a 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.
XIV.
DEATH OF BACON AND END OF THE REBELLION.
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 been
under 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."