Reformatory

measures.

Then followed rapidly a multitude of reformatory measures. The franchise was again extended to all freemen. The county magistrates, who had long had local taxation in their own hands, were now compelled to associate with them a board of delegates elected by the people. The privileges of members of the Council were curtailed. No one was to be appointed to an office who had not for three years resided in the country. Propositions- possibly never carried out - were made for an examination of the colonial accounts. The Governor's fees in certain cases were restricted; his virtual monopoly of the fur trade was abolished. The majority, now altogether under the influence of Bacon and his chief advisers, Lawrence and Drummond, effected in a few days more radical reforms than the boldest would have believed possible a week or two before. That they should be bitterly opposed by the minority, and only confirmed by the Governor under the pressure of necessity, was a matter of course. Some of the debates upon them were very stormy; and party feeling ran so high that, according to one historian, it founded feuds of a century's duration between members of the different factions. The whole time occupied by all this legislation was barely a week, and at the end of it Berkeley succeeded in dissolving an Assembly which had suddenly become so formidable, the hasty dissolution probably meeting with but little opposition, because it was felt that all that could be done at the moment had been accomplished.

Bacon's sec

Bacon who had meanwhile been occupied in organizing the thousand men allowed him by the act, and in wisely appointond Indian ing as his subordinates men who were already known as campaign. officers in the regular militia now set out for a vigorous campaign against the Indians; and, in a short time after the breaking up of the Assembly, was hotly engaged in the Pamunkey country, driving the savages successfully before him. No sooner was he at a safe distance, however, than events showed that the acquiescence he had extorted from the Governor in measures of reform was to be but short-lived. By a petition which came to him from the people of Gloucester and Middlesex counties (on the peninsula between the Rappahannock and the York), Berkeley was led to believe that the people of that region were still loyal to him, and opposed to the in

Renewed proclamations of Berkeley.

surgent party. He crossed the York, and called a muster of the militia of the peninsula. Twelve hundred men collected; and relying upon their adherence, he once more declared Bacon a rebel, and called upon them to join in a march against him and his army. He was speedily convinced of his mistake. Immediately arose a murmuring before his face, Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!' and all walked out of the field, muttering as they went,

66

1676.]

BACON SEIZES THE GOVERNMENT.

305

Bacon, Bacon, Bacon,' leaving the Governor and those that came with him to themselves."

Flight of

Bacon was approaching the head of York River when news came that Berkeley had again proclaimed him an outlaw, and was Bacon's reseeking volunteers to pursue him. Answering angrily "that tigh it vexed him to the heart that while he was hunting wolves Berkeley. which were destroying innocent lambs," the Governor and his followers should seek to put him "like corn between two mill-stones," he turned his army instantly and hurried across country. It was the unlucky Berkeley, and not the rebel, who now found himself likely to be

Berkeley and the Gloucester Men.

"ground to powder." Failing completely in his efforts to gain

popular support, he fled precipitately to Accomac, across the Chesapeake, and left the province at the mercy of his opponent.

Bacon was now virtually the Governor of Virginia, and the first uses made of his power justified the popularity that he en- The Bacon joyed. Marching his force as rapidly as possible into party in Gloucester County, where, in spite of Berkeley's failure

power.

to arouse the people at large, there was still a party in his favor, he deployed a large detachment to patrol the country, and to arrest Berkeley's adherents. These were put under parole; but they suffered in no other way, and his whole course seems to have been generous and conciliatory. He is credited with offering to spare the life of a spy captured by his men, provided a single voice out of the whole

army

66

which no man appear

little should be raised in his behalf; 1 ing to do," the prisoner duly suffered death. And it was said that during the whole course of the rebellion this was the only man put to death in cold blood by the insurgents, while not a single house, even of the Governor's immediate and most obstinate adherents, was plundered or molested.

Convention

nists.

When Bacon issued a call for a convention of the leading men of the province to meet him at Middle Plantation, fifteen miles of the colo- from Jamestown, it was very widely responded to. A large assemblage gathered in the month of August, and listened to propositions for the reorganization of the government. An oath was to be administered to the people, without distinction. Those who took it were to promise to aid Bacon in a war against the Indians; to oppose Berkeley in any attempt to interfere with them in so doing; and to resist any force which might arrive from England, until its leaders should grant such terms as would include a hearing in England of the popular complaints against Berkeley's administration. The first two clauses were agreed to without hesitation but to the third, as an act of flat rebellion against the Mother country, there was a determined opposition, and a "bloudy debate" of twelve hours followed.

The new oath of allegiance.

It is said to have been turned in Bacon's favor, after he had eloquently contended in vain against his opponents, by an unlookedfor incident. While the discussion was at its height, a gunner arrived from Fort York, to report that the Indians had made a raid under the very walls, as it were, of that post; that several persons had been killed; and that others had thronged into the works for protection. Bacon's point was instantly and forcibly made; he asked the gunner how it could be that this threatening aspect of affairs could exist close by the strongest work in that part of the province? The reply was that Berkeley, sailing into the York, had on the very day before the murders removed all the powder from the fort into his own vessel. This turned the scale, and the majority consented to Bacon's oath at once. A clause was inserted in the preamble to the oath setting forth that "Sir William Berkeley, Knight, Governor of the Country," having sought to divert the country's army from its pursuit of the Indians, and having failed therein, had "withdrawn himself, to the great astonishment of the people;" and then followed an explanation of the calling of the convention. Thus introduced, and signed by the members of that body, including some of Berkeley's government, and many of the leading men of the whole province, it was published immediately to the citizens at large. Writs for an Assem

1 T. M.

1676.]

