Bacon’s march to Middle Plantation.
Bacon was a commander who could move swiftly and strike hard. Within four weeks the remnant of the Susquehannocks had been pretty nearly wiped out of existence, when he heard that the governor had proclaimed him and his followers rebels. It was like a cry of despair from the old man, who felt his power and dignity gone while this young Cromwell rode over him rough-shod. He tried to raise the people in Gloucester, reputed the most loyal of the counties, but his efforts were vain. Ominous groans and calls of “a Bacon! a Bacon!” greeted him, until in anticipation of still worse difficulties he fled across Chesapeake Bay to the Accomac peninsula, launching the proclamation behind him like a Parthian arrow. This was on July 29, and Richard Lawrence carried the news up-stream to Bacon, who was probably somewhere about the North Anna River. The young leader was stung by what he felt to be cruel injustice. “It vexed him to the heart for to think that while he was hunting Indian wolves, tigers, and foxes, which daily destroyed our harmless sheep and lambs, that he and those with him should be pursued with a full cry, as a more savage or a no less ravenous beast.” He quickly marched back at the head of his troops to Middle Plantation, half way between Jamestown and York River, the site where Williamsburg was afterward built. What had best be done was matter of discussion between Bacon and his friends, and the affair began to assume a more questionable and dangerous aspect than before. The Scotch adviser, William Drummond, was a gentleman who did not believe in half measures. When some friend warned him of the danger of rebellion he was heard to reply, “I am in over shoes; I will be over boots!” His wife was equally bold. It was suggested one day that King Charles might by and by have something to say about these proceedings, whereupon Sarah Drummond picked up a stick and broke it in two, exclaiming, “I care no more for the power of England than for this broken straw!” Bacon was advised by Drummond to have Berkeley deposed and the more placable Sir Henry Chicheley put in his place; and as a precedent he cited the thrusting out of Sir John Harvey, forty-one years before. But Bacon preferred a different course of action. First, he issued a manifesto in rejoinder to Berkeley’s proclamation. A few ringing sentences from it will serve as a sample of his peculiar eloquence.
His manifesto.
“If virtue be a sin, if piety be guilt, all the principles of morality, goodness and justice be perverted, we must confess that those who are now called Rebels may be in danger of those high imputations. Those loud and several bulls would affright innocents, and render the defence of our brethren and the inquiry into our sad and heavy oppressions Treason. But if there be (as sure there is) a just God to appeal to, if religion and justice be a sanctuary here, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty’s honour and the public good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the loss of a great part of his Majesty’s colony deserted and dispeopled freely with our lives and estates to endeavour to save the remainders, be treason—God Almighty judge and let guilty die. But since we cannot in our hearts find one single spot of rebellion or treason, or that we have in any manner aimed at subverting the settled government or attempting of the person of any either magistrate or private man, notwithstanding the several reproaches and threats of some who for sinister ends were disaffected to us and censured our innocent and honest designs, and since all people in all places where we have yet been can attest our civil, quiet, peaceable behaviour, far different from that of rebellion [rebellious?] and tumultuous persons, let Truth be bold and all the world know the real foundations of pretended guilt. We appeal to the country itself, what and of what nature their oppressions have been, or by what cabal and mystery the designs of many of those whom we call great men have been transacted and carried on. But let us trace these men in authority and favour to whose hands the dispensation of the country’s wealth has been committed.”[50]
His arraignment of Berkeley.
This is the prose of the seventeenth century, which had not learned how to smite the reader’s mind with the short incisive sentences to which we are at the present day accustomed; but there is no mistaking the writer’s passionate earnestness, his straightforward honesty and dauntless courage. As we read, we seem to see the gleam of lightning in those melancholy eyes, and we quite understand how the impetuous youth was a born leader of men. With strong words tumbling from a full heart the manifesto goes on to “trace these men in authority,” these “juggling parasites whose tottering fortunes have been repaired at the public charge.” He points out at some length the character of the public grievances, and appeals to the king with a formal indictment of Sir William Berkeley:—
“For having upon specious pretences of public works raised unjust taxes upon the commonalty for the advancement of private favourites and other sinister ends, but no visible effects in any measure adequate.
“For not having, during the long time of his government, in any measure advanced this hopeful colony either by fortification, towns, or trade.
“For having abused and rendered contemptible the majesty of justice, of advancing to places of judicature scandalous and ignorant favourites.
“For having wronged his Majesty’s prerogative and interest by assuming the monopoly of the beaver trade.