Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/140

116 whole colony to Lord Culpepper and Lord Arlington, two rapacious courtiers whom it was necessary to satisfy. Fresh taxes and levies were the consequence of measures taken to see if these new claimants could not be bought off. Colonel Moryson, Secretary Ludwell, and General Smith were dispatched to England on this business, and the governor and Assembly took the opportunity to solicit a royal charter. Their petition was granted, but delays having occurred in the charter passing the seals, its progress was finally cut short by news of a rebellion which had broken out in Virginia.

The immediate occasion of this popular outbreak was an Indian war: the man who presented himself as a leader was Nathaniel Bacon. Virginia, it will be remembered, had suffered too deeply from the treacherous outbreaks of the Indians, not to be predisposed, even after an interval of thirty years' peace, to take the worst view of their character and intentions, which the war with Philip of Pokanoket, then raging in Massachusetts, could not fail to strengthen. The Senecas had attacked and driven the Susquehannahs upon the frontiers of Maryland, with which State a war had arisen, in which the neighboring Virginians became involved. Certain outrages of the Indians had been resented by the planters, among others by one named John Washington, who had emigrated some years back from the north of England, and became the founder of that family from which, a century later, sprung the illustrious father of his country. He had collected a body of his neighbors, besieged an Indian fort, and unhappily put to death six envoys sent forth to treat of a reconciliation; an outrage met on the part of the savages by the usual retaliation of murder, pillage, and incendiarism. The Assembly undertook to provide for the present emergency by a very elaborate but ruinously expensive system of forts and levies of troops to protect the country. Additional dissatisfaction was the consequence; the whole arrangement was stigmatized as absurd and oppressive; and active and energetic operations were loudly demanded. Bacon was among the most earnest complainants. In the vigor of early manhood, educated in the Temple, of good address, and influential connections, he declared his determination to act on his own authority should a commission, which he had requested, be denied him.

The people generally were in a high state of excitement, when the news arrived that the Indians had broken in upon Bacon's plantation and murdered some of his servants. He instantly flew to arms; and, being joined by some five or six hundred men, set off in pursuit of the enemy. The governor looking upon this proceeding as an insult to his authority, proclaimed Bacon as a rebel, deprived him of his seat in the council, and called upon all those who respected his own authority to disperse immediately. Some of the less zealous of the insurgents obeyed the summons and returned to their homes; but this defection did not restrain their leader, who pushed forward in hot pursuit of the Indians. Some bodies of these were