History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 25

Bacon also issued proclamations, commanding all men in the land, in case of the arrival of the forces expected from England, to join his standard and to retire into the wilderness, and resist the troops, until they should agree to treat of an accommodation of the dispute.

There was a gentleman in Virginia, Giles Bland, only son of John Bland, an eminent London merchant, who was personally known to the king, and had a considerable interest at court. He was, as has been seen, also a generous friend of Virginia. His brother, Theodorick Bland, sometime a merchant at Luars, in Spain, came over to Virginia in 1654, where, settling at Westover, upon James River, in Charles City County, he died, in April, 1671, aged forty-five years, and was buried in the chancel of the church, which he built, and gave, together with ten acres of land, a court-house and prison for the county and parish. He lies buried in the Westover churchyard between two of his friends, the church having long since fallen down. He was of the king's council and speaker of the house of burgesses, and was, in fortune and understanding, inferior to no man of his time in the country. He married Ann, daughter of Richard Bennet, sometime governor of the colony.[304:A] When John Bland sent out his son Giles Bland to Virginia to take possession of the estate of his uncle Theodorick, he got him appointed collector-general of the customs. The governors had hitherto held this office, and it was in 1676 that a collector of the revenue was first sent over from England under parliamentary sanction, and it is therefore probable that the appointment of Bland diminished the perquisites of Governor Berkley.

Giles Bland, in his capacity of collector, had a right to board any vessel whenever he might think it proper. He was a man of talents, education, courage, and haughty bearing, and having before quarrelled with the governor, now sided warmly with Bacon. There happened to be lying in York River a vessel of sixteen guns, commanded by a Captain Laramore, and Bland went on board of her with a party of armed men, under pretence of searching for contraband goods, and seizing the captain, confined him in the cabin. Laramore, discovering Bland's designs, resolved to deceive him in his turn, and entered into his measures with such apparent sincerity that he was restored to the command of his vessel. With her, another vessel of four guns, under Captain Carver, and a sloop, Bland, now appointed Bacon's lieutenant-general, sailed with two hundred and fifty men for Accomac, and after capturing another vessel, appeared off Accomac with four sail.

This peninsula, separated from the main land of Virginia by the wide Chesapeake Bay, was then hardly accessible by land, owing to the great distance and the danger of Indians. The position was therefore geographically advantageous for the fugitive governor; but as yet few of the inhabitants had rallied to his standard. They indeed shared in the general disaffection, and availed themselves of this occasion to lay their grievances before Sir William Berkley, who found himself unable to redress his own. Some of the inhabitants of the Eastern Sh.o.r.e at this time were engaged in committing depredations on the estates of the planters on the other side of the bay, just as the adherents of Lord Dunmore acted a century afterwards. Upon the appearance of Bland and his little squadron, Sir William Berkley, having not a single vessel to defend him, was overwhelmed with despair; but at this juncture he received a note from Laramore, offering, if he would send him some a.s.sistance, to deliver Bland, with all his men, prisoners into his hands. The governor, having no high opinion of Laramore, suspected that his note might be only a bait to entrap him; but upon advising with his friend Colonel Philip Ludwell, he knowing Laramore and having a good opinion of him, counselled the governor to accept the offer as the best alternative now left him, and gallantly undertook to engage in the enterprise at the hazard of his life. Sir William consenting, Ludwell, with twenty-six well-armed men, appeared at the appointed time alongside of Laramore's vessel. Laramore was prepared to receive the loyalists, and Ludwell boarded her without the loss of a man, and soon after captured the other vessels. According to T. M.'s Account, Captain Carver was at this time, upon Sir William's invitation, holding an interview with him on sh.o.r.e. Bland, Carver, and the other chiefs were sent to the governor, and the rest of the prisoners secured on board of the vessels.

Bland's expedition appears to have been very badly managed, and the drunkenness of his men probably rendered his party so easy a prey.[306:A] The greater part of the prisoners screened themselves from punishment by entering into the governor's service. When Laramore waited on the governor, he clasped him in his arms, called him his deliverer, and gave him a large share of his favor. In a few days the brave old Carver was hanged on the Accomac sh.o.r.e. Sir William Berkley afterwards described him as "a valiant man and stout seaman, miraculously delivered into my hand." Sir Henry Chicheley, the chief of the council, who, with several other gentlemen, was a prisoner in Bacon's hands, afterwards exclaimed against this act of the governor as most rash and cruel, and he expected, at the time, to be executed in the same manner by way of retaliation. Bland was put in irons and badly treated, as it was reported.

