Opposition to parliamentary Commissions.

Concession to the Colonists.

Commercial Restrictions. King of Virginia.

who had fled to Virginia, on the death of Charles, for safety, were prepared for their reception. Armed Dutch vessels, lying in the river, were pressed into service; and, although the Virginians had resolved to submit as soon as they perceived the arrival of the fleet, they, like Falstaff, declared they would not do it "on compulsion." This unexpected show of resist ance made the commissioners of Parliament, who were sent out to negotiate, hesitate; and, instead of opening their cannon upon the colonists, they courteously proposed submission to the authority of the Protector, upon terms quite satisfactory to the Virginians. The liberties of the colonists were more fully secured than they had ever been; indeed, they were allowed nearly all those rights which the Declaration of Independence a century and a quarter later charged the King of Great Britain with violating. Until the restoration of monarchy in 1660, Virginia was virtually an independent state; for Cromwell made no appointments for the state, except a governor. On the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, the Virginians were not disposed to acknowledge the authority of Richard, his successor, and they elected Matthews, and afterward Berkeley, to fill the office of governor. Universal suffrage prevailed; all freemen, without exception, were allowed to vote; and servants, when the terms of their bondage ended, became electors, and might be made burgesses.

When the news of the probable restoration of Charles the Second reached Virginia, Berkeley disclaimed the popular sovereignty, proclaimed the exiled monarch, issued writs for an assembly in the name of the king, and the friends of royalty came into power.' High hopes of great favor from the new king were entertained. They were speedily blasted. Commercial restrictions, grafted upon the existing colonial system of the commonwealth, were rigorously enforced. The people murmured, and finally remonstrated, but in vain. The profligate monarch, who seems never to have had a clear perception of right and wrong, but was always guided by the dictates of caprice and passion, gave away to special favorites large tracts of land, some of it cultivated and valuable.' The Royalist party in Virginia soon began to have an evil influence. The Assembly abridged the liberties of the people; the members, elected for only two years, assumed to themselves the right of an indefinite continuance of power, and the representative system was virtually abolished. Intolerance began to grow again, and heavy fines were imposed upon Baptists and Quakers. Taxes were made unequal and oppressive. Loyalty waned; the people learned to despise the very name of king, and open discontent ensued. The common people formed a Republican party, opposed to the aristocracy and the Royalists.

The menaces of the hostile Susquehannas, a fierce tribe on the northern frontier, who had been driven southward by the Five Nations, and were then desolating the remote set

nor printing-press, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged these and libels against the best government." In this last sentence the old bigot courtier uttered one of the most glorious truths which the march of progress has practically developed. Tyranny always fears enlightenment. Napoleon said he was in more dread of one free printing-press than a hundred thousand Austrian bayonets.

Berkeley proclaimed Charles the Second king of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Virginia. Charles was therefore made king in Virginia, by the supreme authorities of the colony, before he actually became so in England. Already, when they were informed that Cromwell was about to send a fleet to reduce them to submission, the Virginians sent, in a small ship, a messenger to Charles, at Breda, in Flanders, to invite him to come over and be King of Virginia. He was on the point of sailing, when he was called to the throne of his father. In gratitude to Virginia, he caused the arms of that province to be quartered with those of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as an independent member of the empire. From this circumstance Virginia received the name of The Old Dominion. Coins with these quarterings were made as late as 1773. The colonial system of all kingdoms has uniformly been to make the industry of colonists tributary to the aggrandizement of the parent country. The Navigation Act, which, down to the time of our Revolution, was a fruitful source of complaint, was now rigorously applied, and new and more stringent provisions added to it. Under it, no commodities could be imported into any British settlement, nor exported from them, except in English vessels; and tobacco, turpentine, and other principal commodities of the colonies, could be shipped to no country except England. The trade between the colonies was also taxed for the benefit of the imperial treasury, and in various other ways the colonies were made dependent on the mother country. 3 He gave away to Lord Culpepper and the Earl of Arlington, two of his favorites, "all the dominion of land and water called Virginia," for the space of thirty-one years. Culpepper became governor in 1680.

Indian Hostilities.

"Bacon's Rebellion."

Republican Triumphs.

English Troops.

a May, 1676.

