[1676 A.D.]

heathen," etc. He then demanded the arrest of the governor and nineteen of his accomplices.a

Bacon now called a convention of delegates from the several counties to meet at Middle Plantation (now Williamsburg), August 3rd. This convention, attended by many of the principal men of the colony, agreed upon an oath to be imposed on the inhabitants, and an "engagement" to be signed by them, promising to support Bacon even against troops from England till the matters in dispute could be referred to the king.

As even the loyal inhabitants of Gloucester seemed cold to his cause, Berkeley presently retired to Accomac, on the eastern shore, accompanied by Beverley, Ludwell, and a few others. This withdrawal was treated as an abdication of office, and Bacon, with four members of the council, issued writs for electing a new assembly.

Bacon's party had been joined by Giles Bland, the collector of the customs, "a gentleman newly arrived from England to possess the estate of his deceased uncle, late of the council." Bland seized the ship of one Lorimore, increased her armament to sixteen guns, and sailed with a force of two hundred and fifty men to attack Berkeley, in company with Captain Barlow, "one of Cromwell's soldiers," and Carver, "a good seaman, and a stout, resolute fellow," who commanded a bark of four guns. But by the contrivance of Lorimore, supported by the courage of Ludwell, the large ship was betrayed into the governor's hands. The other vessel was also taken. Bland was put in irons; Carver and Barlow were hanged-a rash act, it was thought, since Bacon had Sir Henry Chicheley [the deputy governor] and other councillors in his power, and might perhaps retaliate. Most of the men, on the offer of pardon, were induced to enter the governor's service.

Berkeley collected a force of near a thousand Accomacians. With two ships and some sixteen sloops, he presently entered James river, and proceeded to occupy Jamestown (September 7th).

Bacon, far inferior in numbers to the governor, laid close siege to Jamestown. The besieged made a sally, but were repulsed with loss. Finding himself in an awkward predicament, and his troops not to be depended upon, the governor made a hasty retreat by night, taking with him the town's-people and their goods.d

The next morning Bacon entered; it was reported that the governor had only fled to join a party of royalists who were advancing from the north. He determined therefore to burn the town, to prevent its becoming a harbour to the enemy; and Drummond and Lawrence, who were with Bacon, not only counselled this desperate measure, but themselves set fire to their own houses, which were the best in the town after the governor's. The number of houses, however, was small, amounting to about eighteen; but the church, the oldest in America, and the newly erected state house, were consumed likewise, the ruins of the church-tower and the memorials in the adjoining graveyard being all that now remain to point out to the stranger where once Jamestown stood.

Great numbers deserted the royalist cause, and Bacon, advancing to Gloucester, called a convention and administered an oath to the people, swearing them to the cause of popular liberty. The whole of Virginia, with the exception of the eastern shore, was now revolutionised. Berkeley had again fled to Accomac.

At this important moment, Bacon, who had inhaled disease on the marshes of Jamestown, suddenly fell sick, and on the 1st of October died, leaving the great cause of the people without a leader. His death wrung the popular

[1676 A.D.]

heart; despair fell on all, for there was no one to finish his work. The place of his interment was never known; it was concealed even from the body of his partisans, lest his remains should be insulted by the vindictive Berkeley [who proposed to hang them on a gibbet]. According to one tradition his friend Lawrence secretly buried him, laying stones upon his coffin; others maintain that his body was sunk in the deep waters of the majestic York river; and this is by no means improbable.

BERKELEY'S LAST TYRANNIES

The tide now set in against the insurgents; Beverley immediately captured Thomas Hansford, an insurgent leader. Brought before Berkeley, the choleric old cavalier ordered him to be hanged. He heard his sentence unmoved, but asked as "a favour that he might be shot like a soldier and not hanged like a dog." "You die as a rebel, not as a soldier!" was the reply. Reviewing his life, he professed repentance of his sins, but would not admit that his socalled rebellion was a sin; and his last words were, "I die a loyal subject and a lover of my country."

Hansford was the first Virginian who died on the gallows, the first American martyr to the popular cause. He was executed on the 13th of November, 1676. Other insurgent leaders were taken, among the rest, Edmund Cheesman and Thomas Wilford; the latter the second son of a royalist knight who had died fighting for Charles I, and now a successful Virginian emigrant. He, too, was hanged. Cheesman was brought up before the governor. Why did you engage in Bacon's designs?" demanded the latter. At that instant a young woman rushed forward, the wife of the prisoner, and replying before he had time to utter a word, exclaimed, "My provocations made my husband join in Bacon's cause. But for me he would never have done it!" And then falling on her knees, she added, "And seeing what has been done was through my means, I am most guilty; let me be hanged and my husband be pardoned!" The governor ordered her off, adding the grossest insult to his words. Her husband died in prison of ill-usage.