Captain Gardner, sailing from the James River, went to the governor's relief with his own vessel, the Adam and Eve, and ten or twelve sloops, which he had collected upon hearing of Bland's expedition. Sir William Berkley, by this unexpected turn of affairs, raised from the abyss of despair to the pinnacle of hope, resolved to push his success still further. With Laramore's vessel and Gardner's, and sixteen or seventeen sloops, and a motley band of six hundred, or, according to another account, one thousand men in arms, "rogues and royalists," the governor returned in triumph to Jamestown, September 7th, 1676, where, falling on his knees, he returned thanks to G.o.d, and again proclaimed Bacon and his adherents rebels and traitors. There were now in Jamestown nine hundred Baconites, as they had come to be styled, under command of Colonel Hansford, commissioned by Bacon. Berkley sent in a summons for surrender of the town, with offer of pardon to all except Drummond and Lawrence. Upon this, all of them retired to their homes except Hansford, Lawrence, Drummond, and a few others, who made for the head of York River, in quest of Bacon, who had returned to that quarter.

During these events Bacon was executing his designs against the Indians.

As soon as he had dispatched Bland to Accomac, he crossed the James River at his own house, at Curles, and surprising the Appomattox Indians, who lived on both sides of the river of that name, a little below the falls, (now Petersburg,) he burnt their town, killed a large number of the tribe, and dispersed the rest.[307:A] Burk[307:B] places this battle or ma.s.sacre on b.l.o.o.d.y Run, a small stream emptying into the James at Richmond, but he refers to no authority, and probably had none better than a loose tradition. The Appomattox Indians, it appears, occupied both sides of the river in question, and it is altogether improbable that Indians still inhabited the north bank of the James River near Curles. Besides, if they had still inhabited that side, it would have been unnecessary to cross the James before commencing the attack. Curles was a proper point for crossing the James with a view of attacking the Indians on the Appomattox.

From the falls of the Appomattox, Bacon traversed the country to the southward, destroying many towns on the banks of the Nottoway, the Meherrin, and the Roanoke. His name had become so formidable, that the natives fled everywhere before him, and having nothing to subsist upon, save the spontaneous productions of the country, several tribes perished, and they who survived were so reduced as to be never afterwards able to make any firm stand against the Long-knives, and gradually became tributary to them.

FOOTNOTES:

[294:A] Hening, ii. 606.

[294:B] Breviarie and Conclusion, in Burk, ii. 250. T. M. calls him Blayton.

[296:A] Hening, ii. 363.

[297:A] Hening, ii. 341, 365.

[299:A] Burk, ii. 268.

[299:B] Narrative of Indian and Civil Wars, 14.

[300:A] Burk, ii. 261.

[300:B] T. M. says: "Bacon calls a convention at Middle Plantation, fifteen miles from Jamestown."

[301:A] Narrative of Indian and Civil Wars, 18.

[302:A] Bancroft, ii. 136; Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, ii. 519, in note.

[303:A] Beverley, B. i. 74.

[304:A] Bland Papers, i. 148.

[306:A] Bacon's Proceedings, 20; Force's Hist. Tracts, i.

[307:A] History of Bacon's Rebellion, in Va. Gazette for 1769.

[307:B] Burk, ii. 176.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

1676.

Bacon Marches back upon Jamestown--Singular Stratagem-- Berkley's Second Flight--Jamestown Burnt--Bacon proceeds to Gloucester to oppose Brent--Bacon dies--Circ.u.mstances of his Death and Burial--His Father an Author--Marriage and Fortune of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr.--His Widow.