Burning of Jamestown. tlements of Maryland, offered the people an excuse for arming. The Indians hovered nearer and nearer, and committed murders on Virginia soil. The planters, with Nathaniel Bacon, a popular, bold, and talented man, for their leader, demanded of Governor Berkeley the privilege of protecting themselves. Berkeley refused; for he doubtless had sagacity to perceive how the people would thus discover their strength. At length, some people on Bacon's plantation having been killed by the Indians, that gentleman yielded to popular clamor, placed himself at the head of five hundred men, and marched against the invaders. Berkeley, who was jealous of Bacon's popularity, immediately proclaimed him a traitor, a and ordered a body of troops to pursue and arrest him.' Bacon was successful against the Indians, while Berkeley was obliged to recall his troops to put down a rising rebellion in the lower counties. The people generally sympathized with the "traitor." They arose in open insurrection; Berkeley was compelled to yield; the Long Assembly was dissolved, and a new one elected; new laws were granted; universal. suffrage was restored; arbitrary taxation was abolished, and Bacon was appointed commander-in-chief. Berkeley, compelled by the popular will, promised to sign Bacon's commission, but this promise was never fulfilled. Fearing treachery, the latter withdrew to Williamsburg, then called the Middle Plantation, where he assembled five hundred men, and marched to Jamestown, to demand his commission from the governor. It was reluctantly granted; and Berkeley and the Assembly, overawed, attested the bravery and loyalty of Bacon, and on the 4th of July, 1676, just one hundred years before the birth-day of our republic, a more liberal and enlightened legislation commenced in Virginia. "The eighteenth century in Virginia was the child of the seventeenth; and Bacon's rebellion, with the corresponding scenes in Maryland, Carolina, and New England, was the earlier harbinger of American independence and American nationality."

The moment Bacon left Jamestown to confront the invading Indians, Berkeley treacherously and rashly published a proclamation, reversing all the proceedings of the burgesses; again declaring Bacon a traitor, and calling upon the loyal aristocracy to join him. The Indignation of Bacon was fiercely kindled, and, marching back to the capital, he lighted up. a civil war. The property of Berkeley's adherents was confiscated; their wives were seized as hostages; and a general destruction of the plantations of the Royalists ensued. Berkeley and his followers were driven from Jamestown, and sought shelter on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. Bacon became supreme ruler, and, having proclaimed the abdication of Berkeley, he summoned an Assembly in his own name, and prepared to cast off all allegiance to the English crown. When troops came from England to support Berkeley, Bacon and his followers resolved to oppose them.' A rumor reached the capital that a strong party of Royalists, with the imperial troops, were approaching, and, in a council of war, Bacon and his followers resolved to burn Jamestown. The torch was applied just as the night shadows came over the village, and the sun rose the next morning upon the smoking ruins of the first English town built in America. Naught remained standing but a few chimneys and the church tower, that solitary monument which now attracts the eye and heart of the traveler.

1 Nathaniel Bacon was a native of Suffolk. He was educated for the legal profession in London. He went to Virginia, where his high character for virtue and integrity soon procured him a seat in the council. He purchased a plantation not far from the present city of Richmond. Handsome in person, eloquent in speech, and thoroughly accomplished, he acquired great popularity; and when he proposed to lead the young men of the settlement against the murderous Indians, he had many adherents. In defiance of the wrath of the jealous Berkeley, he headed an expedition. The governor proclaimed him a traitor, and his followers rebels. Bacon was successfully beating back the Indians on one side, and the governor's adherents on the other, when death, from a severe disease, closed his career. Had he lived to complete what he had begun, his memory would have been cherished as a patriot, instead of being clouded with the stigma of the insurgent. He died at the house of Dr. Green, in Gloucester county, October 1, 1676.

2 Bancroft, ii., 222.

3 This was the first time that English troops were sent to America to suppress republicanism. The same determined spirit prevailed which, a century later, made all the Anglo-American colonies lift the arm of defiance against the armies and navies of Great Britain, when sent here "to burn our towns, ravage our coasts. and eat out the substance of the people."

Death of Bacon.

1

Vengeance of Berkeley.

His Recall and Death.

Jamestown and its Associations.

Leaving the smoking ruins behind, Bacon pushed forward with his little army to drive the Royalists from Virginia; but the malaria from the low lands infused its poison into his a October, veins, and on the north bank of the York River that brave patriot died.a His 1676. death was a blow of unutterable evil to his followers, for no other man could wear the mantle of his influence. The fugitive governor returned to the Middle Plantation in triumph, and began to wreak his vengeance upon the principal insurgents. Twenty were hanged,' and others were on their way to the gallows, when the Assembly implored that "he would spill no more blood." Berkeley yielded; but the fines, confiscations, and other punishments continued. He ruled with an iron hand, which rule begot him many enemies at home." He was soon recalled, and went to England, but died before he obtained an audience with his king.

