and forced to surrender.

When Bacon was led before the governor, the old man exclaimed: "Now I behold the greatest rebel that ever was in Virginia."

Then, after a pause, he asked: "Mr. Bacon, have you forgot to be a gentleman?"

"No, may it please your honor."

"Then, I'll take your parole."

Soon after this scene Bacon had a conference with his cousin in which the latter pleaded with him to make his submission and give up the idea of reforming the government and going out to fight the Indians. If he would promise to do so, he said, he would turn over to him a part or his estate and leave him the remainder after his own and his wife's deaths. In the end the younger Bacon yielded and signed a paper engaging to refrain from further disobedience to the government.

A few days later the governor summoned the Burgesses to meet with the Council in the Court Room of the State House. When all were seated he stood up and said: "If there be joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth, there is joy now, for we have a penitent sinner come before us. Call Mr. Bacon."

When Bacon stepped forward, fell on his knees, and handed in his submission, the governor resumed: "God forgive you! I forgive you!"

"And all that were with him?" asked one of the Councillors.

"Yes, and all that were with him," replied the governor.

"Mr. Bacon,'" he added, "if you will live civilly but till next Quarter Court, I will promise to restore you again to your place there." But he decided not to wait so long, and the following day permitted him to resume his seat.

We are left in no doubt as to why Berkeley was so lenient. "Why did I not put him to death when I had him in my power?" he asked later. "I must have been judge, jury, and executioner to have done it, for the Assembly ... were all picked for him. The Council frightened with hearing 2000 men were armed to deliver him." Philip Ludwell wrote Lady Berkeley who a few weeks before had sailed for England, that she must wonder why instead of death "such favors were heaped on." But it was unavoidable, since hundreds of enraged men were within a day's march of Jamestown, and the forces at hand to oppose them secretly in sympathy with Bacon. "There is not a part of the country free from the infection. Never was there so great a madness as the people generally were seized with."

But in restoring Bacon to the Council Berkeley was no doubt actuated as much by policy as by fear, for it was better to have him there where he could keep his eye on him than in the House of Burgesses where he might attempt to carry through reform legislation.

By this time anyone less stubborn and arbitrary than Berkeley would have learned his lesson. On June 12, when Bacon was still in the governor's power, Philip Ludwell wrote his brother: "It now looks like general ruin for the country.... The governor seems determined to leave for England.... If he does he leaves a lost country." Had he given Bacon a commission to fight the Indians and permitted the Assembly to carry out adequate reforms in the government, the people might have been satisfied. But when the Assembly met things seemed to be going in the old way.

If we are to understand the transactions of this historic Assembly it is necessary to divide the session into two parts, the part when Berkeley had Bacon in his power, and the part when Bacon had escaped and was once more at the head of his army. During the first part Berkeley seems to have dominated the Assembly despite the pro-Bacon majority, during the second part the threat of coercion by Bacon's angry frontiersmen undoubtedly affected all legislation. Without this division many of the known facts seem incongruous and conflicting; with it they fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.

At the opening of the session "some gentlemen took this opportunity to endeavor the redressing several grievances the country then labored under," and a committee was about to be named for this purpose when they "were interrupted by pressing messages from the governor to meddle with nothing until the Indian business was dispatched." So the matter of grievances was sidetracked.

Then followed a heated debate on whether the House would ask that two Councillors sit with the committee on Indian Affairs. In the end "this was huddled off without coming to a vote, and so the committee must submit to be overawed, and have every carped at expression carried straight to the governor."

And the governor, closing his eyes to the fact that the Pamunkeys hated the English and were sullen and resentful, insisted that they return to their towns and join in the defence of the colony. So their queen was brought in and asked how many men she would furnish. In reply she reproached the English for not giving her people compensation for their aid in a former war in which her husband had been killed. In the end she promised twelve men, but it must have been obvious to all that she and they were not to be trusted. When she had gone the committee proceeded with their plans for prosecuting the war. Some of the forts were to be abandoned and their garrisons distributed among fourteen frontier plantations, and an army of 1,000 men was to be raised and sent out against the enemy.

Bacon was a discontented spectator of these proceedings. The governor was as overbearing as ever, the Burgesses were overawed, the plans for reform were set aside, the Indian war was mismanaged. He must have been disgusted that the Burgesses were too cowardly to vote down a resolution requesting the governor not to resign. The Assembly did not prove "answerable to our expectations", he said later, for which he thought they should be censured. So, telling Berkeley that his wife was ill, he got permission to visit her. No sooner had he gone than the governor heard that he intended to place himself once more at the head of his volunteer army. In desperate haste horsemen galloped off to intercept him. But they were too late. Bacon had made good his escape.

In Henrico angry men gathered around him. And when he told them that the governor had not given him a commission and that he still persisted in carrying out essentially the old plan for the war, they were furious. In Bacon's absence the Indians had renewed their raids, and had wiped out many whole families. The frontiersmen vowed that they would have a commission or they would march on Jamestown and "pull down the town."

So off they went, some mounted, others on foot. There was talk of sharing the estates of the rich, of making Lady Berkeley discard her fine gowns for "canvas linen," of ending all taxes. "Thus the raging torrent came down to town."

When the governor heard that they were coming he made desperate efforts to gather a force to resist them. But it was too late. It was rumored that Bacon had threatened that if a gun was fired at his men he would "kill and destroy all." Since resistance was useless, Berkeley threw the guns from their carriages and waited for Bacon's arrival.

So the motley band came streaming into town. "Now tag, rag and bobtail carry a high hand." Bacon drew up a double line before the State House and demanded that some members of the Council come out to confer with him. When Colonel Spencer and Colonel Cole appeared he told them he had come for a commission. Then he said that the people would not submit to taxes to pay for the proposed new army. And his men shouted: "No levies! No levies!"

At this juncture Berkeley rushed out, gesticulating wildly and denouncing Bacon to his face as a traitor.

Then he threw back his coat and shouted: "Here, shoot me, 'fore God, fair mark, shoot."

Bacon replied that he would not hurt a hair of his head. They had come for a commission to save their lives from the Indians, which had so