is the better part of valor, finally came to terms, and took the dangerous oath. Six hundred men are said to have subscribed to it in one place, besides others in other parts of the county.
Bacon next turned his attention to making plans for the regulation of affairs in the colony. One of his schemes was to visit all "the northern parts of Virginia," and inquire personally into their needs, so as to meet them as seemed most fit. He appointeda committee to look after the south side of James River, and inquire into the plundering reported to have been done there by his army; another committee was to be always with the army, with authority to restrain rudeness, disorder, and depredations, while still another was to have the management of the Indian war.
Full many "knots" the busy brain of Bacon was "knitting" indeed, among them a design to go over to the Eastern Shore, where Sir William Berkeley was still in retreat, and return the "kind-hearted visit" which Sir William and his Accomac eight hundred had made Hansford and the other Baconians at Jamestown, during his absence, and that the Accomackians might be ready to give him a warm reception, he had his coming heralded with meet ceremony.
The "prosperous Rebel" was never to see the fulfilment of his hopes and purposes, however. The week of exposure to the damps and vapors of the Jamestown swamps, during the siege, added to the physical and mental strain he had beenunder since the beginning of the Rebellion, had done its deadly work. The dauntless and brilliant young General met an unexpected and, for the first time during his career, an unprepared-for enemy in the deadly fever, against which he had no weapon of defense.
It is written that he was "besieged by sickness" at the house of Mr. Pate, in Gloucester. He made the brave struggle that was to be expected from one of his fibre, but at length, upon the first day of October, he who had seemed invincible to human foes "surrendered up that fort he was no longer able to keep into the hands of that grim and all-conquering captain, Death."
He died much dissatisfied in mind at leaving his work unfinished, and "inquiring ever and anon after the arrival of the frigates and forces from England."
Sir William Berkeley, writing of his enemy's illness and death in a tone of great satisfaction, says that Bacon swore his "usual oath"—"God damn my blood!"—at least "a thousand times a day," and that"God so infected his blood" that it bred vermin in "an incredible number," to which "God added" his sickness. Sir William adds that "an honest minister"—evidently one of the Governor's own adherents—wrote an epitaph upon Bacon declaring that he was "sorry" at his "heart" that vermin and disease "should act the hangman's part."
Was this "honest minister" the Reverend Mr. Wading—the same whom Bacon had arrested and debarred from "preaching in camp"? Perhaps, but the deponent saith not.
Those who had loved the Rebel in life were faithful to him in death, and tenderly laid his body away beyond the reach of the insults of his enemies. So closely guarded was the secret of the place and manner of his burial that it is unto this day a mystery; but tradition has it that stones were placed in his coffin and he was put to bed beneath the deep waters of the majestic York River, whose waves chant him a perpetual "requiescat in pace."
A feeble attempt was made by Bacon's followers, under Ingram as commander-in-chief, to carry on the rebellion, but in their leader the people of Virginia had not only lost their "hope and darling" but the organizer, the inspiration of their party. Their "arms, though ne'er so strong," wanted the "aid of his commanding tongue." Without Bacon the movement was as a ship without captain, pilot, or even guiding star. As soon as the news of his death was carried across the Chesapeake, to Berkeley, the Governor sent a party of men, under command of Maj. Robert Beverley, in a sloop over to York to reconnoiter. These "snapped up," young Colonel Hansford and about twenty soldiers who kept guard under his command at Colonel Reade's house, and sailed away with them to Accomac. Upon his arrival there Hansford was accorded the unenviable "honor to be the first Virginian that ever was hanged" (which probably means the first Englishman born in Virginia), while the soldiers under him were cast into prison. The young officer methis death, heroically, asking of men no other favor than that he might be "shot, like a soldier, and not hanged, like a dog" (which was heartlessly denied him), and praying Heaven to forgive his sins.
With his last breath Colonel Hansford protested that he "died a loyal subject and a lover of his country, and that he had never taken up arms but for the destruction of the Indians, who had murdered so many Christians."
Major Cheesman and Captain Wilford, who was the son of a knight, and was but "a little man, yet had a great heart, and was known to be no coward," were taken by the same party that captured Hansford, and Wilford was hanged, while Cheesman only escaped a like fate by dying in prison, of hard usage.
When Major Cheesman was brought into the Governor's presence and asked why he had taken up arms with Bacon, his devoted and heroic wife stepped forward and declared that she had persuaded him to do so, and upon her knees pleaded that she might be executed in his stead.
Berkeley answered her with insult, and ordered that her husband be taken to prison.
Encouraged by Major Beverley's "nimble and timely service" in ridding him of so many Baconians, Berkeley, with an armed force, took ship and sailed in person to York River. A party of his soldiers under one Farrill, and accompanied by Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, President of the Council, and Colonel Ludwell, who went along to see the thing well done, made an unsuccessful attack upon a garrison of Baconians under Major Whaly, at President Bacon's own house. During the fray Farrill was killed and some of his men were taken prisoners.
Another party of the Governor's troops which, under command of Maj. Lawrence Smith, had taken possession of Mr. Pate's house, where the Rebel died, was besieged by the Baconians, under Ingram. Although Major Smith was said to have been "a gentleman that in his time had hewed out many a knotty piece of work," and so the better knew how to handle such rugged fellows as the Baconians were famed to be, "heonly saved himself by leaving his men in the lurch."
The whole party tamely surrendered to Ingram, who dismissed them all to their homes, unharmed.
In spite of these little victories, however, the Rebellion was doomed. Only a few days after his raid upon Pate's house, Ingram decided to give up the struggle, and made terms with Captain Grantham, of Governor Berkeley's following.