AIMS OF THE BACON PARTY.

307

bly were issued, under the names of four members of the Council who took part in the convention's proceedings, and had sided throughout against the Governor.

aims of the

Bacon party

Their leaders.

The feeling among the leaders who had taken upon themselves the responsibility of these decisive measures was that of men Spirit and who had begun a war of independence. There was no telling to what lengths they might be called upon to go. talk was earnest, resolute, and grave, a forecast of that which, just a century later, was to be heard at Philadelphia in a greater cause. Richard Lawrence and William Drummond, the former governor of Carolina, who appears to have been the brain of the enterprise of which Bacon was the right hand, saw clearly whither their action tended, and guided each step with prudent firmness. Beside them, at a council of which record is preserved, stood Drummond's wife, taking part, with an influence rarely given to a woman of that day and place, in their debates upon the future. The spirited words she spoke seemed half prophetic. The child that is unborn shall have cause to rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country," she said; and to a cautious gentleman, who warned them of "a greater power from England," that would certainly prove their ruin, she answered, "I fear the power of England no more than a broken straw." "Now we can build ships," she added, "and, like New England, trade to any part of the world." If all she uttered was not to be fulfilled in her own time, her great-grandchildren were to see it carried out with a broader significance.

66

Accomac.

Berkeley, meanwhile, was gathering at Accomac such of his people as could reach him in his disadvantageous position; but, at Berkeley at the best, the force which he could collect was a very small one, and his prospects seemed almost hopeless until the coming of aid from England, when suddenly accident and the bravery of one of his followers changed the whole current of affairs. The first direct act of hostility which the insurgents attempted against him resulted in giving him the very means he wanted to make head against them.

pedition.

Giles Bland, collector-general of the royal customs in Virginia, was one of Bacon's warmest partisans, besides being a per- Bland's exsonal enemy of the Governor. In the zeal which out grew of both these relations, he suggested, and was appointed to carry out, a plan for Berkeley's capture. Taking advantage of his office, he was to board the ship of a certain Captain Laramore, that lay near the mouth of the York River, and, while pretending to examine her cargo, was to put his men in possession and take her commander prisoner. Accompanied by a smaller vessel, under one Captain Carver, he was then to sail for Accomac, where the defenceless Governor could easily be captured and returned to Jamestown.

The plan worked admirably as far as the seizure of the vessel went, and Bland, with his armed men, soon had her captain shut up in his cabin, while they and the captured crew weighed anchor and made ready to set sail. But Laramore, feigning complete submission, assured Bland of his willingness to take part in the expedition, proclaimed himself an enemy of Berkeley, and so won Bland's confidence that he was again put in charge of the ship, and forthwith made himself conspicuous in furthering the preparations. Followed by Carver's vessel and a sloop, all manned by more than two hundred men, the collector or the lieutenant-general, as Bacon had commissioned him -bore away for Accomac. In the bay he compelled another sloop to accompany his fleet, and so arrived at the eastern shore as the admiral of four well-armed craft.

Bland's fleet

into

On the news of the arrival of this hostile force, Berkeley despaired of defence, and proposed to surrender. But while he was betrek debating with his companions, a message was brought to ley's hands. him which changed the aspect of affairs. Laramore had succeeded in smuggling ashore a note, in which he promised, if the Governor would send a force to aid him, to deliver Bland, Carver, and their men, into his hands, and to put the vessels and their crews at his disposal. There was a moment's hesitation, for Laramore's reputation was not of the best, and it was thought that he might be merely acting the decoy. But Philip Ludwell, one of Berkeley s warmest adherents, decided the doubtful question by offering to take charge of the force Laramore proposed, and thus insuring success if the captain were acting honestly, or making at least a stubborn fight if he were treacherous.

At midnight, Ludwell and a company of twenty-six picked men pulled silently alongside the ship. Laramore proved faithful, and the sleeping men on board, waking in confusion and seeing an armed party pouring over the sides, were overpowered before they knew the weakness of their captors. It was only needful to turn the guns of the larger vessel upon her smaller tenders; and without the firing of a shot the formidable little fleet was taken. Berkeley emphasized his triumph by hanging Carver a few days afterward, upon the shore of the bay; and why Bland and the other leaders escaped a similar fate is not clear. Perhaps the Governor - who, while the Laramore plot had been maturing, had sent for Carver under a safe-conduct, and tried to bribe him to desert the Baconites - owed the stout sailor a grudge for turning a deaf ear to all his arguments.

The hesitating loyalists, who had kept prudently aloof while Berkeley was altogether without defence or resources, now rallied, reanimated by Ludwell's exploit. Fourteen sloops and other small craft