With the success of his party the vindictive passions of the governor increased. Mercy was an unknown sentiment to his heart, and his avarice gratified itself by fines and confiscations. Fearing the result of trial by jury, he resorted to courts-martial, where the verdicts were certain and severe. Four persons were thus hanged on one occasion. Drummond was seized, in the depth of winter, in Chickahominy swamp, half famished, and, being stripped and put in irons, was conveyed to Berkeley. Berkeley, seeing him approach, hastened out to meet him, and with a bow of derision saluted him: "Mr. Drummond, you are very welcome; I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia; Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour!" "What your honour pleases," replied the patriot, calmly. He was tried by court-martial, and though he had never held any military command, he was immediately condemned; and his wife's ring being forcibly torn from his finger, he was executed within three hours. The fate of Lawrence was never known; but report said that he and four others, in the depth of winter, when the snow was ankle-deep, threw themselves into a river rather than perish like Drummond. The conduct of Berkeley had been that of a dastard in the struggle, and now his cruelty was that of a fiend. A royal proclamation arrived from England, promising pardon to all but Bacon. But this was utterly disregarded; Berkeley, indeed, altered it to suit his own temper, and

[1680 A.D.] excepted from mercy about fifty persons, among whom was Sarah Grindon, the wife of the late attorney. Twenty-two were hanged; three died from hard usage in prison; three fled before trial, and two after conviction.

In the course of two months, trials before the governor and council, by "juries of life and death," were substituted instead of courts-martial; but the result was little different. The land groaned with the excess of punishment. The very assembly itself besought of the governor "to desist from sanguinary punishments, for none could tell when or where they would cease." And when executions ceased, other modes of punishment began.

When the news of these bloody doings reached London, Charles, who, with all his faults, was not cruel, exclaimed with indignation, "The old fool has taken away more lives in that naked country than I have for the murder of my father!"

As regarded the causes of this insurrection and the true character of its leaders, every possible means were taken to veil them in obscurity, or to throw disrepute and infamy upon them. No printing-press was allowed in Virginia. It was a crime punishable by fine and whipping1 to speak ill of Berkeley and his friends, or to write anything favourable to the rebels or the rebellion. Every accurate account remained in manuscript for more than a hundred years; so that the struggles and sufferings of these unfortunate patriots were long misunderstood and cruelly maligned.

It was on the occasion of this rebellion that English troops were first introduced into America. In three years, however, they were disbanded, and became amalgamated with the people. Sir William Berkeley returned to England with the squadron which brought out these forces, it being necessary to justify his conduct there. Arrived in England, he found the public sentiments so violent against him that he died, it was said, of a broken heart, and before he had had an opportunity of justifying himself with the monarch.

Colonel Herbert Jeffreys was left by Berkeley as deputy in his absence, and on his death he assumed the office of governor. The results of Bacon's rebellion were disastrous to Virginia. This insurrection was made a plea against granting a more liberal charter, and the restrictions and oppressions under which Virginia had groaned became only more stringent and heavy. All those liberal measures which were introduced by Bacon's assembly, and which were known under the name of "Bacon's Acts," were annulled, and the former abuses returned. In vain were commissioners sent over by the monarch to redress their grievances; reports of tyranny and rapine were received, but no amelioration of the system which permitted them was introduced; as Bancroft 9 says, "every measure of effectual reform was considered void, and every aristocratic feature which had been introduced into the legislature was perpetuated."

CULPEPER'S ADMINISTRATION AS PROPRIETARY

When Virginia was granted to the lords Culpeper and Arlington, the former was appointed governor for life on the demise of Berkeley; he embarked in 1680 for Virginia, where he arrived in May. The principal of his acts was that

[The third offence to be punished as treason. If the culprit were a married woman, and no one volunteered to pay her fine, she was "to be whipped on the bare back with twenty lashes for the first offence," and thirty for the second. Similar penalties were imposed for speaking disrespectfully of any in authority.d]

[1682-1684 A.D.]

the impost of two shillings on every hogshead of tobacco should be perpetual, and instead of being accounted for to the assembly as hitherto, should be applied as a royal revenue for the support of government. His own salary -as governor-of £1,000 he doubled, on the plea that, being a nobleman, such increase was necessary; besides house-rent and perquisites, amounting to nearly another thousand. Not satisfied with this, he altered the currency, and then disbanding the soldiers, paid their arrears in the new coin, greatly to his own advantage. But shortly afterwards, finding that, by the same rule, his own perquisites would be deteriorated, he restored it to its former value.

Virginia was now quiet, but her miseries were not at an end. Large crops of tobacco were raised, and the price sank far below a remunerative scale, and again the scheme of the "stint," or the cessation of planting, was entertained. During two sessions the assembly endeavoured to legislate for these difficult circumstances; but in May, 1682, the malcontents commenced to cut up the tobacco-plants, especially the sweet-scented, which was produced nowhere else, and to this futile procedure, Culpeper, who had now returned, put a stop by measures of great severity-hanging the ringleaders and enacting plant-cutting high treason.

