The Story of Bacon's Rebellion

by Mary Newton Stanard

It was by this system of poll-tax that the ample salaries of the Burgesses were paid and also that the sundry perquisites attached to the office of a Burgess were provided—such as the maintenance of a manservant and two horses apiece, and fees for clerks to serve committees, and liquors for the committees to drink their own and each other's good health. Doubtless many stately compliments were exchanged when the Burgesses, in an outburst of generosity, were pleased to present the Governor and others of high degree with "great gifts," but the grace and charm of the act were not perceptible to the eyes of the people who, enjoying neither the gifts nor the applause of presenting them, were taxed to pay the piper.

The "poorer sort" complained that they were "in the hardest condition—who having nothing but their labor to maintain themselves, wives and children, pay as deeply to the public as he that hath 20,000 acres." Their complaints were just, but not likely to find a hearing, for the spirit of the age demanded that, in order that the

wealthy might keep up the appearance of wealth and maintain the dignity of their position, those who had no wealth to be retained and no dignity to be maintained must keep the wolf from the door as best they might while the fruits of their daily toil were "engrossed" by their so-called representatives. In the mean time, these representatives, their pockets thus swelled, found public life too comfortable to feel any desire to return to agricultural pursuits, or to be content with the uncertain income afforded by the capricious crop.

But this was not the worst.

While Charles II was yet in exile, some of his courtiers who, for all their boasted sympathy in the sorrows of their "dear sovereign," were not unmindful of their own interests, prayed of his Majesty a grant of the Northern Neck of Virginia, and Charles, forgetful of the loyalty of the little colony beyond the seas which had been faithful to him through all of his troubles, and utterly ignoring the right and title of those then in possession of the coveted lands, yielded them their wish. After

the Restoration this grant was renewed, and in 1672 his Majesty went further still and was pleased to grant away the whole colony, with very few restrictions, to Lords Arlington and Culpeper. Not only were their Lordships to be enriched by the royal quit-rents and escheats, and to enjoy the sole right of granting lands, but through the privilege likewise given them of appointment of sheriffs, surveyors, and other officers, the power of executing the laws and collecting the taxes, and of dividing the colony into counties and parishes and setting boundary lines was to be practically in their hands.

Thus upon the fair bosom of Virginia, already torn and fretted by a host of distresses, was it purposed that these two "Lords Proprietors" should be let loose—their greed for gain to be held in check only by the limitations of the colony's resources—through a dreary waste of thirty-one years.

The colonists, foreseeing that all manner of dishonesty and corruption in public affairs would be the certain and swift

result of such large powers, cast about for a remedy, and at length determined to send a commission to England to raise a voice against the ruinous grant and to bribe the hawks away from their prey. So far so good; but to meet the expenses of the commission the poll-tax was greatly increased, so that while the landholders were to be relieved by having their rights restored, the "poorer sort" were made poorer than ever by being required to pay sixty pounds of tobacco per head for that relief. This unjust tax was a crowning point to all that the people had suffered, and a suppressed groan, like the threatenings of a distant but surely and steadily approaching storm, arose, not in one settlement, not in one county, but from one end of Virginia to another, even to the remotest borders of the colony.

While this black enough tempest was brewing about the path of the Governor and the "grandees," another and a still darker cloud suddenly arose in an unexpected quarter and burst with frightful fury upon the heads of the unhappy people,