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val power, could have no existence in America; a new position gradually moulded a new system; and men transplanted to another hemisphere changed opinions as well as clime. Thus, in Virginia, the most Anglican, oldest, and most loyal of the colonies, a spirit of freedom and independence infused itself into the minds of the planters. The ocean that separated them from England lessened the terror of a distant sceptre. The supremacy of law being less firmly established, especially in the frontier, a wild spirit of justice had arisen which was apt to decline into contempt of authority. Added to this, the colony contained malecontent Cromwellian soldiers reduced to bondage, perhaps some of them men of heroic soul, victims of civil war, ripe for revolt. The Indian massacres of former years made the colonists sensitive to alarms, and impatient of indifference to their cruel apprehensions, which can hardly be realized by those who have never been subjected to such dangers. The fatigues, privations, hardships, perils of a pioneer life, imparted energy; the wild magnificence of nature, the fresh luxuriance of a virgin soil, unpruned forests, great rivers and hoary mountains, these contributed to kindle a love of liberty and independence. Moreover, the disaffection of the colonists was somewhat emboldened by the civil dissensions of England, which appeared now again to threaten the stability of the throne.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

1675-1676.

Three Ominous Presages-Siege of Piscataway-Colonel John Washington-Indian Chiefs put to death-Fort evacuated-Indians murder Inhabitants of Frontier-Servant and Overseer of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., slain-The People take up Arms-Bacon chosen Leader-His Character-Solicits Commission from Berkley-He proclaims the Insurgents Rebels-Pursues them-Planters of Lower Country revolt-Forts dismantled-Rebellion not the Result of Bacon's Pique or Ambition-He marches into the Wilderness-Massacre of friendly Indians-Bacon returns-Elected a Burgess-Arrested-Released on ParoleAssembly meets-Bacon sues for Pardon-Restored to the Council-Nathaniel Bacon, Sr.-Berkley issues secret Warrants for arrest of the younger Bacon.

"ABOUT the year 1675," says an old writer, "appeared three prodigies in that country, which, from the attending disasters, were looked upon as ominous presages. The one was a large comet, every evening for a week or more at southwest, thirty-five degrees high, streaming like a horse-tail westward, until it reached (almost) the horizon, and setting toward the northwest. Another was flights of wild pigeons, in breadth nigh a quarter of the midhemisphere, and of their length was no visible end; whose weights broke down the limbs of large trees whereon these rested at nights, of which the fowlers shot abundance, and ate them; this sight put the old planters under the more portentous apprehensions because the like was seen (as they said) in the year 1644, when the Indians committed the last massacre; but not after, until that present year, 1675. The third strange phenomenon was swarms of flies about an inch long, and big as the top of a man's little finger, rising out of spigot holes in the earth, which ate the new-sprouted leaves from the tops of the trees, without other harm, and in a month left us.'

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The author of this account, whose initials are T. M., says of himself, that he lived in Northumberland County, on the lower

*T. M.'s Account of Bacon's Rebellion, in Force's Hist. Tracts, i.

part of the Potomac, where he was a merchant; but he had a plantation, servants, cattle, etc., in Stafford County, on the upper part of that river; and that he was elected a burgess from Stafford in 1676, Colonel Mason being his colleague. T. M., perhaps, was Thomas Matthews, son of Colonel Samuel Matthews, some time governor. He owned lands acquired from the Wicocomoco Indians in Northumberland, and it is probable that his son, Thomas Matthews, came into possession of them.* He appears to have lived at a place called Cherry Point, probably on the Potomac, in 1681.†

On a Sunday morning, in the summer of 1675, a herdsman, named Robert Hen, together with an Indian, was slain in Stafford County, by a party of the hostile tribe of Doegs, and the victims were found by the people on their way to church. Colonel Mason and Captain Brent, with some militia, pursued the offenders about twenty miles up the river, and then across into Maryland, and, coming upon two parties of armed warriors, slaughtered indiscriminately a number of them and of the Susquehannocks, a friendly tribe. These latter, recently expelled from their own country, at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, by the Senecas, a tribe of the Five Nations, now sought refuge in a fort of the Piscataways, a friendly tribe near the head of the Potomac, supposed to be near the spot where now stands the City of Washington. In a short time several Marylanders were murdered by the savages, and some Virginians in the County of Stafford. The fort on the north bank of the Piscataway consisted of high earth-works having flankers pierced with loop-holes, and surrounded by a ditch. This again was encircled by a row of tall trees from five to eight inches in diameter, set three feet in the earth and six inches apart, and wattled in such a manner as to protect those within, and, at the same time, to afford them apertures for shooting through. It was probably an old fort erected by Maryland as a protection to the frontier, but latterly

*Hening, i. 515, and ii. 14.

