Part 6

There was great rejoicing throughout the length and breadth of Virginia when news came to town and plantation that Nathaniel Bacon had set up a new government in place of the old one that had failed to protect the colony and that had suppressed the people's liberty. They gloried in their defiance of the royal governor. Sarah Drummond, the wife of Bacon's friend, said to her neighbors:

"The child that is unborn shall have cause to rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country!"

One of her neighbors objected, "We must expect a greater power from England that will certainly be our ruin."

Mrs. Drummond picked up a stick, and breaking it in two, said scornfully, "I fear the power of England no more than a broken straw!"

And when others shook their heads doubtfully, she said bravely, "We will do well enough!" That was the feeling of most of the people. They were back of Bacon, and pledged themselves to support him through thick and thin.

At the plantation near Curles Mr. Porter brought the news of the oath at Middle-Plantation to his family, and his wife and son and the men and women who worked for him celebrated the event as a great victory for all true Virginians.

Meantime General Bacon crossed the James River, attacked the Appomattox Indians, and killed or routed the whole tribe. He then marched along the south side of the river toward the Nottoway and Roanoke, scattered all the Indians he met, and ultimately returned north to West Point, where he dismissed all his army but a small detachment, bidding the others go back to their own plantations to harvest the autumn crops.

Scarcely had the men of Bacon's army reached their homes when a new message electrified the whole countryside. From man to man the news ran that Sir William Berkeley, with seventeen ships and a thousand men, had come back from far-away Accomac, had sailed up the James River, had taken possession of Jamestown, and was now flying his flag above the State House there.

III

Sir William Berkeley had met few friends in that distant country of Accomac when he had first flown there. Rebellion was in the air there as it was on the mainland of Virginia, and only a few of the planters of the eastern shore welcomed the king's governor and agreed to stand by him in his fight with Nathaniel Bacon. Still he stuck to his determination to try conclusions with the rebels, and meantime he waited as patiently as he could, hoping that the tide of fortune would presently turn in his favor.

General Bacon, when he set out from Middle-Plantation to fight the Indians, sent Giles Bland to keep Governor Berkeley in Accomac, and, if possible, to induce the people there to surrender him. Giles Bland started on his mission with two hundred and fifty men, and one ship with four guns, commanded by an old sailor, Captain Carver. One ship was not enough, however, to carry the men across to the Eastern Shore, and so Bland seized another that happened to be lying in the York River, and that belonged to Captain Laramore, a friend of Governor Berkeley. Captain Laramore was seized by Bland's men, and locked up in his cabin, but after a time he sent word to Bland that he would fight with him against the governor, and Bland, thinking that the captain was sincere, restored command of the vessel to him. Two more ships were captured, and so it was a fleet of four vessels that ultimately carried the rebel party to the Eastern Shore.

When he saw this fleet nearing Accomac Sir William gave up his cause as lost. He knew that he must surrender, as King Charles the First of England had surrendered to Oliver Cromwell's men. Then suddenly a loophole of escape offered itself most unexpectedly. Captain Laramore, still very angry with the rebels for having seized his ship in such a high-handed manner, secretly sent word to Sir William, that if assistance were given him he would betray Giles Bland. The fleet was at anchor, and Captain Carver had gone ashore to try to find the governor. Laramore's offer looked as if it might be a trap, but Colonel Philip Ludwell, a friend of Berkeley's, offered to vouch for Laramore's honesty and moreover to lead the party that was to capture Bland. Sir William agreed to this offer, and Colonel Ludwell got ready a boat in a near-by creek, out of sight of the fleet. At the time set by Laramore Colonel Ludwell's crew rowed out toward Laramore's ship. Bland thought he came to parley, and did not fire. The boat pulled under the ship's stern, one of Ludwell's men leaped on board, and aiming a pistol at Bland's breast, cried, "You're my prisoner!" The crew of the rowboat followed, and with the help of Laramore and those sailors who sided with him, quickly captured the rebels on board. When Captain Carver returned he and his crew were seized in the same way, and Colonel Ludwell and Laramore took Bland and Carver and their officers ashore and presented them to Sir William as his prisoners.

