Drummond and the thoughtful Mr. Lawrence hastened to find Bacon, who was at West Point at the head of the York River.
Bacon acted with an energy and rapidity that would have done Napoleon or Cromwell credit. With his faithful body guard, among whom were Robert Stevens, Drummond, Cheeseman and Lawrence, he set out for Jamestown. Carriers, sent in every direction, summoned the Baconites to join him, so that his small band increased so rapidly, that when he reached Jamestown he had a force of several hundred.
The governor prepared to receive the rebels. He threw up a strong earth-work, and a palisade had been erected across the neck of the island. Bacon, on reaching Jamestown, rode forward to reconnoitre it. He then ordered his trumpeters to sound the battle cry, and a volley was fired into the town; but no response came back.
Bacon made his headquarters at Greenspring, in Governor Berkeley's own house, and while Sir William dined at the board of the thoughtful Mr. Lawrence, the rebel fed at the table of the governor. Resolving on a siege, Bacon threw up earth-works about the town in front of the palisades. Berkeley's riflemen so annoyed the men at work, that Bacon had recourse to a strange device to protect them. He sent a detachment of horse into the surrounding country, captured and brought to camp the wives of all the prominent gentlemen who fought with Berkeley. Perhaps Mrs. Price only escaped by being on board the ship Despair. Madame Bray, Madame Page, Madame Ballard and Madame Bacon, the wife of Bacon's cousin, were among the number. These women were placed before the workmen in the trenches to protect them from the bullets of Berkeley.
"Have no apprehensions from us, good-wives," said Bacon. "We shall not harm a hair of your head. If your husbands shoot you we are not to blame."
Bacon has been censured for this ungallant strategy; but it worked well and saved his workmen from further annoyance. He sent one of the good-wives into the town under a flag of truce to inform her own and the others' husbands, that he meant to place them "in the forefront of his workmen," during the construction of the earth-works, and if they fired on them, the good-wives would suffer.
No attack was made on Bacon until the earth-works were completed, and then the women were sent to their homes during the night. Next morning at early dawn, Berkeley sounded his battle-cry, and his men mustered at the roll of the drum. Bacon was on the alert. His eagle eye glanced along his earth-works and the gallant men enrolled under him.
"They are coming! They are coming with their whole force!" he shouted, as he stood on the ramparts, his sword in his hand and his eye flashing with the glorious light of battle. Matches were burning, the cocks of the fusees raised, and the Virginians stood cool and undaunted.
There came a puff of smoke from the palisades at Jamestown, a heavy report of a cannon, and an iron ball struck the earth-work.
"Come down, general!" cried the thoughtful Mr. Lawrence. "You endanger your life up there."