often been promised.

The Burgesses hearing the noise below, crowded to the windows. But they drew back when the soldiers pointed their fusils at them, calling out: "We will have it. We will have it." One of the Burgesses called back: "For God's sake hold your hands; forbear a little and you shall have what you please."

After walking up and down before the State House for some time, muttering threats and "new coined oaths," Bacon mounted the steps to the Long Room, where the Burgesses sat, and demanded a commission to lead a force out against the Indians. One of them told him that governor alone had the right to grant a commission. But when he left they sent a message to Sir William advising him to issue the commission. The Council, too, pointing out that he and they were in Bacon's power, added their voices. At last, though with intense bitterness, he yielded.

But new humiliations awaited him. He was forced to write the King justifying Bacon's conduct, sign blank commissions for Bacon's officers, and imprison some of his most loyal friends. So long as it did not concern "life and limb" he was willing to do anything to be rid of him.

In his determination to secure a commission Bacon did not neglect the matter of reform. When Berkeley suggested that they decide their controversy by a duel with swords, he replied that "he came for redress of the people's grievances." In the Assembly he "pressed hard, nigh an hour's harangue on preserving our lives from the Indians, inspecting the revenues, the exorbitant taxes, and redressing the grievances and calamities of that deplorable country." After this impassioned plea he must have been greatly surprised when the Assembly told him "that they had already redressed their grievances." Since, had the so-called Bacon's Laws been passed while he was sitting in the Council he would have known it, they must have been rushed through during the brief period between his flight from Jamestown and his return.

It will be helpful to recall the situation in the little capital at the time. With hundreds of enraged frontiersmen "within a day's journey", with no force which could be trusted to oppose them, the governor and his friends were in a state of panic. Even before Bacon's escape Ludwell wrote: "We have all the reason in the world to suspect their designs are ruinous." And now, with Bacon back at their head to tell them of his humiliation and report that he still had no commission, Berkeley feared the worst. Then came the certain information that Bacon was marching on the town.

Obviously the Assembly and the governor rushed Bacon's Laws through in a desperate, last minute attempt to appease Bacon and his men. When the governor affixed his signature he must have been almost within hearing distance of the tramp of armed men. And it is significant that both the governor and the Assembly wished to have the laws read before Bacon's men "for their satisfaction." That Bacon, who was in no humor to be appeased, refused to permit this, is no indication that he did not heartily approve of the laws.

We do not know who drew up Bacon's Laws. It may have been Lawrence and Drummond, who introduced them through some ally in the House. It may have been Bacon's neighbor, Thomas Blayton, whom Colonel Edward Hill afterwards called "Bacon's great engine" in the Assembly. It may have been James Minge, clerk of the Assembly, "another [of] Bacon's great friends in forming the laws." More probably it was the committee on grievances. But whoever drew them up, whoever introduced them, most of the credit goes to Bacon. They were aimed at the abuses he repeatedly denounced, they were passed in an Assembly which Bacon had incited the people to demand and which Berkeley declared overwhelmingly pro-Bacon, and signed under the threat of Bacon's armed forces.

Although the governor and the King both voided Bacon's Laws and the Assembly of February 1677 repealed them, they constitute a landmark in the development of self-government in Virginia. They broadened the franchise by giving the right to vote to all freemen; they gave the voters representation in the county courts in assessing taxes; they put an end to self-perpetuating vestries; they fixed the fees of sheriffs, collectors, and other officials; they made it illegal for sheriffs to serve more than one year at a time; no person could hold two of the offices of sheriff, clerk of the court, surveyor, or escheator at the same time; members of the Council were barred from sitting on the county courts.

It was long recognized in both England and America that liberty is grounded on the principle that no man's money can be taken from him without his own consent. Yet local taxes in Virginia, which often exceeded those voted by the Assembly, were assessed by the county courts made up of the governor's appointees. The self-perpetuating vestries also had the right to tax, for they levied the parish charges. Thus Bacon's Laws struck at an exceedingly dangerous abuse. The use of fees to raise money without the consent of the voters was a source of bitter controversy between the governors and the people for many decades to come, a controversy which culminated in the celebrated case of the pistole fee which got Governor Dinwiddie into so much trouble. The restricting of local officers to one office at a time struck a blow at Berkeley's system of government by placemen. But the laws did not include an act to prohibit officeholders from sitting in the Assembly. This would have gone to the root of the trouble, but it was too much to expect the governor to assent to it even with Bacon and his infuriated men marching on Jamestown. In fact, this step was taken only more than half a century later.

Bacon now began preparations for the Indian campaign. Riding from one county to another he gathered armed bands, appointed their officers, and sent them off to the falls of the James. Arms, ammunition, and stores were sent up the rivers in sloops. The well-to-do planters were angered when their horses and corn were taken for the expedition, but at any show of resistance they were threatened and intimidated. One of Bacon's men told John Mann, "with many fearful oaths, as God damn his blood, sink him and rot him, he would ruin him."

It was late in July when Bacon drew up his army of seven hundred horse and six hundred foot. Riding out before them, he made a brief address. He assured them of his loyalty to the King, and that it was "the cries of his brethren's blood" that induced him to secure his commission. He then took the oath of allegiance, and required the men to swear fidelity to him as their general. Then they broke ranks for the night, expecting the next day to march.

At that moment word arrived that Berkeley was busy raising forces with which to attack them in the rear. This forced Bacon to change all his plans. After the rebels had left for the frontier, the Governor, realizing that the sentiment of the colony was overwhelmingly against him, at first had made no attempt to resist him. But Philip Ludwell and Robert Beverley drew up a petition in the name of the people of Gloucester, stating that Bacon had stripped them of arms and asking the governor to protect them. Although "not five persons knew about it," Berkeley accepted it as a call to action. "This petition is most willingly granted," he wrote. It was his duty to protect the King's loyal subjects. Bacon's commission was illegal, he added, since it had been extracted by force.

In a spirit of elation he rode over to Gloucester and sent out a call for the militia to assemble. But when they learned that they were expected to fight against Bacon, the popular hero, they demurred. "For Bacon at that time was so much the hope and darling of the people that the governor's interest proved but weak and his friends so very few that he grew sick of