Indians without special permission from the Governor, and were only a new burden upon the people. The building of the forts may have been an honest (though unwise and insufficient) attempt at protection of the colony, but the people would not believe it. They saw in them only expensive "mousetraps," for whose bait they were to pay, while they were sure that the shrewd Indians would continue their outrages without coming dangerously near such easily avoided snares. They declared that, scattered about as the forts were, they gave no more protection than so many extra plantations with men in them; that their erection was "a great grievance, juggle and cheat," and only "a design of the grandees to engross all of the tobacco into their own hands." In their indignation the planters vowed that rather than pay taxes to support the forts they would plant no more tobacco.

So often had the Governor of Virginia mocked them with fair but unfulfilled promises, so often temporized and parried

words with them while their lives were in jeopardy and the terror-stricken cries of their wives and children were sounding "grievous and intolerable" in their ears, that those whom he was in honor bound to protect had lost all faith in him and all hope of obtaining any relief from him or his Assembly. Finally, as Sir William Berkeley would not send his forces against the murderers, the suffering planters resolved to take matters into their own hands and to raise forces amongst themselves, only they first humbly craved of him the sanction of his commission for any commanders whom he should choose to lead them in defense of their "lives and estates, which without speedy prevention, lie liable to the injury of such insulting enemies." The petitioners assured Sir William that they had no desire to "make any disturbance or put the country to any charge," but with characteristic lack of sympathy he bluntly refused to grant their request and forbade a repetition of it, "under great penalty."

The people's fears and discontent steadily

increased. It seemed more and more evident that Governor Berkeley was protecting their murderous enemies for his own gain, for (they charged) after having prohibited all traffic with the Indians, he had, privately, given commission to some of his friends to truck with them, and these favorites had supplied them with the very arms and ammunition that were intended for the protection of the colonists against their savagery. The red men were thus better provided with arms than his Majesty's subjects, who had "no other ingredients" from which to manufacture munitions of war but "prayers and misspent intreaties, which having vented to no purpose, and finding their condition every whit as bad, if not worse, than before the forts were made," they resolved to cease looking to the Governor for aid and to take the steps that seemed to them necessary for defense and preservation of themselves and those dear to them. In other words, since their petition for a commission to march against the Indians was denied them, they would march without a commission, thus venturing

not only their lives, but the tyrannical old Governor's displeasure for the sake of their firesides.

With this end in view, the dwellers in the neighborhood of Merchant's Hope Plantation, in Charles City County, on James River, began to "beat up drums for Volunteers to go out against the Indians, and soe continued Sundry dayes drawing into Armes." The magistrates, either for fear or favor, made no attempt to prevent "soe dangerous a beginning & going on," and a commander and head seemed all that was needed to perfect the design and lead it on to success.

Such, then, was the condition of the little colony which had struggled and hoped and hoped and struggled again, until now hope seemed to have withdrawn her light altogether, and a despairing struggle to be all that was left.

IV.

ENTER, MR. BACON.

Throughout all history of all lands, at the supreme moment when any country whatsoever has seemed to stand in suspense debating whether to give itself over to despair or to gather its energies for one last blow at oppression, the mysterious star of destiny has seemed to plant itself—a fixed star—above the head of some one man who has been (it may be) raised up for the time and the need, and who has appeared, under that star's light, to have more of the divine in him than his brother mortals. To him other men turn as to a savior, vowing to follow his guidance to the death; upon his head women call down Heaven's blessings, while in their hearts they enshrine him as something akin to a god. Oftentimes such men fall far short of their

aims, yet their failures are like to be more glorious than common victories. The star that led them on in life does not desert them in death—it casts a tender glow upon their memory, and through the tears of those who would have laid down their lives for them it takes on the softened radiance of the martyr's crown.

Other times and other countries have had their leaders, their heroes, their martyrs—Virginia, in 1676, had her Nathaniel Bacon.

This young man was said to be a "gentleman of no obscure family." He was, indeed, a cousin of Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., the highly esteemed president of the Virginia Council of State, who remained loyal to the government during the rebellion against Sir William Berkeley's rule, and is said to have offered to make his belligerent relative his heir if he would remain loyal, too. The first of the family of whom anything is known was Robert Bacon, of Drinkstone, who married Isabella Cage and had two sons, one of whom was Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and father of the great Lord Bacon; and the other James

Bacon, Alderman of London, who died in 1573. Alderman Bacon's son, Sir James Bacon, of Friston Hall, married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Francis Bacon, of Hessett, and had two sons, James Bacon, Rector of Burgate (father of President Nathaniel, of Virginia), and Nathaniel Bacon, of Friston Hall, who married Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas De Grasse, of Norfolk, England, and died in 1644. Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bacon were the parents of Thomas Bacon, of Friston, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Brooke, of Yexford. Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., styled "the Rebel," was their son.

This Nathaniel Bacon was born on January 2, 1647, at Friston Hall, and was educated at Cambridge University—entering St. Catherine's College there in his fourteenth year and taking his A.M. degree in his twenty-first. In the mean time he had seen "many Forraigne Parts," having set out with Ray, the naturalist; Skipton, and a party of gentlemen, in April, 1663, upon "a journey made through part of the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, France." A

quaint account of all they saw, written by Skippon, may be found in "Churchill's Voyages." In 1664 young Bacon entered Grey's Inn. In 1674 he was married to Mistress Elizabeth Duke, daughter of Sir Edward Duke, and in that year his history becomes a subject of interest to Virginians, for in the autumn or winter he set sail with his bride, in a ship bound for Jamestown, to make or mar his fortune in a new world. The young couple soon made a home for themselves at "Curles Neck," some twenty miles below the site afterward chosen by Colonel William Byrd for the city of Richmond, and about forty miles above Jamestown. This plantation afterward became famous in Virginia as one of the seats of the Randolph family. Bacon had a second plantation, which he