University of Virginia Library

XXXV.

SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY.

XXXV. Governor.

XXXV. December 23, 1662, to April 27, 1677.

By the foregoing it will be seen that Governor Berkeley
now entered upon his fourth term of office in Virginia. He
had fostered the Colony in its infancy, and during his rule,
though it had seen many changes, it had steadily advanced
in the path of prosperity. But clouds were rising to burst
in fury on the venerable Governor's path. The low price of
tobacco, and the ill-treatment of the planters in the exchange
of goods for it; the splitting of the Colony into proprietaries,
contrary to the original charters, the heavy restraints and
burdens laid upon their trade by Act of Parliament, and
last, though not least, the troubles with the unsleeping Indian
foe; all these wrongs stirred the souls of many Virginia
Fathers, who were soon to show their discontent in that
historic period known as "Bacon's Rebellion." This suffering
time, which cost much blood and treasure, which broke
up the local government for a time, and laid the first-born city

of the Western Wild in ashes, was in the end a blessing to
the people. Nathaniel Bacon perished, but not before he had,
by valor unsurpassed, defied tyrannic power and destroyed
forever, the Indian Empire in Virginia.

"Bacon's Quarter Branch" and "Bloody Run" have
their own imperishable story.

But around the death of Nathaniel Bacon mystery has
always hung. No circumstantial details of the event have been
preserved, and though historians have ascribed his untimely
"taking off" to cold and great fatigue from arduous duties,
still there has ever lurked suspicion that he fell by the hand
of an assassin employed by the government. When we consider
the instructions of the King to Governor Berkeley, that
Bacon was to be taken at all hazards, that both force and
design were to be employed, it gives a terrible significance to
the following words, Act I., General Assemblie, June 8, 1680:
"until it pleased the Almighty to send him, the said Bacon,
an infamous and exemplary death."[488]

There were two persons living at this time who bore the
name of Nathaniel Bacon. The elder was a friend and follower
of Governor Berkeley; the younger was the heroic spirit
who headed the Rebellion. These two men were cousins,
but this did not prevent the elder Bacon from persecuting to
"the bitter end" the men whom he termed "rebels."

Yet more bloody than Bloody Run was Berkeley's vengeance
upon the men who had driven him from his citadel a
refugee and had refused obedience to his arbitrary laws. His
thirst for blood increased with what it fed on, and in the
language of an ancient Burgess, "He would have hanged half
the country if he had been let alone." The King himself,
horrified at the cruelty of Berkeley, exclaimed, "That old fool
has hanged more men in that naked country than I have done
here for the murder of my father."

So closed in deep dishonor a career which opened with such
fair promises of usefulness and virtuous example. Berkeley
had been loved and venerated for many years, but he was not

born for trial, and when the supreme hour broke upon him
he greatly fell!

Scorned and execrated in Virginia, he turned to his King
and to his native land for recognition and for favor. The one
refused him admittance to the Court, and in the other was
no one found to do the old man reverence. Crushed, yet proud,
he turned aside to lay him down and die. Let us devoutly
hope, that standing before the Great and Last Tribunal, he
met with Divine compassion, even though when "clothed with
a little, brief authority" upon earth he had been unmindful of
the sweet promise to the merciful, and had forgotten that
gentlest Virtue, which