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either hand, near the corner of the state house, where CHAPTER the governor and council went forth to meet him. We saw, from the window, the governor open his breast, and 1676. Bacon strutting betwixt his two files of men with his left arm akimbo, flinging his right arm every way, both like men distracted; and if, in this moment of fury, that enraged multitude had fallen upon the governor and council, we of the Assembly expected the same immediate fate. In two minutes the governor walked toward his private apartment at the other end of the state house, the gentlemen of the council following him, and after them Mr. Bacon, with outrageous postures of his head, arms, body, and legs, often tossing his hand from his sword to his hat, and after him a detachment of fusileers (muskets not being there in use), who, with their locks bent, presented their fusils at a window of the Assembly chamber filled with faces, repeating, with menacing voices, We'll have it! 'We'll have it! Whereupon one of our House, a person known to many of them, shook his handkercher out at the window, saying, You shall have it!' You shall have it! At which words they sat down their fusils, unbent their locks, and stood still, till Bacon coming back, they followed him to their main body. In this hubbub, a servant of mine got so nigh as to hear the governor's words, and also followed Mr. Bacon and heard what he said, who told me, that when the governor opened his breast, he said, Here, shoot me! 'Fore God! fair mark! Shoot!' often rehearsing the same, without any other words. Whereto Mr. Bacon answered, No, may it please your honor, we'll 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 we'll have it before we go!'

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"In an hour or more after these violent concussions, Mr. Bacon came up to our chamber and desired a com1676. mission from us to go against the Indians. Our speaker sat silent, when one Mr. Blayton, a neighbor to Mr. Bacon, and elected with him a member of Assembly for the same county, who therefore durst speak to him, made answer, it was not in our province or power, nor of any other save the king's vicegerent, our governor. Bacon pressed hard nigh half an hour's harangue on the preserving of our lives from the Indians, inspecting the pub lic revenues, the exorbitant taxes, the grievances and calamities of that deplorable country. Where to having no other answer, he went away dissatisfied.

"Next day there was a rumor the governor and council had agreed Mr. Bacon should have a commission to go general of the forces we were then raising. Whereupon I, being a member for Stafford, the most northern frontier, and where the war began, considering that Mr. Bacon, dwelling in the most southern frontier county, might the less regard the parts I represented, I went to Colonel Cole, an active member of the council, desiring his advice, if application to Mr. Bacon on that subject was then seasonable and safe. Which he approving and earnestly advising, I went to Mr. Lawrence, esteemed Mr. Bacon's principal consultant. He took me to Mr. Bacon, and there left me, where I was entertained two or three hours with the particular relation of divers before cited transactions," including Bacon's expedition against the Indians. "As to the matter I spoke of, he told me that the governor had indeed promised him the command of the forces; and if his honor should keep his word, which he doubted, he assured me the like care should be taken of the remotest corners of the land as of his own dwelling-house, and prayed me to advise him

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what persons in those parts were most fit to bear com- CHAPTER mands. I frankly gave him my opinion that the most satisfactory gentlemen to governor and people would be 1676. commanders of the militia. Wherewith he was well pleased, and himself wrote a list of those nominated. That evening I made known what had passed with Mr. Bacon to my colleague, Colonel Mason, whose bottle attendance doubled my task. The matter he liked well, but questioned the governor's approbation of it. I confessed the case required sedate thoughts, but reasoned that he and such like gentlemen must either command or be commanded; and if, on their denials, Mr. Bacon should take distaste, and be constrained to appoint commanders out of the rabble, the governor himself, with the persons and estates of all in the land, would be at their dispose, whereby their own ruin might be owing to themselves. In this he agreed; and said, if the governor would give his own commission, he would be content to serve under General Bacon, as now he began to be entitled; but first would consult other gentlemen in the same circumstances. They all concurred it was the most safe barrier against pernicious designs, if such should be. With this I acquainted Mr. Lawrence, who went rejoicing to Mr. Bacon with the good tidings that the militia officers were inclined to serve under him as their general, in case the governor would please to give them his own commissions."

The Assembly, resuming the subject of the Indian war, passed an act appointing Bacon general of a thousand men, one eighth part horsemen or dragoons, destined for active operations. These forces, apportioned among the several counties, were to be composed of volunteers, if such offered and the general chose to accept them, or otherwise to be raised by impressment. The number

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CHAPTER was to be increased if necessary, and the troops were to be divided into a northern and southern army by the 1676. line of York River. The superior officers were to be appointed by the governor; but Bacon took care to supply himself with a stock of blank commissions, signed with the governor's name. The company officers were to be nominated by the soldiers, but their selection was limited to the militia officers of their respective counties. The counties were to supply their respective quotas, with draft cattle, arms, ammunition, and provisions, “at least one pound of biscuit-bread and one half pound of good dried beef, bacon, or cheese for a day," and were to pay them wages at the rates already established for the troops in garrison at the heads of the rivers. A part of those garrisons were still retained; the rest were dispensed with, and the men taken into the line of the new army. Servants might enlist as substitutes, "providing the master be consenting and the servant willing,” the master to have the pay and the servant the plunder. All Indians were to be esteemed enemies "who have or shall forsake their usual and accustomed dwelling towns," or who "receive or entertain in their towns, cabins, or forts any Indians our present enemies, or who shall hereafter become our enemies, or any strange Indians who do not properly belong to their towns.” Those who desire to remain at peace are "to deliver up, kill, or destroy" all such strange Indians; or, if not strong enough for that, to give notice of their coming to the nearest militia officer or justice of the peace.

All Indians. taken in war are to be held and accounted slaves during life. This, the first legislative attempt to reduce the native Indians of Virginia to slavery, may help, perhaps, to explain the eagerness of the colonists for offensive warfare.

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Deserted Indian lands were not to be granted out to CHAPTER particular persons, but were vested in the several counties, to be by them applied toward defraying the charge 1676. of the war.

That "all color and pretense for reviving the late mischievous Indian trade might be taken away," all commissions for Indian traffic, even those under the act of the last session, were annulled. But it still remained lawful to employ the Indians in fishing, and to deal with them in fish, canoes, bowls, mats, or baskets, making payment in corn only; nor were friendly Indians to be debarred fishing and hunting "within their own limits and bounds, using bows and arrows only."

The member for Stafford, who sat on the committee by which these Indian bills were matured, has left us a graphic account of an interview between that committee and an Indian chieftainess. "Our committee being sat, the Queen of Pamunkey, descended from Opechancanough, a former emperor of Virginia, was introduced, who entered the chamber with a comportment graceful to admiration, bringing on her right hand an English interpreter, and on her left her son, a stripling twenty years of age. She had round her head a plat of black and white wampum, three inches broad, in imitation of a crown, and was clothed in a mantle of dressed deer-skins, with the hair outward, and the edge cut round six inches deep, which made strings resembling twisted fringe from the shoulders to the feet. With grave, court-like gestures, and a majestic air in her face, she walked up our long room to the lower end of the table, where, after a few entreaties, she sat down, the interpreter and her son standing by her on either side. Our chairman asked her what men she would lend us for guides in the wilderness, and to assist us against our

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