In the meanwhile, the patent had been assigned to the Earl of St. Albans and three others. The agents began negotiations with these men and apparently purchased it for a large sum to be raised in the colony. Several years later Berkeley wrote that the two great taxes of sixty pounds of tobacco per poll to buy in the Northern patent had so aroused the people that many were "ripe for mutiny."
Negotiations with St. Albans were still under way when the agents were amazed to find that the King had issued a patent to the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper to all Virginia, with such rights and powers as to make them practically masters of the colony. To them were to go all escheats, quit rents, and duties formerly belonging to the Crown; they could create new counties and parishes, issue patents to land, appoint civil officers.
This not only revokes former grants and privileges, but leaves us at the mercy of these lords who may look after their own interests "without regard to the liberty of the people," complained the Assembly. The common people were so wrought up "by being left to the oppression of their fellow subjects" that they might mutiny or desert the colony.[20] Fortunately, Arlington and Culpeper agreed to give up their patent in exchange for a grant of the Northern Neck, with the quit rents and escheats.
To protect the colony from such grants in the future, the agents now pleaded for a charter guaranteeing that the people should have their immediate dependence upon the Crown. They sought a promise, also, that they should be taxed only by the Assembly. Had it not been for the outbreak of Bacon's Rebellion the charter might have gone through, for twice it reached the great seal. As it was, when it was granted it contained little more than the promise that Virginia should be directly dependent on the Crown.
Never in American history were a people more greatly wronged than the Virginians in the Restoration period. With Charles II repaying their loyalty by sacrificing them to the greed of favorites, with the Governor they had trusted making a mockery of self-government by corrupting the Burgesses, with their economic interests ignored to build up English commerce and shipping, they reflected bitterly that they had been betrayed. It was Berkeley himself who thought that if they saw an opportunity, the poor planters might go over to the Dutch in "hopes of bettering their condition by sharing the plunder of the country with them."[21] They "speak openly there that they are in the nature of slaves, so that the hearts of the greatest part of them are taken away from his Majesty," reported a certain John Knight.[22]
In 1674, when the sheriffs began to collect the heavy taxes, there was a wild burst of anger. The money is not to be used for the benefit of the colony, it was whispered, but merely "the enriching of some few people."[23] In two separate places the people rushed to arms, determined to resist. Berkeley at once issued a proclamation, requiring them to disperse. But had they had a leader, some "person of quality," they would probably have anticipated Bacon's Rebellion by flying in the face of the government. As it was, by "the advice of some discreet persons that have an influence upon them," they refrained from violence.[24] But in many an humble cottage there were prayers that God would send a leader to direct them in righting their many wrongs.
This leader they found two years later in Nathaniel Bacon. The son of a wealthy English squire, Thomas Bacon of Friston Hall, Suffolk; fellow-commoner in St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge; a pupil of the great scientist John Ray and his companion in his celebrated tour of the continent, he seemed as much out of place in the forests of Virginia as Berkeley had been when he arrived three decades earlier. Bacon had been in Virginia but a few months when the Governor made him a member of the Council. "Gentlemen of your quality come very rarely into this country, and therefore when they do come are used by me with all respect,"[25] he explained.
It was with Sir William's friendly approbation that Bacon purchased a plantation at Curles Neck, on the James, forty miles above Jamestown. He bought also, a "quarter," or farm to be managed by an overseer, on the frontier at the site of Richmond. "I chose to seat myself so remote, I having always delighted in solitude," he said.[26]
Bacon soon found himself at odds with the dictatorial Governor. It seems probable that prowling Indians made off with some of his livestock and that he, without consulting Berkeley, had retaliated. When Sir William reproved him, he lost his temper and was guilty of "unbecoming deportment."[27] At the meetings of the Council he obviously did not like the way things were conducted, for he absented himself as much as possible.
When he was in Jamestown it is certain that he knew both Lawrence and Drummond. In fact it is probable that he boarded with Mrs. Lawrence, who took in paying guests, and no doubt was one of several persons accused of keeping ordinaries "at extraordinary prices." When the Assembly or the General Court was in session, her house was crowded. To her clients Lawrence, in so subtle a manner as not to cause suspicion, suggested the possibility of curbing "the forwardness, avarice, and French despotic methods of the Governor."[28] That he poured out the story of his own and the people's wrongs in Bacon's ears, and that Bacon proved a sympathetic listener, hardly admits of a doubt. Otherwise he would not have risked his neck to seek him and Drummond out for a midnight conference after Berkeley had proclaimed him a rebel.