Sir William was stern in dealing with men he considered traitors. He put Giles Bland and his officers in chains, and he hung Captain Carver on the beach of Accomac. This victory won him recruits also among the longshoremen, and now one of his own followers, Captain Gardener, reached the harbor in his ship, the _Adam-and-Eve_, with ten or twelve sloops he had captured along the coast. Counting Bland's ships the governor now had a fleet numbering some seventeen sail, and on these he embarked his army of nearly a thousand men. Many of them were merely adventurers, lured by Sir William's promise to give them the estates that belonged to the men who had taken the oath with Bacon at Middle-Plantation. Sir William also proclaimed that the servants of all those who were fighting under Bacon's flag should have the property of their masters if they would enlist under the king's standard.

The governor set sail for Jamestown, and reached it on the sixth day of September. One of the bravest of Bacon's commanders, Colonel Hansford, held the town with eight or nine hundred men. The governor called on Hansford to surrender, promising pardon to all except his old enemies, Lawrence and Drummond, who were then in Jamestown. Hansford refused to surrender, but Lawrence and Drummond advised him to retreat with his army, and so he evacuated the town during the night. At noon next day Sir William landed, and kneeling, gave thanks for his safe return to his former capital.

Colonel Hansford, with Drummond and Lawrence, rode north to find General Bacon. They found him at West Point and told him the startling news that Sir William had come back with an army. The fight was to be waged all over again, the question whether Bacon or Berkeley was to rule Virginia was yet to be settled.

Bacon had only a body-guard with him, but he mounted in haste and rode toward Jamestown, sending couriers in all directions to rouse the countryside and bring his men to his flag. The message came to Curles, and Edmund Porter and his father and their neighbors armed and hurried to join their general. So swiftly did the planters take to horse that by the time Bacon was in sight of Jamestown he was followed by several hundred men.

Sir William had built an earthwork and palisade across the neck of the island where Jamestown stands. Bacon ordered his trumpets to sound, and then a volley to be fired into the town. No guns answered his, and Bacon ordered his troops to throw up breastworks in front of the palisade, while he made his headquarters at "Greenspring," a house that belonged to Sir William.

Now Bacon, although usually a gentleman, resorted to a trick that was a blot on his character. He sent horsemen through the near-by country to bring the wives of some of the men who were fighting on Berkeley's side into his camp. He sent one of these women, under a flag of truce, into the town to tell her husband and the others there that Bacon meant to place these wives in front of his own men while they were building the earthworks, so that any shots fired would hit the women first. This he did. He made these women stand as a shield before his men. The governor's party would not fire a shot. The earthworks were finished, and then Bacon had the women escorted to a place of safety. The trick savored more of the customs of some of the Indian tribes the settlers had been fighting than of the warfare of Virginia gentlemen.

When the women were gone, Sir William burst out of Jamestown with eight hundred men and attacked Bacon's troopers. But the rabble that made up the governor's army, longshoremen, fishermen from Accomac, a rabble attracted by the hope of plunder, was no match for the well-drilled and well-armed planters. At the first touch of steel they turned and fled back to the town, leaving a dozen wounded on the ground. Sir William lashed them with a tongue of scorn, but his anger did no good. He saw that he could not rely on this new following, and so embarked on his ships again that night, and sailed away from Jamestown.

Bacon marched in, took counsel with his officers, and determined that Sir William should make no further use of his capital. Orders were given to set fire to all the houses, and shortly the town, founded by that great adventurer, John Smith, was only a mass of burned and blackened timbers.

Sir William had sailed down the river, but a courier from York County brought word that a force of his friends were advancing from the direction of the Potomac to attack Bacon's men. So, when Jamestown was only ruins, the general left that place and marched at the head of his horsemen to meet this new enemy. He was as full of courage as ever, but he had caught a fever in the trenches before Jamestown, and instead of stopping to cure it he insisted on pushing on and trying to settle matters with his opponents as soon as possible.

His men crossed the York in boats at Ferry Point and marched into Gloucester. There Bacon called on all the men of Gloucester who had taken the oath with him at Middle-Plantation to join him promptly. Another courier arrived, with word that Colonel Brent was coming against him with a thousand soldiers. Bacon did not wait for any more recruits, but marched at once up country in the direction of the Rappahannock River. But there was to be no fighting. The spirit of rebellion had spread so far that even Colonel Brent's men, supposed to be very loyal to the governor, deserted to Bacon's standard, and Brent himself, with a few faithful followers, had to retire from the field, and leave the rebel chief in entire command.

Bacon went back to Gloucester, and again summoned the men of that county to meet him at the court-house. Six or seven hundred came, but they did not want to fulfil their pledge and take up arms, it might be against the king's own soldiers. They said that they wanted to take no sides in the matter. Bacon insisted that they should pledge themselves to follow him. The fever had hold of him, his temper was short, and he spoke in such a domineering way that at last the men of Gloucester gave him the pledge he wanted. Having had his way Bacon closed the meeting, and, seeing that all the mainland of Virginia was now under his control, laid plans to follow Sir William Berkeley to Accomac, where the governor had fled again.

But now Nathaniel Bacon, at the very moment when he had driven all his enemies out of the colony, and had made himself the master of Virginia, fell very ill of the fever he had brought from Jamestown. His old friends, Mr. Porter among them, urged him to give up command of his army and rest. In spite of his wish to go to Accomac and settle accounts with Berkeley, he had to take their advice. He went to the house of a friend, Major Pate, in Gloucester, and there, after a few weeks' illness, he died, in October, 1676.

Sorrowing for their brave leader and friend, Mr. Porter and Edmund went back to their plantation on the James. They had stood by him when he needed their aid, but, in spite of all the exciting events of that summer, they had not had to take part in any actual fighting except the brief battle with the Indians in May and the short skirmish outside Jamestown. Neither father nor son were known as officers in Bacon's army, and as they stayed quietly at home the storm that followed blew safely over their heads.

In four months Nathaniel Bacon had risen from the position of a little-known planter to be the ruler of Virginia, and because the king's governor would not give him a commission to march against the Indians who had attacked his farm he had driven the governor out of the colony. It was a remarkable story, packed full of strange happenings.

When Bacon died, however, the rebellion fell to pieces. A man named Ingram tried to rally his army, but the men of Virginia would not fight under any other leader than Bacon. Sir William Berkeley came back from the county of Accomac with a wolfish thirst for vengeance. His chief enemy had escaped him, but he meant to take his revenge on the other leaders of the rebellion against him. And take his revenge he did, not like an honorable governor who wishes to make peace in his country, but more like that Judge Jeffreys in England, whose name became a byword for cruelty. He captured Colonel Hansford, who was a fine Virginian, and hung him as a rebel. Lawrence escaped, but Drummond was caught in his hiding-place in the Chickahominy swamp, and brought before Sir William.

"Mr. Drummond," said the governor, "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!"

"When your Honor pleases," Drummond coolly replied.

Drummond was hung, and his brave wife, who had broken the stick to show how easily the planters could defeat Sir William, was driven into the wilderness with her children.

Bland was found in Accomac and executed. Men were hung in almost every county, and the settlers hated the name of Berkeley more than they hated raiding Indians. In all Sir William executed twenty-three rebels, as he called them, and King Charles II of England, when he heard the report, said indignantly, "That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country than I have done for the murder of my father."

At last the Assembly begged the governor to stop. He reluctantly agreed that all the rest of the rebels should be pardoned except about fifty leaders. The property of these leaders was confiscated, and they were sent away from the colony.