BACON, having exhausted his provisions, had dismissed the greater part of his forces before Lawrence, Drummond, Hansford, and the other fugitives from Jamestown joined him. Upon receiving intelligence of the governor's return, Bacon, collecting a force variously estimated at one hundred and fifty, three hundred, and eight hundred, harangued them on the situation of affairs, and marched back upon Jamestown, leading his Indian captives in triumph before him. The contending parties came now to be distinguished by the names of Rebels and Royalists. Finding the town defended by a palisade ten paces in width, running across the neck of the peninsula, he rode along the work, and reconnoitred the governor's position. Then, dismounting from his horse, he animated his fatigued men to advance at once, and, leading them close to the palisade, sounded a defiance with the trumpet, and fired upon the garrison. The governor remained quiet, hoping that want of provisions would soon force Bacon to retire; but he supplied his troops from Sir William Berkley's seat, at Greenspring, three miles distant. He afterwards complained that "his dwelling-house at Greenspring was almost ruined; his household goods, and others of great value, totally plundered; that he had not a bed to lie on; two great beasts, three hundred sheep, seventy horses and mares, all his corn and provisions, taken away."

Bacon adopted a singular stratagem, and one hardly compatible with the rules of chivalry. Sending out small parties of horse, he captured the wives of several of the princ.i.p.al loyalists then with the governor, and among them the lady of Colonel Bacon, Sr., Madame Bray, Madame Page, and Madame Ballard. Upon their being brought into the camp, Bacon sends one of them into Jamestown to carry word to their husbands that his purpose was to place their wives in front of his men in case of a sally.[309:A]

Colonel Ludwell[309:B] reproaches the rebels with "ravis.h.i.+ng of women from their homes, and hurrying them about the country in their rude camps, often threatening them with death." But, according to another and more impartial authority,[309:C] Bacon made use of the ladies only to complete his battery, and removed them out of harm's way at the time of the sortie. He raised by moonlight a circ.u.mvallation of trees, earth, and brush-wood, around the governor's outworks. At daybreak next morning the governor's troops, being fired upon, made a sortie; but they were driven back, leaving their drum and their dead behind them. Upon the top of the work which he had thrown up, and where alone a sally could be made, Bacon exhibited the captive ladies to the views of their husbands and friends in the town, and kept them there until he completed his works. The peninsula of Jamestown is formed by the James River on the south, and a deep creek on the north encircling it within ten paces of the river. This island, for it is so styled, is about two miles long, east and west, and one mile broad. It is low, consisting mainly of marshes and swamps, and in consequence very unhealthy. There are no springs, and the water of the wells is brackish. Jamestown stood along the river bank about three-quarters of a mile, containing a church, and some sixteen or eighteen well-built brick houses. The population of this diminutive metropolis consisted of about a dozen families, (for all of the houses were not inhabited,) "getting their living by keeping of ordinaries at extraordinary rates."

Bacon, after completing his works, in which he was much a.s.sisted by the conspicuous white ap.r.o.ns of the ladies, now mounted a small battery of two or three cannon, according to some commanding the s.h.i.+pping, but not the town, according to others commanding both. Sir William Berkley had three great guns planted at the distance of about one hundred and fifty paces. But such was the cowardice of his motley crowd of followers, the bulk of them mere spoilsmen, "rogues and royalists," intent only on the plunder of forfeited estates promised them by "his honor," that although superior to Bacon's force in time, place, and numbers, yet out of six hundred of them, only twenty gentlemen were found willing to stand by him. So great was their fear, that in two or three days after the sortie they embarked in the night with all the town people and their goods, and leaving the guns spiked, weighing anchor secretly, and dropping silently down the river; retreating from a force inferior in number, and which, during a rainy week of the sickliest season, had been exposed, lying in open trenches, to far more hards.h.i.+p and privation than themselves. At the dawn of the following day, Bacon entered, where he found empty houses, a few horses, two or three cellars of wine, a small quant.i.ty of Indian-corn, "and many tanned hides." It being determined that it should be burned, so that the "rogues should harbor there no more," Lawrence and Drummond, who owned two of the best houses, set fire to them in the evening with their own hands, and the soldiers, following their example, laid in ashes Jamestown, including the church, the first brick one erected in the colony. Sir William Berkley and his people beheld the flames of the conflagration from the vessels riding at anchor, about twenty miles below.