The Governor's own home, "Green Spring," which Bacon had left in charge of about a hundred men and boys, under command of Captain Drew, now stood ready to throw open its doors once more to its master.
It was said that the "main service that was done for the reducing the rebels to their obedience, was done by the seamen and commanders of ships then riding in the rivers." In the lower part of Surry County, upon the banks of James River, stands an ancient brick mansion, still known as "Bacon's Castle," which tradition says was fortified by the Rebel. This relic ofthe famous rebellion is mentioned in the records as "Allen's Brick House," where Bacon had a guard under Major Rookins. The place was captured by a force from the Governor's shipYoung Prince, Robert Morris, commander. Major Rookins, being "taken in open rebellion," was one of those afterward sentenced to death by court martial, at "Green Spring," but was so happy as to die in prison and thus, like Major Cheesman, cheat the gallows.
Drummond and Lawrence alone remained inflexible, in command of a brick house in New Kent County, on the opposite side of the river from where Grantham and the Governor's forces were quartered. Seeing that they could not long hold out against such odds, but determined not to surrender to Berkeley, or to become his prisoners, they at length fled from their stronghold.
Poor Mr. Drummond was overtaken by some of the Governor's soldiers in Chickahominy Swamp, half starved. He had been from the very beginning one of the staunchest adherents of Bacon and the people's party. A friend had advised him to becautious in his opposition to the Governor, but the only answer he deigned to make was, "I am in over shoes, I will be in over boots."
And he was as good as his word. When he was brought under arrest, before Berkeley, Sir William greeted him with a low bow, saying, in mock hospitality:
"Mr. Drummond, you are very welcome. I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour."
The sturdy Scotchman replied, with perfect equanimity, and like show of courtesy:
"What your Honor pleases."
Sir William, too, was for once as good as his word, and the sentence was executed without delay.
Governor Berkeley was evidently bent upon enjoying whatever satisfaction was to be found in the humiliation and death of his enemies. Those who shared Mr. Drummond's fate numbered no less than twenty, among them Bacon's friend and neighbor, Captain James Crews.
The end of "thoughtful Mr. Lawrence" is not known. When last seen he, in company with four other Baconians, mounted and armed, was making good his escape through a snow ankle deep. They were supposed to have cast themselves into some river rather than die by Sir William Berkeley's rope.
Mr. Lawrence was thought by many to have been the chief instigator of the Rebellion, and it was rumored that it was he that laid the stones in Bacon's coffin.
By the middle of January of the new year the whole colony had been reduced to submission, and upon January 22 Governor Berkeley went home to "Green Spring," and issued a summons for an Assembly to meet at his own house—for since the destruction of Jamestown the colony was without a legislative hall.
Sir William sent a message to the Assembly directing that some mark of distinction be set upon his loyal friends of Accomac, who had twice given him shelter during the uprising. It fell to the lot of a Baconian, Col. Augustine Warner, as Speaker of theHouse, to read the Governor's message, but that fiery gentleman consoled himself by adding, upon his own account, that he did not know what the "distinction" should be unless to give them "earmarks or burnt marks"—which was the common manner of branding criminals and hogs.
So many persons had been put to death by Governor Berkeley, "divers whereof were persons of honest reputations and handsome estates," and among them some of the members of the last Assembly, that the new Assembly petitioned him to spill no more blood. A member from Northumberland, Mr. William Presley by name, said that he "believed the Governor would have hanged half the country if they had let him alone."
His Majesty King Charles II is said to have declared when accounts of Berkeley's punishment of the rebels reached his ears, that the "old fool had hanged more men in that naked country than he [Charles] had done for the murder of his father."
With the completion of Sir William Berkeley's wholesale and pitiless revengefell the curtain upon the final act in the tragedy of Bacon's Rebellion.
As soon as the country was quiet many suits were brought by members of the Governor's party for damages to their property during the commotion. These suits serve to show how widespread throughout the colony was the uprising.
The records of Henrico County contain sundry charges of depredations committed by Bacon's soldiers, showing that the people's cause was strong in that section. Major John Lewis, of Middlesex, laid claim of damages at the hands of "one Matt Bentley," with "forty or fifty men-of-arms," in the "time of the late rebellion." Major Lewis's inventory of his losses includes "400 meals" (which he declares were eaten at his house by Bacon's men during their two days encampment on his plantation), the killing of some of his stock, and carrying off of meal "for the whole rebel army," at Major Pate's house.
The records of Westmoreland County show that the Baconians, under "General" Thomas Goodrich, had control in the NorthernNeck of Virginia as late as November, 1676. Major Isaac Allerton, of Westmoreland, brought suit for thirteen thousand pounds of tobacco for damages his estate had suffered at the hands of a rebel garrison which had seized and fortified the house of his neighbor, Colonel John Washington. The jury gave him sixty-four hundred pounds.
Many illustrations of the unbroken spirit of Bacon's followers are preserved in the old records.
When Stephen Mannering, the rebel officer who had given the order for the seizure of Colonel Washington's house, inquired how many prisoners had been taken there, and how they were armed, he was told fourteen, with "guns loaden." Whereupon he exclaimed that if he had been there with fourteen men, he would "uphold the house from five hundred men, or else die at their feet."
Mannering furthermore expressed the opinion that "General Ingram was a cowardly, treacherous dog for laying down his arms, or otherwise he would die himself at the face of his enemies."
John Pygott, of Henrico, showed how far from recantation he was by uttering a curse against all men who would not "pledge the juice and quintessence of Bacon."