Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

"Now tagg, ragg & bobtayle carry a high hand."[592] Bacon leaves a force to guard Sandy Bay, stations parties at the ferry and the fort, and draws up his little army before the state-house.[593] Two Councillors come out from Berkeley to demand what he wants. Bacon replies that he has come for a commission as general of volunteers enrolled against the Indians. And he protests that if the Assembly intends a levy for new forces, his men will refuse to pay it. The ragged troops shout their approval with cries of "Noe Levies! Noe Levies!"[594]

It is easy to imagine with what anger the Governor drew up and signed the commission. But he dared not refuse it. He was in the power of the rebels, who were already muttering threats of bloodshed and pillage. To defy them might bring instant ruin.[595] When the commission was brought out, and Bacon had read it to his soldiers, he refused to accept it, declaring the powers granted insufficient. Thereupon he drew up the heads of a new paper, in which his loyalty to the king and the legality of his past actions were attested, and an appointment given him as general of all the forces in Virginia used in the Indian war.[596]

These new demands throw the old Governor into an uncontrollable rage. He rushes out to Bacon, gesticulating wildly, and declaring that rather than sign such a paper he will have his hands cut off.[597] In his excitement he opens his bosom, crying out, "Here, shoot me, fore God fair mark."[598] Then he offers to measure swords with the rebel before all his men, shouting, "Let us settle this difference singly between ourselves."[599] But Bacon ignores these ravings. "Sir," he says, "I come not nor intend to hurt a haire of your Honors head. And for your sword, your Honor may please to put it up, it will rust in the scabbard before ever I shall desire you to draw it. I come for a commission against the Heathen who daily inhumanly murder us and spill our bretherens blood."[600]

In the general distraction somebody takes the proposals to the Burgesses, now sitting in an upper chamber of the state house. Bacon struts impatiently below, muttering threats and "new coyned oathes".[601] At a window of the Assembly room are a number of faces, looking out on the exciting scenes below. Bacon calls up to them, "You Burgesses, I expect your speedy result." His soldiers shout, "We will have it, we will have it." At a command from Bacon the rebels cock their fusils, and take aim at the crowded window. "For God's sake hold your hands," cry the Burgesses, "forbear a little and you shall have what you please."[602] And now there is wild excitement, confusion and hurrying to and fro. From all sides the Governor is pressed to grant the commission in Bacon's own terms. At last he yields, and the paper is signed.

But new humiliation awaited him. The next morning Bacon entered the House of Burgesses with an armed guard, demanding that certain persons active in obeying the Governor's orders should be deprived of all offices, and that recent letters to the King denouncing him as a rebel should be publicly contradicted. When Berkeley heard of these demands, he swore he would rather suffer death than submit to them. But the Burgesses, who thought it not unlikely that they might soon have their throats cut, advised him to grant whatever was demanded.[603] So a letter was written to the King, and signed by the Governor, the Council and the Burgesses, expressing confidence in Bacon's loyalty and justifying his past actions.[604] Several of Berkeley's friends were committed to prison. Blank commissions for officers to command under Bacon in the Indian war were presented for signature. The Governor granted all, "as long as they concerned not life and limb", being "willing to be ridd of him". The Assembly finished its session, and thinking to appease the rebels, sent their laws out to be read before them. But they rose up like a swarm of bees, and swore they would have no laws.[605] Yet the legislation of this session was exceedingly liberal. The elections had been held at a time when the people were bitterly angry with the Governor and disgusted with the old régime. In several counties popular candidates, men bent upon reform, had been elected over Berkeley's friends.[606] These men, aided by the menacing attitude of the people, had initiated a series of bills designed to restrict the Governor's power and to restore to the commons their rightful share in local government. But it was probably the presence of Bacon with his ragged troops at Jamestown that brought about the final passage of the bills. The Governor and the Council would hardly have given their consent, had they not been forced to do so at the sword's point.

Indeed these laws aimed a telling blow at the aristocratic cliques that had so long controlled all local government. It was to be illegal in the future, for any man to serve as sheriff for two consecutive terms.[607] Surveyors, escheators, clerks of the court and sheriffs should hold only one office at a time.[608] The self-perpetuating vestries which had long controlled the parishes and levied church taxes, were to give place to bodies elected tri-annually by the freemen.[609] An act was passed restricting the power of the county courts. For the future the people were to elect representatives, equal in number with the justices, to sit with them, and have a voice "in laying the countie assessments, and of making wholesome lawes".[610] Councillors were no longer to be exempt from taxation. The act of 1670, restricting the right to vote for Burgesses to freeholders was abolished, and the franchise extended to all freemen.[611] And since "the frequent false returns" of elections had "caused great disturbances", it was enacted that any sheriff found guilty of this crime should be fined twenty thousand pounds of tobacco.[612]

Hardly had the Assembly closed its session when the news was received that the Indians were again on the war-path, having killed eight persons in the upper counties. This caused great alarm in the rebel army, and Bacon found it necessary the next day to lead them back to the frontier that they might guard their homes and families.[613]

Here active preparations were made for a new expedition against the savages. Now that Bacon had a commission signed by the Governor and confirmed with the public seal, men were quite eager to follow him. On all sides volunteers flocked in to offer their services against the brutal enemy. Even Councillors and Burgesses encouraged their neighbors to enlist, declaring that no exception could be taken to the legality of the commission.[614] Thus hundreds swallowed "down so fair a Bait, not seeing Rebellion at the end of it".[615]

In the meanwhile, the Governor, angered at the great indignities put upon him, was planning to regain his lost authority. A petition was drawn up in Gloucester county by Sir William's friends, denouncing Bacon, and asking that forces be raised to suppress him.[616] Although most of the Gloucestermen, it would seem, had no part in this request, Berkeley crossed over the York River to their county and began to enlist volunteers.[617] But he met with little success. Even in this part of the colony Bacon was the popular hero, and men refused to serve against him. It seemed outrageous to many that while he was out to fight the common enemy, the Governor should attack him in the rear. All his desperate efforts were in vain. Sick at heart and exhausted from exertions too great for his age, he is said to have fainted away in the saddle.[618]

The news that Berkeley was raising forces reached Bacon at the falls of James River, just as he was going to strike out into the woods. "Immediately he causes the Drums to Beat and Trumpets to sound for calling his men to-gether."[619]. "Gentlemen and Fellow Soldiers," he says, when they are assembled, "the news just now brought me, may not a little startle you as well as myselfe. But seeing it is not altogether unexpected, wee may the better beare it and provide our remedies. The Governour is now in Gloster County endeavouring to raise forces against us, having declared us Rebells and Traytors.... It is Revenge that hurries them on without regard to the Peoples safety. (They) had rather wee should be Murder'd and our Ghosts sent to our slaughter'd Countrymen by their actings, then wee live to hinder them of their Interest with the Heathen.... Now then wee must be forced to turne our Swords to our own Defence, or expose ourselves to their Mercyes.... Let us descend to know the reasons why such a proceedings are used against us ... (why) those whome they have raised for their Defence, to preserve them against the Fury of the Heathen, they should thus seek to Destroy. (Was there) ever such a Theachery ... heard of, such Wickednesse and inhumanity? But they are damned Cowards, and you shall see they will not dare to meet us in the field to try the Justnesse of our Cause."[620]