Bacon now marched to York River, and crossed at Tindall's (Gloucester) Point, in order to encounter Colonel Brent, who was marching against him from the Potomac, with twelve hundred men. But the greater part of his men, hearing of Bacon's success, deserting their colors declared for him, "resolving with the Persians, to go and wors.h.i.+p the rising sun."[310:A] Bacon, making his headquarters at Colonel Warmer's, called a convention in Gloucester, and administered the oath to the people of that county, and began to plan another expedition against the Indians, or, as some report, against Accomac, when he fell sick of a dysentery brought on by exposure. Retiring to the house of a Dr. Pate, and, lingering for some weeks, he died. Some of the loyalists afterwards reported that he died of a loathsome disease, and by a visitation of G.o.d; which is disproven by T. M.'s Account, by that published in the Virginia Gazette, and by the Report of the King's Commissioners. Some of Bacon's friends suspected that he was taken off by poison; but of this there is no proof. In his last hours he requested the a.s.sistance of a minister named Wading, whom he had arrested not long before for his opposition to the taking of the oath in Gloucester, telling him that "it was his place to preach in the church, and not in the camp."

The place of Bacon's interment has never been discovered, it having been concealed by his friends, lest his remains should be insulted by the vindictive Berkley, in whom old age appears not to have mitigated the fury of the pa.s.sions. According to one tradition, in order to screen Bacon's body from indignity, stones were laid on his coffin by his friend Lawrence, as was supposed; according to others, it was conjectured that his body had been buried in the bosom of the majestic York where the winds and the waves might still repeat his requiem:--

"While none shall dare his obsequies to sing In deserved measures; until time shall bring Truth crowned with freedom, and from danger free, To sound his praises to posterity."[311:A]

Lord Chatham, in his letters addressed to his nephew, the Earl of Camelford, advises him to read "Nathaniel Bacon's Historical and Political Observations, which is, without exception, the best and most instructive book we have on matters of that kind." This book, though at present little known, formerly enjoyed a high reputation. It is written with a very evident bias to the principles of the parliamentary party, to which Bacon adhered. It was published in 1647, again in 1651, secretly reprinted in 1672, and again in 1682, for which edition the publisher was indicted and outlawed. The author was probably related to the great Lord Bacon.[312:A] Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., came over to Virginia about the year 1672, when the third edition of that work was secretly reprinted in England. In the quarto edition the author, Nathaniel Bacon, is said to have been of Gray's Inn. It was published during the Protectorate. He appears probably to have been, in Oliver Cromwell's time, recorder of the borough of Ipswich, and to have lived at Freston, near Saxmundham, in Suffolk. His son, Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., styled the Rebel, married, against the consent of his father, who violently exhibited his disapprobation, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Duke, and sister to Sir John Duke, of Benhill-lodge, near Saxmundham. Ray, who set out upon his travels into foreign parts in 1663, says he was accompanied by Mr. Willoughby, Sir Philip Skippon, and Mr. Nathaniel Bacon, "a hopeful young gentleman."[312:B] He owned lands in England of the yearly value of one hundred and fifty pounds; and after his marriage, being straitened for money, he applied to Sir Robert Jason for a.s.sistance, conveyed the lands to him for twelve hundred pounds sterling,[312:C] and removed with his wife to Virginia. Dying, he left Elizabeth a widow, and children. She afterwards married in Virginia Thomas Jervis, a merchant, who lived in Elizabeth City County, on the west side of Hampton River,[312:D] and upon his death she became his executrix, and in 1684 claimed her jointure out of the lands sold to Jason, under a settlement thereof made by Bacon on his marriage, in consideration of her portion.[312:E] Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., was cousin to Thomas, Lord Culpepper,[312:F] subsequently governor of Virginia. Jervis appears to have been owner of a vessel, the "Betty," (so called after his wife,) in which Culpepper sailed from Virginia for Boston, August 10th, 1680. Elizabeth, relict of Jervis, married third a Mr. Mole. There are, at the present day, persons in Virginia of the name of Bacon, who claim to be lineal descendants of the rebel.

FOOTNOTES:

[309:A] Mrs. Cotton's Letter.

[309:B] Letter in Chalmers' Annals, 349.

[309:C] Narrative of Indian and Civil Wars.

[310:A] Mrs. Cotton's Letter.

[311:A] Extract from verses on his death, attributed to a servant, or attendant, who was with him in his last moments, and ent.i.tled "Bacon's Epitaph made by his Man." (_Force's Hist. Tracts_, i.)

[312:A] Hist. Magazine, i. 216.

[312:B] Ibid., i. 125.

[312:C] Hening, ii. 374.

[312:D] Ibid., ii. 472.

[312:E] Vernon's Reports, i. 284.

[312:F] Va. Hist. Reg., iii. 190.