Va. Hist. Reg., i. 167.

For the following details, see T. M.'s Account; Hening, ii. 341, 543; Beverley, B. i. 65; Keith's Hist. of Va., 156; Breviarie and Conclusion, Burk, ii. 250; Account of Bacon's Rebellion, in Va. Gazette, 1766, and Bacon's Proceedings, in Force's Hist. Tracts, i.

unoccupied. The Susquehannocks, to the number of one hundred warriors, with their old men, women, and children, entrenched themselves in this stronghold. Toward the end of September they were besieged by a thousand men from Virginia and Maryland, united in a joint expedition, at the instance of the latter. The Marylanders were commanded by Major Thomas Truman, the Virginians by Colonel John Washington.* John Washington had emigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Virginia in 1657, and purchased lands in Westmoreland. Not long after, being, as has been conjectured, a surveyor, he made a location of lands, which, however, was set aside until the Indians, to whom these lands had been assigned, should vacate them. In the year 1667 he was a member of the house of burgesses.†

To return to the siege: six of the Indian chiefs were sent out from the fort on a parley proposed by Major Truman. These chiefs, on being interrogated, laid the blame of the recent outrages perpetrated in Virginia and Maryland upon the Senecas. Colonel Washington, Colonel Mason, and Major Adderton now came over from the Virginia encampment, and charged the chiefs with the murders that had been committed on the south side of the Potomac. On the next day the Virginia officers renewed the charges against the Susquehannock chiefs; at this juncture a detachment of rangers arrived, bringing with them the mangled bodies of some recent victims of Indian cruelty. Five of the chiefs were instantly bound, and put to death-"knocked on the head." The savages now made a desperate resistance; but their sorties were repelled, and they had to subsist partly on horses captured from the whites. At the end of six weeks, seventy-five warriors, with their women and children, (leaving only a few decrepid old men behind,) evacuated the fort during the night, marching off by the light of the moon, killing ten of the militia found asleep, as they retired, and making the welkin ring with

* Chalmers' Annals, 332, 335, 348; The Fall of the Susquehannocks, by S. F. Streeter, in Hist. Mag., i. 65.

† Burk, ii. 144; Account of our Late Troubles in Virginia, written in 1676, This cuby Mrs. Ann Cotton, of Queen's Creek, 3 in Force's Hist. Tracts, i. rious narrative was published from the original MS. in the Richmond Enquirer of September 12th, 1804. T. M.'s Account was republished in the same paper.

the war-whoop and yells of defiance. They pursued their way by the head-waters of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the York, and the James, joining with them the neighboring Indians, slaying such of the inhabitants as they met with on the frontier, to the number of sixty-sacrificing ten ordinary victims for each one of the chiefs they had lost. The Susquehannocks now sent a message to Governor Berkley, complaining of the war waged upon them, and of the murder of their chiefs, and proposing, if the Virginians, their old friends, would make them reparation for the damages which they had suffered, and dissolve their alliance with the Marylanders, they would renew their ancient friendship; otherwise they were ready for war.

*

At the falls of the James the savages had slain a servant of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., and his overseer, to whom he was much attached. This was not the place of Bacon's residence; Bacon Quarter Branch, in the suburbs of Richmond, probably indicates the scene of the murder. Bacon himself resided at Curles, in Henrico county, on the lower James River. It is said that when he heard of the catastrophe he vowed vengeance. In that time of panic, the more exposed and defenceless families, abandoning their homes, took shelter together in houses, where they fortified themselves with palisades and redoubts. Neighbors banding together, passed in co-operating parties, from plantation to plantation, taking arms with them into the fields where they labored, and posting sentinels, to give warning of the approach of the insidious foe. No man ventured out of doors unarmed. Even Jamestown was in danger. The red men, stealing with furtive glance through the shade of the forest, the noiseless tread of the moccasin scarce stirring a leaf, prowled around like panthers in quest of prey. At length the people at the head of the James and the York, having in vain petitioned the governor for protection, alarmed at the slaughter of their neighbors, often murdered with every circumstance of barbarity, rose tumultuously in self

*Narrative of the Indian and Civil Wars in Va., in the years 1675 and 1676, 1, in Force's Hist. Tracts, i. This account is evidently in the main, if not altogether, by the same hand with the letter bearing the signature of Mrs. Ann Cotton. Several passages are identical.

† Account of Bacon's Rebellion, in Va. Gazette, 1766.

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