In four months Nathaniel Bacon had risen from the position of a little-known planter to be the ruler of Virginia, and because the king's governor would not give him a commission to march against the Indians who had attacked his farm he had driven the governor out of the colony. It was a remarkable story, packed full of strange happenings.
When Bacon died, however, the rebellion fell to pieces. A man named Ingram tried to rally his army, but the men of Virginia would not fight under any other leader than Bacon. Sir William Berkeley came back from the county of Accomac with a wolfish thirst for vengeance. His chief enemy had escaped him, but he meant to take his revenge on the other leaders of the rebellion against him. And take his revenge he did, not like an honorable governor who wishes to make peace in his country, but more like that Judge Jeffreys in England, whose name became a byword for cruelty. He captured Colonel Hansford, who was a fine Virginian, and hung him as a rebel. Lawrence escaped, but Drummond was caught in his hiding-place in the Chickahominy swamp, and brought before Sir William.
"Mr. Drummond," said the governor, "you are very welcome! I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour!"
"When your Honor pleases," Drummond coolly replied.
Drummond was hung, and his brave wife, who had broken the stick to show how easily the planters could defeat Sir William, was driven into the wilderness with her children.
Bland was found in Accomac and executed. Men were hung in almost every county, and the settlers hated the name of Berkeley more than they hated raiding Indians. In all Sir William executed twenty-three rebels, as he called them, and King Charles II of England, when he heard the report, said indignantly, "That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country than I have done for the murder of my father."
At last the Assembly begged the governor to stop. He reluctantly agreed that all the rest of the rebels should be pardoned except about fifty leaders. The property of these leaders was confiscated, and they were sent away from the colony.
Sir William, however, was no longer popular with any in Virginia. Soon afterward he sailed to England, and never came back again to the colony he had ruled with an iron hand. Salutes were fired and bonfires blazed when he sailed, for the people were all still rebels at heart. Other governors came from England, but they found the Virginians harder to rule since they had tasted independence in that summer of 1676.
By many boys of Virginia, like Edmund Porter, Nathaniel Bacon was always remembered as a gallant hero, one who had fought for them against the tyranny of Sir William Berkeley.