Sir William, however, was no longer popular with any in Virginia. Soon afterward he sailed to England, and never came back again to the colony he had ruled with an iron hand. Salutes were fired and bonfires blazed when he sailed, for the people were all still rebels at heart. Other governors came from England, but they found the Virginians harder to rule since they had tasted independence in that summer of 1676.

By many boys of Virginia, like Edmund Porter, Nathaniel Bacon was always remembered as a gallant hero, one who had fought for them against the tyranny of Sir William Berkeley.

V

AN OUTLAW CHIEF OF MARYLAND

(_Maryland, 1684_)

I

"I'm riding south to St. Mary's to-morrow, Michael," said George Talbot. He gave his horse a slap on the flank that sent it toward the stable. "Want to come with me, and see something of the Bay?"

"Yes indeed," said Michael Rowan. "You know, Mr. George, I always like to ride with you."

Talbot smiled at the red-cheeked boy, whose black hair and blue eyes gave proof of his Irish blood. "You're loyal to the chief of the clan, aren't you, Michael? Well, if I were warden of the Scottish marches I wouldn't ask for better followers than such as you."

Michael flushed. "My father has taught me always to do your bidding, Mr. George. It seems to me the right thing to do."

"I hope it always will. There's some who don't think as well of me as your father does." Talbot slapped his riding-whip against his boot. "But we don't care what they think, do we? A fig for all critics, I say! Each man to his own salvation!" He went up the steps to his house, while Michael watched him with frank admiration.

George Talbot, Irish by birth, was a prominent man in the province that belonged to Lord Baltimore. He was a kinsman of Sir William Talbot, who was Chief Secretary of Maryland. George had obtained a large grant of land on the Susquehanna River, when Lord Baltimore was anxious to have the northern part of his province settled. Three years after he staked out his plantation on the Susquehanna he was made surveyor-general of the province. That was in 1683. The next year Lord Baltimore went to England, leaving his son, a boy, as nominal governor. A commission of leading men was chosen to take charge of the actual work of the governorship, and George Talbot was at the head of the commission. In much of that sparsely-settled country he ruled like the chieftain of a Scottish clan. He built a fort near the head of Chesapeake Bay; garrisoned it with Irish followers, and sometimes set out from it with his troop to check Indian raids; sometimes rode into the land that was in dispute between Lord Baltimore and William Penn, and lectured or bullied or drove away some of Penn's settlers. He ruled with a high hand, both at his fort and on his plantation, with the usual result that he was tremendously admired by his retainers, among whom was Fergus Rowan, the father of Talbot's young squire Michael.

Next day the adventurous Talbot and the faithful Michael set out south. They rode through a country almost as untouched by men as it was before the first white explorers landed on its coast. Then there had been Indians to hunt game in its woods and marshes; to fish its streams and bay, to plant their crops in its open arable fields. But the Indians were like the birds and beasts, essentially migratory; they built few permanent homes, they wasted little labor on bridges or mills, clearings or farm-stockades. When the hunting or the crops grew poor in one place they packed their tents on their ponies or in their canoes and set out for a new, untouched country. The white men were very different; they wanted to own, to fence off, to build, to make travel and commerce easier. But in 1684 there were so few of them that one might ride all day and see no sign of a human habitation. Talbot and Michael had to hunt the streams for fording-places, had to push through underbrush that threatened to hide the trails, and to rely on the provisions they carried in their saddle-bags to furnish them food and drink.

Every now and then the riders caught sight of the blue waters of Chesapeake Bay to the east. Whenever they reached a farmhouse in the wilderness they stopped and chatted with the settlers, giving them any news from the north. They spent one night at a hunter's log cabin; another at a miller's house built on the bank of a river. Many times they had to go far out of the route as the crow flies in order to cross wide estuaries and streams. But they were in no particular haste, and rested their horses often. It took them the better part of a week to reach the Patuxent River and cross into St. Mary's County.

