"It vexes my heart for to think that while I am hunting wolves, tigers and foxes, which daily destroy our harmless sheep and lambs, I and those with me should be pursued with a full cry, as a more savage or no less ravenous beast."
Bacon began his march back to the lower waters. On the way, they captured a spy sent by Berkeley to their camp and hung him. Bacon went to the Middle Plantation, afterward Williamsburg, and camped.
Berkeley, hearing of the return of Bacon's army, which was not disbanded, hastened to Accomac for recruits, and Drummond urged Bacon to depose Berkeley, and appoint Sir Henry Chicheley in his place. When the leader of the rebellion murmured against this, the Scotchman answered:
"Do not make so strange of it, for I can show you ancient records that such things have been done in Virginia."
This, however, was carrying matters too far, even for Bacon. He remembered that Governor Harvey, who had been deposed in a similar manner, was reinstated by the king. He issued a remonstrance against Berkeley's proclamation denouncing him as a rebel, declaring that he and his followers were good and loyal subjects of the king of England, who were only in arms against the savages. Then followed a list of public grievances. He declared that some in authority had come to the country poor, and were now rolling in wealth, likening them to sponges, that have sucked up and devoured the common treasury. He asked, "What arts, sciences, schools of learning, or manufactures have been promoted by any now in authority?"
The governor's beaver trade with Indians, in which he thought more of his profits than the lives of his subjects on the frontier, was not forgotten.
Bacon was declared a rebel, his life was forfeited to Berkeley if captured, and while at the Middle Plantation, he required an oath of his followers to even resist the king's troops if they should come to Virginia. The people of Virginia had not yet learned the true principles of liberty. They still supposed that liberty could be gained while they retained their allegiance to the king of England. It required a hundred years more to convince them that freedom was incompatible with royalty. The paper signed at Middle Plantation on this third day of August, 1676, was a notable document. It began by stating that certain persons had raised forces against General Bacon, which had brought on civil war, and if forces came from England they would oppose them.
The next step of the rebels was to organize a government. Bacon issued writs for the representatives of the people to assemble early in September. The writs were in the king's name, and were signed by four of the council.
This done, Bacon set off on his Indian campaign, leaving behind him a mighty tumult. The new world had defied the old. At midnight by torchlight, the grim-faced pioneers of Virginia had sworn to be free. Everywhere men and women hailed the oath with enthusiasm.
"Now we can build ships and, like New England, trade with any other part of the world," they declared. Sarah Drummond, the wife of the Scottish conspirator, exclaimed: