Sir William Berkeley, writing of his enemy's illness and death in a tone of great satisfaction, says that Bacon swore his "usual oath"—"God damn my blood!"—at least "a thousand times a day," and that
"God so infected his blood" that it bred vermin in "an incredible number," to which "God added" his sickness. Sir William adds that "an honest minister"—evidently one of the Governor's own adherents—wrote an epitaph upon Bacon declaring that he was "sorry" at his "heart" that vermin and disease "should act the hangman's part."
Was this "honest minister" the Reverend Mr. Wading—the same whom Bacon had arrested and debarred from "preaching in camp"? Perhaps, but the deponent saith not.
Those who had loved the Rebel in life were faithful to him in death, and tenderly laid his body away beyond the reach of the insults of his enemies. So closely guarded was the secret of the place and manner of his burial that it is unto this day a mystery; but tradition has it that stones were placed in his coffin and he was put to bed beneath the deep waters of the majestic York River, whose waves chant him a perpetual "requiescat in pace."
A feeble attempt was made by Bacon's followers, under Ingram as commander-in-chief, to carry on the rebellion, but in their leader the people of Virginia had not only lost their "hope and darling" but the organizer, the inspiration of their party. Their "arms, though ne'er so strong," wanted the "aid of his commanding tongue." Without Bacon the movement was as a ship without captain, pilot, or even guiding star. As soon as the news of his death was carried across the Chesapeake, to Berkeley, the Governor sent a party of men, under command of Maj. Robert Beverley, in a sloop over to York to reconnoiter. These "snapped up," young Colonel Hansford and about twenty soldiers who kept guard under his command at Colonel Reade's house, and sailed away with them to Accomac. Upon his arrival there Hansford was accorded the unenviable "honor to be the first Virginian that ever was hanged" (which probably means the first Englishman born in Virginia), while the soldiers under him were cast into prison. The young officer met
his death, heroically, asking of men no other favor than that he might be "shot, like a soldier, and not hanged, like a dog" (which was heartlessly denied him), and praying Heaven to forgive his sins.
With his last breath Colonel Hansford protested that he "died a loyal subject and a lover of his country, and that he had never taken up arms but for the destruction of the Indians, who had murdered so many Christians."
Major Cheesman and Captain Wilford, who was the son of a knight, and was but "a little man, yet had a great heart, and was known to be no coward," were taken by the same party that captured Hansford, and Wilford was hanged, while Cheesman only escaped a like fate by dying in prison, of hard usage.
When Major Cheesman was brought into the Governor's presence and asked why he had taken up arms with Bacon, his devoted and heroic wife stepped forward and declared that she had persuaded him to do so, and upon her knees pleaded that she might be executed in his stead.
Berkeley answered her with insult, and ordered that her husband be taken to prison.
