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and to erect new counties, the presentation to all church- CHAPTER es, and the nomination of sheriffs, escheators, and surveyors. These noblemen had a very bad character for 1673. rapacity. Arlington was one of the king's ministers, and a member of the famous "Cabal." They could have no object in obtaining this grant except to enrich themselves out of the colony. Perhaps they might question existing land-titles, of which some, it is probable, would hardly bear examination. The Assembly was alarmed, and three agents, Colonel Francis Moryson, late acting governor, Mr. Secretary Ludwell, and Major-general Thomas Smith, were dispatched to England to solicit a modifica- 1674. tion of this extraordinary grant, or to purchase it up for Sept. the benefit of the colony. To provide funds for this purchase, a tax was imposed of a hundred pounds of tobacco per poll, to be collected by two annual installments. raise the ready money, this tax was to be farmed out at the rate of eight shillings, about two dollars, the hundred, that amount to be paid down at once by the undertakers. As a further and quite original means of filling the empty treasury, a tax of from thirty to seventy pounds of tobacco was imposed upon every unsuccessful suitor in any of the colony courts.

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Besides this business of buying out Lords Culpepper and Arlington, the commissioners were also instructed to solicit a royal charter for the colony, confirming all landtitles, giving to the governor and council a general power as a criminal court, without the necessity of a special commission of oyer and terminer, and guaranteeing to the Assembly all the authority it had hitherto exercised. The proposed charter was approved by the solicitor and 1675. attorney general; the plantation committee reported in Nov. 16. favor of it; and the king ordered it to be put into form, It encountered, however, some unexplained delays in pass

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CHAPTER ing the seals. Its progress was finally cut short by news from Virginia of a nature to show that the absence of 1675. free schools was by no means so absolute a guarantee against discontent and rebellion as Berkeley had supposed.

Discontents in Virginia had reached, in fact, a high pitch. The colony, county, and parish levies were all raised by poll taxes. Those who paid these taxes had little or no voice in imposing them. There had been no general election since the Restoration, and even in local elections to fill vacancies in the Assembly, a considerable part of the freemen had lost their right to vote. The taxes imposed to keep up the forts, and the late levy to buy out Culpepper and Arlington, caused great discontents, aggravated by the declining price of tobacco. In the selection of vestrymen and county commissioners the people had no voice at all. These local dignitaries, by long continuance in office, had grown supercilious and arbitrary. The compensation to the members of Assembly had been lately fixed at one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco per day, besides near as much more for horses, servants, and boatmen. This amount was deemed excessive by the tax-payers, who accused the members of protracting their sessions for the mere sake of increasing their pay. The public dissatisfaction had 1674. already shown itself in popular disturbances, "suppressed by proclamation and the advice of some discreet persons." Nothing, however, was wanting, except an occasion and a leader, to throw the whole community into a flame. An occasion was soon found in an Indian war; a leader presented himself in Nathaniel Bacon.

Bacon was a young man, not yet thirty, lately arrived from London, where he had studied law in the Temple. He had estates and influential connections in Virginia.

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His uncle, of the same name, of whom he was pre- CHAPTER sumptive heir, held a seat in the council-an honor to which the young Bacon was also soon admitted.

The Indian war seems to have originated in the move, ments of the Senecas, one of the clans of the Five Nations, who improved the interval of a short peace with Canada to attack their Southern neighbors the Susquehannas. The Susquehannas were precipitated on the settlements of Maryland. War followed, and aid was asked and given by the Virginia planters of the northern 'neck. Among these planters was one John Washington, an emigrant from the north of England, for some eighteen years past a resident in Virginia, founder of a family which produced, a century afterward, the commanderin-chief of the American armies. A fort of the Susquehannas, on the north side of the Potomac, was besieged by a party of Virginians under his leadership, and that of Brent and Mason. Some chiefs, sent out by the Indians to treat of peace, were seized and treacherously slain. The besieged party made a desperate resistance, and, having presently escaped, revenged the outrage on their envoys by many barbarities on the Virginia planters. The whole frontier was soon in alarm.

The furious and destructive Indian war, headed by King Philip, raging at this very time in New England, no doubt tended to increase the terror of the Virginians. By suggesting the idea of a general conspiracy for the destruction of the whites, it exposed even the most friendly tribes to be suspected as enemies. The Virginia Indians, or some of them, became hostile, or were thought

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The peace which had lasted for thirty years was broken. Numerous depredations, at various points, occasioned no little excitement in the colony. The people on the frontier, collected in garrisoned houses, never stir

1675.

CHAPTER red out unarmed.

"The Indians were seen in small par

XV. ties lurking throughout the land." The Indian traders, 1675, accused of having supplied the Indians with guns and

ammunition, became objects of great popular detestation. The governor, who enjoyed a certain per centage on the Indian traffic, for which he had the sole right of granting licenses, shared, also, a part of this unpopularity, increased, there is reason to believe, by his energetic condemnation of the treachery practiced on the Susquehannas, and his disposition to shield the peaceful Indians from the indiscriminating rage of the colonists.

Sir Henry Chicheley had arrived in Virginia a year or two before, with a commission as deputy governor. He set out at the head of a volunteer expedition to attack the Indians, but was speedily recalled. The Assembly 1676. met, and taking into "sad and serious consideration" March. the "sundry murders, surprises, and many depredations”

lately committed, they declared war against all Indians "who are notoriously known, or shall be discovered to have committed the murders, surprises, or depredations aforesaid, their fautors, aiders, and abettors," and against all other "suspected Indians" who refused to deliver sufficient hostages, or to aid and assist in the pursuit, discovery, and destruction of the hostile.

As this was to be a war "with an enemy whose retirements are not easily discovered, so that a flying army may not be so useful at present," the Assembly ordered the enlistment of five hundred men, a quarter part horsemen, "to be drawn out of the midland and most secure parts of the country," "to be entered into standing pay, and placed at the heads of the rivers and other places fronting on the enemy." For the better discovery of the enemy's approaches, the horsemen were to range constantly between the garrisons, so as to meet

each other, if possible.

Footmen were to have fif

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The foot "were to be in action CHAPTER at the discretion of the commander for securing the adjacent plantations." Each garrison was to be allowed 1676. four Indians as guides. Commissioners were appointed in each county to impress the necessary men, horses, boats, and provisions, and additional commissioners "to use Indians in the war, and to require and receive hostages from them.” Each post was to have a "chirurgeon," and a "convenient quantity of medicines, salves, &c., to the value of five pounds sterling for every hundred men." Provisions were to be furnished at the rate of five bushels of shelled corn, and fifty pounds of pork or eighty of beef, for each man, for each term of four months. Horsemen were to be paid at the rate of two thousand pounds of tobacco a year, "and cask," reckoned at eight per cent. additional. teen hundred pounds per year; corporals and drummers, one hundred and fifty pounds per month; sergeants, two hundred and fifty pounds per month; ensigns, three hundred pounds; lieutenants, four hundred pounds; captains, six hundred pounds per month, "and cask." Horses killed or dying in the service were to be paid for. "Due consideration by the Grand Assembly" was also promised of the "indigent families of such as happen to be slain, and of the persons and families of those who shall be maimed or disabled in this war." The remaining forces in the frontier counties were to be enrolled, and might be led to the relief of any fort attacked, but no offensive operations were to be undertaken without special leave of the governor-a prohibition which the result of the late expedition against the Susquehannas might well justify. Friendly Indians were to have "three watch-coats" for every prisoner taken, and one for every head brought in.

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