Bacon's Rebellion

Letter or Remonstrance to be sent his maj’tie Setting forth the
Gradations of those Erupcions, and Two or Three of them
with Mr. Mings‘ our Clerk brought it me to Compile a few
Lines for the Conclusion of it, which I did, tho¹ not without
regret in those Watchfull times, when every Man had Eyes on
him, but what I wrote was with all possible Deference to the
Governour and in the most Soft terms My Pen cou’d find the
Case to Admit.

      Col: Spencer² being my Neighbour and Intimate friend,
and a prevalent Member in the Council I pray’d him to In-
treat the Governour we might be Dissolved, for that was my
first and shoud be my last going astray from my wonted
Sphere of Merchandize and other my private Concernments
into the dark and Slippery Meanders of Court Embarrass-
ments; He told me the Governour had not (then) Determined
his Intention, But he wou’d Move his Honor about itt, and in
2 or 3 dayes we were Dissolved, which I was most heartily
Glad of, because of my getting Loose againe from being ham-
pered amongst those pernicious Entanglements in the Laby-
rinths and Snares of State Ambiguities, and which untill then
I had not seen the practice nor the dangers of, for it was
Observ’d that severall of the Members had secret badges of
Distinction fixt upon ’em, as not docill enough to Gallop the
future Races, that Court seem’d dispos’d to Lead ’em, whose
maximes I had oft times heard Whisper’d before, and then
found Confirm’d by diverse Considerate Gentlemen vizt. “That
the Wise and the Rich were prone to Faction and Sedition
but the fools and poor were easy to be Governed.”

      Many Members being met One Evening nigh Sunsett, to
take our Leaves each of other, in order next day to return
homewards,³ came Genll. Bacon with his hand full of unfolded

     ¹James Minge, clerk of the House of Burgesses in 1676, was a signer of the
grievances of Charles City County, which were so strongly directed against
Colonel Edward Hill.
     ² Colonel Nicholas Spencer was one of the leading men of the colony, rep-
resenting with the Ludwells and Lee the landed aristocracy. He held the office
of secretary for a number of years and was one of the judges appointed for the
trial of Drummond. He died in 1689.
     ³ This assembly, commonly called the Reforming or Bacon’s Assembly, met
at Jamestown, June 5, and sat until June 25, the day before Bacon marched out
of town. All the acts of this assembly were afterward declared void both by