Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/141

 still on a friendly footing, although suspected; and when nearly out of provisions, Bacon and his company approached one of their forts and requested a supply. Having been kept waiting for three days, until their necessity became extreme, the English waded the stream in order to compel their acquiescence : a shot was discharged from the shore they had just left, which induced Bacon to attack the fort, and put a hundred and fifty Indians to the sword. This, at least, is said to be his own account.

Governor Berkeley, having gathered a body of troops, proceeded to march after Bacon and his men, but his progress was arrested by disturbances in the lower counties. His own authority in the capital passed out of his hands; the old Assembly was dissolved; and Bacon was one among the newly elected burgesses; but, having ventured to approach Jamestown in a sloop with armed followers, he was apprehended and compelled very humbly to beg pardon for his mutinous conduct. The Assembly proceeded directly, so soon as possible, to restore the franchise to the freemen, and to endeavor to effect needed reforms in almost every department.

Bacon, though pardoned and restored to his seat in the council, soon after secretly left Jamestown, and in a few days, having got together some four hundred of his adherents from the upper counties, suddenly made his appearance in the town. His demands had to be listened to, although the fiery old governor, it is said, tore open his dress, and exposing his naked breast, exclaimed, "Here, shoot me! 'Fore God! fair mark! shoot!" But Bacon, not giving way to excitement, replied, "No, may it please your honor, we will not hurt a hair of your head, nor of any other man's—we are come for a commission to save our lives from the Indians, which you have so often promised, and now well have it before we go." The insurgents also made the same demand, accompanied by menaces in case of refusal, against the Assembly itself, who, thus threatened, and with many among them the warm partisans of Bacon, were content enough to give way before the popular movement, and to compel the governor, though sorely against his will, to yield, and also to appoint Bacon to the command of the forces sent against the Indians. This point being settled, the Assembly proceeded to enact many salutary reforms, popularly known as "Bacon's Laws," all tending to abate the exorbitant pretensions of the aristocratic party, and to restore to the mass of the people the privileges of which they had been deprived. These laws, though afterwards abrogated in a mass by the government at home, were, the most important of them, reenacted, in nearly the same words, by succeeding Assemblies.

But there was yet a further struggle between the contending parties. Hardly had Bacon set out on his work of subduing the Indians, before Berkeley issued a proclamation denouncing Bacon as a rebel, setting a price on his head, and commanding his followers to disperse. Indignant at this treatment, Bacon immediately retraced his steps,