Bacon's Rebellion

The Towne is built much about the midle of the Sowth line,
close upon the River, extending east and west, about 3 quarters
of a mile; in which is comprehended som 16 or 18 howses,
most as is the Church, built of Brick, faire and large; and in
them about a dozen Familles (for all the howses are not in-
habited) getting there liveings by keepeing of ordnaries, at
exstreordnary rates.¹

      The Governour understanding that the Gent: Women, at
the Legure, was, by order, drawne out of danger, resalved, if
posible, to beate Bacon out of his trench; which he thought
might easely be performed, now that his Gardian Angles had
forsaken his Camp. For the efecting of which he sent forth
7 or (as they say) 800 of his Accomackians, who (like scholers
goeing to schoole) went out with hevie harts, but returnd
hom with light heeles; thinkeing it better to turne there backs
upon that storme, that there brests could not indure to strugle
against, for feare of being gauled in there sides, or other parts
of there bodys, through the sharpness of the wether; which
(after a terable noyse of thunder and lightning out of the Easte)
began to blow with a powder (and som leade too as big as mus-
quitt boolitts) full in there faces, and that with so grate a
violence, that som off them was not able to stand upon there
leggs, which made the rest betake them selves to there heeles,
as the onely expedient to save there lives; which som amongst
them had rather to have lost, then to have own’d there safty
at the price of such dishonourable rates.

      The Governour was exstremly disgusted at the ill manage-
ment of this action, which he exprest in som passionate terms,
against those who merited the same. But in ernist, who could
expect the event to be other ways then it was, when at the
first notis given, for the designed salley to be put in execution,
som of the officers made such crabed faces at the report of the
same, that the Guner of Yorke Fort did proffer to purchase,
for any that would buy, a Collonells, or a Captains, Commis-
sion, for a chunke of a pipe.

      The next day Bacon orders 8 grate Guns to be brought
into the Camp, two whereof he plants upon his trench. The

    ¹The topography may be followed by means of Mr. Samuel H. Yonge’s The Site
of Old “James Towne,” enlarged edition (Richmond, 1907), or President Lyon G.
Tyler’s The Cradle of the Republic (Williamsburg, second ed., 1906) and their maps