DEATH OF BACON.

253 secured the mainland, made all preparations for an attack upon Accomac. But before he could proceed further, his health, which had been for some time past tried by the hardships of Indian warfare, gave way, and he died, asking in his last moments, as the loyalists complacently observed, for the services of that very clergyman whom he had imprisoned. As is usual with opportune deaths, there were rumors of poison, but the suspicion seems to have been groundless.1 His death was probably

All that could be done

a piece of good fortune for the colony. towards redressing real grievances and establishing real reforms had been done already. Had Bacon's career been prolonged, he might, and probably would, have embroiled the colony not only with Berkeley, but with the English government, and furnished the latter with a pretext for interference which would have done irreparable injury to the growing political life of Virginia.

of the

Bacon's death seems to have been the signal for the immediate break-up of his party. It is not easy to reconcile this with that Overthrow apparently overwhelming ascendency which enabled insurgents. the triumphant body of reformers to dictate their own laws, to drive the Governor out of Jamestown, and to force him to seek safety in the one loyal county of Accomac. The only reasonable explanation appears to be that the men who supported Bacon in his constitutional reforms had fallen away from him when he went further, and were, if not actually hostile, at least unfavorable to his proceedings as an armed rebel. Moreover, with the death of Bacon all definiteness and unity of purpose seems to have left the insurgents. The policy with which Bacon had set out manifestly was to maintain an attitude of armed resistance till such time as the grievances of the colony could be fairly inquired into by the English government. His successors seem to have lost all principle of action beyond that of escaping the wrath of Berkeley. The records of this particular period are somewhat confused, but, as far as we can judge, the rebel army broke up altogether, and its principal members were hunted down and arrested with little difficulty by the emissaries of the Governor. Rapacious, vindictive, deaf, and probably senile in mind, Berkeley was utterly unfitted to sit in judgment on the members of a defeated faction. Never, too, had there been a time in English history when the war of parties was so bloody, and when

1 A poem quoted in the Burwell MS. refers to "Paracelsian art.”

all mercy for a fallen enemy had so utterly vanished. It would be grossly unjust to liken Berkeley to Jeffries, yet the temper of the Bloody Assize was foreshadowed in the sufferings of the Virginian rebels. Traditions have come down to us of Berkeley's ferocious reception of his victims; how he welcomed Drummond who, though no soldier, was Bacon's chief counselor, with a "Mr. Drummond, you are very welcome; I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia; you shall be hanged in half an hour;" and how when the wife of Colonel Cheeseman flung herself at the feet of the Governor in an agony of remorse and took on herself the blame of her husband's treason, she was thrust aside with a foul scoff.3 The details of these stories may be exaggerated or even invented, but they clearly represent a general consensus of opinion as to the Governor's conduct. Nor was Berkeley's anger merely an outburst of outraged loyalty. Meaner motives were mixed with it. The confiscations of the civil war had begotten a lax and rapacious tone of morality, and it is clear that Berkeley looked on rebel estates as a mediæval king looked on the earnings of the Jew merchant, or as an Anglo-Indian of the last century looked on the fortune of a native prince with whom the Company had a difference. He would not have deliberately plundered a peaceful citizen, he probably would have even preferred that every citizen should remain loyal, but their disloyalty threw a harvest into his hands of which he must make the most. Nor were underlings wanting to aid him. Two among his instruments stand out conspicuous: Robert Beverley, the Clerk of the Assembly, and one Colonel Hill. The former has a claim to our notice as being the father of the first really indigenous historian whom Virginia produced. Our knowledge of the latter is chiefly derived from a lengthy document drawn up by him in his own defense, which without other evidence furnishes a very sufficient condemnation.

In all these proceedings Berkeley seems to have had the support and confidence of the Assembly. That body had been elected in the beginning of 1677.5 Of the circumstances of the election we know nothing. One is

Attitude

of the

Assembly.

1 The parallel is curiously true if there is any ground for a statement made by T. M. He mentions (but only as a rumor) that Berkeley had private instructions from the Duke of York urging him to severity.

2 T. M., p. 23.

• Burwell MS., p. 34.

The evidence for this may be found in Berkeley's own letters preserved among the Cele

nial Papers.

It first sat February 20, 1677 (see Hening), but the date of election is not mentioned.

COMMISSIONERS SENT FROM ENGLAND.

255 tempted to think that Berkeley must have packed it with his own creatures. Yet, on the other hand, it seems strange that the excluded party should have sat down quietly under such a grievance. Nor was the new Assembly wholly hostile to the political principles advocated by Bacon, since, after formally repealing all the proceedings of the previous session in a mass, it re-enacted some of the principal measures of reform. At the same time there is ample evidence that it was, and to the end of its time remained, loyal to Berkeley and his party.

