When the fleet of the Royal Commissioners sailed again for England, Sir William Berkeley sailed with it to plead his own
side of the question before King Charles. Happily for himself, perhaps, he died not long after he reached his native land, and without having seen the King. In a letter written "on board Sir John Berry's ship," however (which has already been quoted), he expressed some very energetic opinions concerning Bacon and the Rebellion, which still live to bear witness to the bitter old man's views.
In an address to the Assembly in June, 1680, Governor Berkeley's successor, Governor Jeffreys—the same Jeffreys that had been a Royal Commissioner—reminded the Virginians how the King had pardoned "all persons whatever" that had engaged in the uprising, "except Bacon that died and Lawrence that fled away," and added, "as his Majesty hath forgot it himself, he doth expect this to be the last time of your remembering the late Rebellion, and shall look upon them to be ill men that rub the sore by using any future reproaches or terms of distinction whatever."
XVI.
CONCLUSION.
And was Bacon's Rebellion, then, a failure? Far from it. Judged by its results, it was indeed a signal success, for though the gallant leader himself was cut down by disease at a moment when he himself felt that he had but begun his work, though many of the bravest of his men paid for their allegiance to the popular cause upon the scaffold, that cause was won—not lost. Most of the people's grievances were relieved by the reforms in the administration of the government, and the re-enactment of Bacon's Laws made the relief permanent. The worst of all the grievances—the Indian atrocities—was removed once and forever, for Bacon had inspired the savages with a wholesome fear of the pale faces, so that many of them removed their settlements to
a safe distance from their English neighbors, and a general treaty of peace, which seems to have been faithfully kept, was effected with the others. And so the colonists never had any more trouble with the red men until they began to make settlements beyond the Blue Ridge.
According to a deposition made by "Great Peter, the great man of the Nansemond Indians," the Weyanoke tribe, "when Bacon disturbed the Indians," fled to their former settlements upon Roanoke River, in North Carolina. In 1711 some "old men of the Nottaway Indians" upon being asked if they knew anything of the return of the Weyanokes to Carolina replied, "They did go thither for they were afraid of Squire Bacon, and therefore were resolved to go to their own land."