3

As briefly as perspicuity would allow, I have sketched the early history of Virginia, iu order to illustrate the gradual development of that spirit of liberty which spoke out so boldly, and acted with so much decision and power there, in the incipient and progressive stages of the War for Independence. We have seen the republican tree spring up and flourish on the banks of the James River, until its branches overspread a wide region, and sheltered thousands of freemen who, a hundred years before our Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, were ready to forswear allegiance to the British monarch, unless he should virtually recognize their sovereignty as a people. In the struggle between monarchy and republicanism, represented by Berkeley and Bacon, we have seen the capital of the new state, after an existence of seventy years, reduced to ashes, never to be restored. For a century and three quarters it has been a desolation. The green grass, the waving corn, and the golden wheat now cover the earth where streets and lanes were trodden by Smith and Gosnold, Newport, Gates and Berkeley, Powhatan and Pocahontas, and a host of Englishmen, whose spirits seem to have taken root in the soil, and multiplied a thousand-fold-whose scattered bones, like dragons teeth sown upon the land, seem to have germinated and sent up full-armed heroes. Nothing remains of the past but this old tower and these broken tombs, among which we have sat while pondering the antecedents of the present. We will close the chronicle for a while, and, taking a glance at later Revolutionary events here, hasten away to Williamsburg-the "Middle Plantation"-the second capital of Virginia.

1 Among those who suffered were Colonel Hansford; Captains Carver, Farlow, and Wilford; Major Cheeseman; William Drummond (former governor of Carolina), and Colonel Richard Lawrence. Colonel Hansford was the first native of Virginia who died on the gallows, and he has been justly termed the first martyr to American liberty. This civil war cost the colony a quarter of a million of dollars.

Afraid of popular enlightenment, Berkeley would not allow a printing-press in Virginia. To speak ill of him, or any of his friends, was punished as a crime by whipping, or a fine; to speak, write, or publish any thing in mitigation or favor of the rebellion or rebels, was made a misdemeanor, and, if thrice repeated, was evidence of treason.-Henning's Statutes of Virginia, ii., 385.

3 Berkeley was much censured in England, and those censures affected him greatly. His brother, Lord Berkeley, declared that the unfavorable report of the commissioners caused the death of Sir William.

N hour before meridian I left the old church-yard at Jamestown, and sauntered along the pebbly shore back to the little punt in which I was to reach the main land. I picked up two or three Jamestown diamonds, and a small brass key of antique form, which lay among the pebbles, and then left that interesting spot, perhaps forever. The day was very warm, and I was glad to get within the shadow of the pine forests which skirt the road almost the whole way from Jamestown to Williamsburg, a distance of four miles and a half. Not a leaf stirred upon the trees, and the silence of solitude prevailed, for the insects had gone to their winter repose, and the birds had finished their summer carols.

A mile and a half from Jamestown, I crossed the Powhatan Creek, a sluggish stream which finds its way into the James River through a fen in the rear of Jamestown Island. On its northern bank, a few yards from the road, are the remains of a fortification, which was thrown up by Cornwallis in the summer of 1781. The embankments and ditches are very prominent. Neighborhood tradition calls them the remnant of Powhatan's fort. In this vicinity two engagements took place between the Royalists and Republicans in June and July, 1781. The first occurred at the forks of the road, one of which makes a circuit to the Chickahominy, the other leads to Williamsburg. The place is known in history as Spencer's Ordinary, from the circumstance that a man named Spencer kept a tavern at the forks. Let us see what the pen of history has recorded.

In the spring of 1781, Cornwallis left Wilmington, in North Carolina, and marched into Virginia, to join the invading forces under Phillips and Arnold at Petersburg. After attempts to capture stores in the heart of Virginia, and finding the forces of La Fayette, Wayne, and Steuben rapidly increasing, the earl thought it prudent to return toward the sea-shore. He accordingly retreated to Richmond, and from thence across the Chickahominy to Williamsburg and Jamestown, and then down the James River to Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk. From the stables and pastures of the planters he took the fine horses which they had refused to Greene,' and well mounted his cavalry. In his retreat he was closely pursued, and greatly annoyed by La Fayette and Wayne, with about four thousand men.' Cornwallis reached Williamsburg on the 25th of June. a Informed that the Americans had some boats and stores on the Chickahominy River, he sent Lieutenantcolonel Simcoe, with his Rangers, and a company of Yagers, under Major Armstrong and Captain Ewald, to destroy them, and to collect all the cattle they could find. La Fayette,

a 1781.