Commis

out from

While these things were doing in Virginia, the English government had been taking active measures.1 It is but just to say that the colonial policy of the last two Stuart reigns sioners sent showed no marked traces of that supineness and corEngland. ruption which had invaded nearly every department of the public service. On this occasion the Commissioners for Plantations seem to have dealt with the matter both promptly and sagaciously. The news of Bacon's first action against the government was sent to England about the middle of June. Berkeley too had written home declaring himself, it would seem, unequal to the occasion, and soliciting his own recall. What other information the Government had we know not, but it seems pretty clear from its action that it was kept well informed of the turn which things were taking, and that its knowledge was not derived wholly from the Governor and his supporters. Moryson, one of the three agents, was yet in England, and we may well believe that he was a means of communication between the English authorities and the leading men of the colony. In September a royal pardon was sent out, promising indemnity to all who should submit, Bacon only excepted. At the same time active measures were taken for reducing the rebel colony to order. Three Commissioners were appointed, of whom Moryson was one. This appointment was a guaranty that the Commissioners would enter into the grievances and the wants of the colony. A force of five hundred soldiers was equipped and sent out under the command of the senior Commissioner, Herbert Jeffreys. His two colleagues, Moryson and Berry, seem to have had no share in the military department, but to have been confined to the task of inquiring into grievances and reporting on the state of the colony.

1 My account of what follows is entirely derived from the Colonial Papers, chiefly from the MS. report of the Commissioners.

Proceed

Commis

sioners.

On their landing, the Commissioners found the task before them somewhat different from that which they must have anticipated. Instead of having to support Berkeley and the ings of the established authorities against the insurgents, it was their chief task to protect the insurgents against the fury of their victorious enemies. The conduct of the Governor had been such as almost to place him in the attitude of a rebel. Acting, as it is said, by the advice of the Council, he had deliberately suppressed the royal proclamation of pardon, and had substituted one which excluded some fifty persons from its benefits. Thus when the Commissioners landed, about fifteen socalled rebels had been already executed, and, though all resistance had been at an end for at least two months, martial law was still in full force. Moreover, the feeling of insecurity which had been caused by Berkeley's reckless attacks on private property had almost paralyzed trade. The Commissioners at once remonstrated. Berkeley's treatment of their complaint is almost ludicrous in its serene indifference to justice. He quotes the confiscation of the civil war as a precedent. To say that men's estates were not to be seized for treason before conviction was contrary to the usage of all nations. The Commissioners then tried an appeal to Berkeley's fears, and reminded him that he would have to give a strict account of all seizures. In spite of the efforts of the Commissioners, Berkeley persisted in his violence. No less than twenty-one persons were put to death after the arrival of the Commissioners. The Governor even justified the continuance of martial law by avowing that he could not trust juries to convict. Luckily, Berkeley had put a weapon against himself into the hands of the government by his request to be recalled. It seems as if he wished now to ignore that application; but the authorities at home stood firm, and, despite his violence and obstinacy, Berkeley had to give way. Still he contrived to use the short remainder of his time to harass the Commissioners and weaken their authority. One petty dispute which fills no small place in the correspondence of the time will serve to illustrate the relations between them. We find the Commissioners gravely complaining that the Governor had on one. occasion sent them from his house-in his own carriage indeed— but with the common hangman acting as postilion. They seem to have suspected that Lady Berkeley was responsible for this insult. Berkeley meets the complaint of the Commissioners

PEACE WITH THE INDIANS.

257

with a reply in which he likens the calumnies brought against him, and his sufferings, to those endured by the Redeemer of mankind! Finally, the blame of the outrage seems to be transferred to an unhappy negro.

Berkeley's death.

The king seems to have been willing throughout to spare the feelings of an old servant, but Berkeley's insane conduct rendered all compromise impossible. At length in April he obeyed the summons of recall. In the broken state of his health it would have been useless cruelty to take active measures against him. Soon after his return he died, having in the last two years of his life hopelessly tarnished the memory of faithful services and an honorable career.

missioners'

In spite of all the hinderances which the Commissioners experienced from his hostility, they succeeded in carrying out the The Com- main objects of their mission. The result of their Report. labors is set forth in a connected series of papers, giving a clear account of the rebellion and of the circumstances which led to it, and throwing much valuable light on the general condition of the colony. In particular they obtained from each county or hundred a definite statement of its grievances. These contain but little new information, yet they are of great value from their unanimity and from the confirmation which they give to all the vague charges brought by Bacon and his supporters against the leading men in the colony and against the administration of affairs. They show, too, that the grievances were not local, and that the inefficient system of defense against the Indians was not resented only by those border plantations which were specially exposed.

the In

Besides this the Commissioners seem to have carried out with thorough success the task of establishing friendly relations with Peace with the savages. This was accomplished by a formal peace dians. in May, 1677. By this the Indians acknowledged the sovereignty of the king of England and bound themselves to pay a nominal quit-rent of three arrows and a tribute of beaver skins. In return no Indian might be imprisoned but by a regular warrant; certain territories were to be reserved for them as inalienable, and they were allowed rights of fishing and oystergathering within the English territory. The treaty was formally concluded at a meeting between the Commissioners and the prin-cipal Indian potentates, among whom we find two female chiefs.