Many small fishing-hamlets were to be found along this southern shore of Chesapeake Bay, and Talbot stopped at each one, announced who he was, and questioned the fishermen for news. The chief complaint of the settlers was against the tyrannical manners and methods of the revenue-collectors, or excisemen, who levied taxes for the king of England on all goods coming into the province or going out of it. Men who collect such taxes have almost always been unpopular; in Maryland they were pretty generally hated. To judge from what Talbot was told by the fishermen some of the collectors had acted as if they were Lord Baltimore himself. They took horses, servants, boats, as they pleased, and dared the owners to complain of them to the king. The most unpopular of the race of collectors appeared to be Christopher Rousby, who lived at the town of St. Mary's, and made trips up and down St. Mary's River and along the shores of the bay to collect taxes from unwilling settlers and threaten them with dire punishments if they dared refuse obedience to his orders.

"The knave ought to be whipped!" Talbot declared to Michael, as they left one of the hamlets. "I know him, an arrogant, conceited fool! It's fortunate I'm not one of these folk here, or I might run him through some dark night."

Down to St. Mary's they rode, where Talbot took lodgings for himself and Michael. The lodgings were at a tavern known as "The Bell and Anchor," where a great anchor lay on the lawn before the tavern door and a bell hung over the porch, used by the wife of the tavern-keeper to inform her guests when their meals were ready for them. The inn faced St. Mary's River, which was wide here, and the beach in front of it was a gathering-place for sailors and fishermen and longshoremen, whose boats were pulled up on the sand or anchored in the small harbor to the south of the town. Talbot and Michael went among the men, the chieftain hobnobbing with the simple folk, as he was fond of doing, though he never allowed them to forget his dignity.

There were ships lying in St. Mary's River, one of them a ketch belonging to His Majesty's navy. Men on the beach told Talbot and Michael that the captain of the ketch was very friendly with Christopher Rousby, the tax-collector, and the other excisemen. They also told Talbot that neither the captain of the ketch nor Rousby nor his mates paid any attention to Lord Baltimore's officers in St. Mary's. The former treated the latter as if they were stable-boys, made to be ordered about, the longshoremen told Talbot.

At first Talbot only listened and swore under his breath. Then he began to swear openly, and to look angry and shake his fist at the royal ship out in the bay. "These dogs of sea-captains and tax-collectors think they own the whole province!" he muttered to Michael. "I'd like nothing better than to teach them a lesson!"

The man and boy happened to be standing near the door of "The Bell and Anchor" when a long-boat landed passengers from the ketch, and the captain and Christopher Rousby and two other men came up to the tavern door. All four men glanced at Talbot, whose bearing and dress made him a conspicuous figure. He gave them a curt nod. The captain and one of the other men acknowledged his greeting, but Rousby strode past him with a shrug of the shoulders and a sneer on his lips.

George Talbot was not used to such treatment; when he gave a man a nod he expected at least a bow in return. Hot blood flushed his cheeks, and his fingers gripped the hilt of the hunting-knife he wore at his belt. Michael could not hear what he murmured, but he could guess at what he meant. Michael grew angry too; he expected people to treat his master with as much deference as they would show the king.

The four men went into the tavern, and soon Michael caught the sound of a drinking song. To get away from the noise Talbot and his page walked up the street. Presently they met the chief magistrate of St. Mary's, who recognized George Talbot, and greeted him, as was proper, by taking off his hat and making a low bow.

"Things go badly here, Mr. Talbot," said the magistrate, with a shake of his head. "The captain of that ship yonder and the collectors laugh at Lord Baltimore. They do what they will with me and my men. They sit in the tavern all night, carousing, and then they take any boats they see or anything they like, and threaten the owners with their pistols and His Majesty's vengeance if they dare object. I've gone to see them about it. They snap their fingers at me and the governor."

"I've seen the brutes," said Talbot. "I think I'd best take it on myself to explain the matter to them."

"Be careful," warned the other. "They think themselves above all the law of the province."