1 Greene, then in command of the Southern army, had left Steuben in Virginia to collect troops, horses, and stores, and send them to him at the South.

There were 2100 regulars, of which number 1500 were veteran troops, who had experienced service at the North.

3 Simcoe found but little to destroy on the Chickahominy, and returning, halted at Dandridge's, within three miles of the Diesckung Creek, a branch of the Chickahominy. The next morning they marched to

Simcoe's Expedition.

Engagement between the advanced Guards of the Belligerents.

Battle at Spencer's Ordinary.

with great circumspection, had kept about a score of miles in the rear of the royal army while pursuing Cornwallis. He was at Tyre's plantation, about twenty miles from Williamsburg, when informed of Simcoe's expedition, and immediately detached Lieutenantcolonel Percival Butler, a brave officer of the Pennsylvania line, to intercept that partisan on his return.1 Butler's detachment consisted of a corps of Continental troops, two rifle corps, under Majors Call and Willis, and about one hundred and twenty horsemen, under Major M Pherson. Simcoe accomplished his purpose without opposition, and was hastening back to Williamsburg with a quantity of cattle procured from the planters, when he was overtaken at Spencer's Ordinary by M Pherson and his dragoons, and a very severe skirmish ensued. Both parties were ignorant of the real strength of each other, and maneuvered with caution. Simcoe believed the whole force of La Fayette to be near, and Butler supposed his detachment was fighting with the advanced guard of Cornwallis's army. The approach of the Americans was first discovered by trumpeter Barney, of the Queen's

Rangers, who was stationed as a vidette on an eminence about half way between Lee's farm and the road along which the patriots were approaching. A body of cavalry, under Captain Shank, were then dismounted at Lee's farm, where they were foraging. Barney galloped toward Spencer's, and this averted the blow which might have fallen fatally upon the dismounted cavalry at Lee's, if they had been seen by the Americans. The latter, perceiving the direction of the vidette's flight, and concluding he was retreating to his corps, pushed on toward Spencer's. The dragoons at Lee's immediately mounted, and, dashing through the wood, made a furious charge upon the right flank of the Americans. In this onset Majcr M Pherson was thrown from his horse by Sergeant Wright of the Rangers, and so severely hurt that he did not again engage in the conflict. The belligerents swept on beyond him, too intent upon battle to stop for prisoners, and his life and liberty were spared.

The infantry and rifle corps under Simcoe were now brought into action. Butler's riflemen had also reached the scene of conflict. The fence on each side of the road had been thrown down by Simcoe early in the morning, to allow greater freedom for his troops. The action became general and fierce within an eighth of a mile of Spencer's. Simcoe soon perceived that he could not win a victory by fair fighting, and turned his attention to stratagem. While Captain Althouse with the

the creek, repaired the bridge sufficiently to pass over, and then utterly destroyed it. They then marched to Cooper's Mills, nearly twenty miles from Williamsburg. Simcoe was anxious concerning his safety, for he could not gain a word of reliable information respecting La Fayette's movements. He promised a great reward to a Whig to go to the marquis's camp and return with information by the next morning, when his detachment should march. The Whig went; but instead of returning with information for Simcoe, he piloted Wayne, with a considerable force, to the place of the Rangers' encampment. The fires were yet burning, but the coveted prize had departed an hour before.-See Simcoe's Military Journal.

Lieutenant-colonel Butler was Morgan's second in command at Saratoga.

NOTE. The letters in the above map have reference as follows: A, American infantry; B, American cavalry; C, the Queen's Rangers halting at the forks of the road; D, the Rangers in line, prepared for attack; E, the cavalry of the Queen's Rangers, foraging at Lee's farm; F, the British cavalry, and B, the American cavalry, contending at the beginning of the battle; G, the Rangers after the battle; and H, I, the line of retreat back to the road near Spencer's; K, trumpeter Barney, when he first discovered the Americans and gave the alarm; L, the Yagers, commanded chiefly by Ewald; M, a three-pounder near Spencer's; N, Captain Althouse with British riflemen.