Arrest of Bacon.
Meanwhile the indignant Berkeley had gathered a troop of horse and taken the field in person to arrest this refractory young man. But suddenly came the news that the whole York peninsula was in revolt. The governor must needs hasten back to Jamestown, where he soon realized that if he would avoid civil war he must dissolve his moss-grown House of Burgesses and issue writs for a new election. This was done. In anticipation of such an emergency, an act had been passed in 1670 restricting the suffrage by a property qualification, which had called forth much indignation, since previously universal suffrage had prevailed. In this excited election of 1676 the restriction was openly disregarded in many places, and unqualified persons voted illegally. Bacon offered himself as a candidate for Henrico County and was elected by a large majority. As he drew near to Jamestown in his sloop with thirty followers, a war-ship lay at anchor awaiting him, and the high sheriff arrested him with his whole party. He was taken into the brick State House and confronted with the governor, who simply said, “Mr. Bacon, have you forgot to be a gentleman?” “No, may it please your honour,” said Bacon. “Very well,” said Berkeley, “then I’ll take your parole.” This was discreet in the governor, since the election had gone so heavily against him. Bacon was released and went to lodge in the house of Richard Lawrence.
“Thoughtful” Mr. Lawrence.
This “thoughtful” gentleman, the Oxford scholar, “for wit, learning, and sobriety equalled by few,” is said to have “kept an ordinary,” while his house was one of the best in Jamestown. It should be remembered that the permanent residents in the town numbered less than a hundred,[44] while the sessions of the assembly brought a great influx of temporary sojourners, so that any or every house would be made to serve as a tavern. Some years before, Mr. Lawrence had been “partially treated at law, for a considerable estate on behalf of a corrupt favourite” of Sir William Berkeley; a fact well certified by the testimony of the governor’s friend, Colonel Lee. For this reason Lawrence bore the governor a grudge and spoke of him as a treacherous old villain. It was believed by some people that in the conduct of the rebellion Lawrence was the Mephistopheles and Bacon simply the Faust whom he prompted.
Bacon’s submission.
There seems to have been an understanding that, if Bacon were to acknowledge his offence in marching without a commission, he should be received back to his seat in the council, and the governor would give him a commission to go and finish the Indian war. The old Nathaniel Bacon, of King’s Creek, being “a very rich politic man and childless,” and intending to leave his estates to young Nathaniel, succeeded in persuading him, “not without much pains,” to accept the compromise. The old gentleman wrote out a formal recantation, which his young kinsman consented to read in public, and a scene was made of it. The State House was a two-story building in which the burgesses had lately begun sitting apart on the second floor, while the governor and council (in point of dignity the “upper house”) held their session on the first floor. On the 5th of June, 1676, the burgesses were summoned to attend in the council chamber while Berkeley opened parliament. In his opening speech the governor referred to the Indian troubles, and expressed himself with strong emphasis on the slaying of the five envoys: “If they had killed my grandfather and grandmother, my father and mother and all my friends, yet if they had come to treat of peace they ought to have gone in peace!”[45] Then, changing the subject, the governor announced: “If there be joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth, there is joy now, for we have a penitent sinner come before us. Call Mr. Bacon.” The young man knelt at the bar of the assembly and read aloud the prepared paper in which he confessed that he had acted illegally, and offered sureties for future good behaviour. Then said the governor impressively, and thrice repeating the words, “God forgive you! I forgive you.” “And all that were with him,” interposed a member of the council. “Yea,” continued Berkeley, “and all those that were with you.” The sheriff at once released Bacon’s followers, and he took his old seat in the council, while the burgesses filed off upstairs. Our informant, the member for Stafford, tells us that while he was on his way up to the burgesses that afternoon, and through the open door of the council chamber descried “Mr. Bacon on his quondam seat,” it seemed “a marvellous indulgence” to one who had so lately been proscribed as a rebel.
Governor vs. Burgesses.
Reform of abuses.
The governor’s chief dread was the free discussion of affairs in general by a hostile assembly. Now that the Indian imbroglio had brought these new burgesses together, he wanted them to confine their talk to Indian affairs and then go home, but this was not their way of thinking. They aimed, though feebly, at greater independence than heretofore, and the governor’s intent was to frustrate this aim. It was moved by one of his partisans in the House of Burgesses “to entreat the governor would please to assign two of his council to sit with and assist us in our debates, as had been usual.” At this the friends of Bacon scowled, and the member for Stafford ventured to suggest that such aid might not be necessary, whereat there was an uproar. The Berkeleyans urged that “it had been customary and ought not to be omitted,” but a shrewd old assemblyman named Presley replied, “’Tis true it has been customary, but if we have any bad customs amongst us, we are come here to mend ’em.”[46] This happy retort was greeted with laughter, but the Cavalier feeling of loyalty to the king’s representative was still strong, and Berkeley’s friends had their way, apparently in a tumultuous fashion. As the member for Stafford says, the affair “was huddled off without coming to a vote,” so that the burgesses must “submit to be overawed and have every carped at expression carried straight to the governor.” Nevertheless, they went sturdily on to their work of reform, and the acts which they passed most clearly reveal the nature of the evils from which the people had been suffering. They restored universal suffrage; they enacted that vestrymen should be elected by popular vote, and limited their term of office to three years; they reduced the sheriff’s term to a single year; they declared that no person should hold at one and the same time any two of the offices of sheriff, surveyor, escheator, and clerk of court; and they imposed penalties upon the delay of public business and the taking of excessive fees. Councillors with their families, and the families of clergymen, had been exempted from taxation; this odious privilege was now abolished. Sundry trade monopolies were overthrown; two magistrates, Edward Hill and John Stith, were disfranchised for alleged misconduct; and provision was made for a general inspection of public expenses and the proper auditing of accounts.[47]
An Indian “princess.”