A printing-press was at this time brought over into Virginia, by John Buckner, who printed the enactments of the session in 1682; but such publicity was dreaded. He was called to account by Culpeper, and forbidden to print anything until his majesty's pleasure should be known; and the following year any printing-press was forbidden in Virginia, under the royal authority. The slave-code received some alterations during Culpeper's government, which were worthy of the remorseless spirit of the man. Slaves were forbidden the use of arms, or to leave their masters' plantations without a written pass, or to lift a hand against a Christian, even in self-defence. Runaways, who refused to give themselves up, might be lawfully killed.

"All accounts," says Bancroft, "agree in describing the condition of Virginia at this time as one of extreme distress. Culpeper had no compassion for poverty, no sympathy for a province impoverished by perverse legislation; and the residence in Virginia was so irksome, that in a few months he again returned to England. The council reported the griefs and restlessness of the country, and renewed the request that the grant to Culpeper might be recalled. The poverty of the province rendered negotiation easy, and in the following year Virginia was once more a royal province.'

VIRGINIA AGAIN A ROYAL PROVINCE UNDER EFFINGHAM

Lord Howard of Effingham1 succeeded Culpeper as governor in 1684, but the change was hardly beneficial to the unhappy province. It is said that with an eye to the fees, he established a court of chancery, claiming, by virtue

["Like master, like man: Charles debauched and debased England, and Culpeper and Effingham degraded their governments and almost ruined Virginia. In the whole range of American colonial history there are to be found no administrations at once so contemptible, so sordid, and so injurious as those inflicted upon Virginia by the noble governors appointed by Charles II. One event but little noticed at the time rises above the sorry details of this period. In 1684 Virginia sent delegates to Albany to meet the agents of Massachusetts and the governor of New York, in order to discuss the Indian troubles. Thus another uncertain step was taken on the road to confederation. Every event of this nature, no matter how trifling, acquires importance in marking the slow stages by which the principle of union rose by external pressure from the jarring interests of separate colonies."-LODGE."]

[1688 A.D.] of his office, to be sole judge. The accession of James II produced no change in the state of Virginia, but the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion sent over to her a number of truly noble, though involuntary exiles. These were the men who, by sentence of the infamous Judge Jeffreys, were condemned to transportation, and sent over for sale to the labour-market of the American colonies. These political convicts were, many of them, men of family and superior education, accustomed to the conveniences and elegancies of life; and, as regarded them, the government of Virginia received injunctions, under the signature of the monarch; "take care," said they, "that these convicted persons continue to serve for ten years at least, and that they be not permitted, in any manner, to redeem themselves by money or otherwise until that time be fully expired." But Virginia had suffered too much not to sympathise with her noble transports. In December, 1689, the exiles were pardoned. America, in every one of her colonies, was benefited by the tolerance and the oppressions of Europe. Hence she derived her best population; hence her clear instinct of liberty, and the courage and energy which bore her through the struggle for its attainment.

The state of Virginia did not improve under James II; and so oppressive was the government found to be, that the first assembly convened after his accession called in question the monarch's right to negative such of their proceedings as did not meet with his approbation; the king was displeased, and censured "the disaffected and unjust disposition of the members, and their irregular and tumultuous proceedings." The assembly was dissolved by royal proclamation, and James Collins loaded with irons and imprisoned for treasonable expressions. But the council stood firm to their principles of obedience and conformity, and pledged themselves to bring the state to submission. Beverley, a royalist and former adherent of Berkeley's, and for a long time clerk of the assembly, in whose soul the despotism of the time seems to have called forth a germ of liberty, fell under the strong resentment of the king; and being disfranchised, and a prosecution commenced against him, he died soon afterwards, a martyr to those very principles for which Bacon had struggled, and which he then had opposed.

The principles of Bacon indeed were, under the severity of the present rule, becoming the principles of the whole of Virginia, as the noblest essences are only brought out by extreme pressure. The spirit of the colony was shown by the new assembly, which was now, in 1688, convened, and for the turbulent and unmanageable disposition of which it was very soon dissolved by the council. Discussion, so long fettered, once more asserted its liberty; the scattered dwellers along the river banks passed from house to house the kindling cry of liberty. The whole colony was about to rise once more; and Effingham, alarmed at the position of affairs, hastened to England, followed by Philip Ludwell, as his accuser in the name of the people. During his absence, Nathaniel Bacon, the elder, president of the council, assumed the temporary administration. But before either the accused or the accuser reached the English shores, James had abdicated, and that revolution had taken place which for the moment cast the affairs of Virginia into the shade.

VIRGINIA AFTER THE REVOLUTION OF 1688

For Virginia, the revolution of 1688 gave to her liberties the regularity of law; in other respects, the character of her people and the forms of her government were not changed. The first person who, in the reign of King Will