of a
considerable force of republicans, he appeared before Jamestown.
Berkeley's mercenaries refused to fight, and stole away under cover of
night, Berkeley being obliged to accompany them in order to avoid being
made a prisoner. Jamestown was burned by the republicans, all the colony,
except the eastern shore acknowledged Bacon's authority, and the success
of the insurrection seemed assured when the popular leader fell a victim
to malignant fever. Without his genius and energy to guide the cause of
liberty, it rapidly declined, and Berkeley returned and soon succeeded in
re-establishing his authority. He made Williamsburg the capital of the
colony, instead of Jamestown, which never rose from its ruins--a fact
hardly to be regretted, as the site was decidedly unhealthy. Berkeley had
no mercy on the now submissive insurgents. Bacon's chief lieutenant had
been the brave Scotch Presbyterian, William Drummond, the first governor
of North Carolina. When Drummond was brought before him the governor
said: "You are very welcome; I am more glad to see you than any man in
Virginia; you shall be hanged in half an hour." Drummond calmly answered:
"I expect no mercy from you. I have followed the lead of my conscience,
and done what I could to rescue my country from oppression." Drummond was
executed about three hours later, and his devoted wife, Sarah, who had
taken an active part in urging the people to defend their rights, and who
had in her the spirit of the mothers of the Revolution, was banished with
her children to the wilderness. A wife who offered herself as a victim in
place of her husband, claiming that she had urged him to rebellion, was
repulsed with coarse and brutal insult, and the husband was led to the
gallows. Twenty-two in all were executed before Berkeley's vengeance was
satiated. Charles II. heard with indignation of the sacrifice of life,
exclaiming: "The old fool has taken more lives in that naked country than
I have taken for the murder of my father." Berkeley was recalled to
England in 1677. But for the presence of the fleet and troops of Sir John
Berry, sent over by the king to maintain the royal authority, Berkeley
might have been subjected to violence by the colonists who fired guns and
lighted bonfires to show their joy over his departure. Upon Berkeley's
arrival in England he found himself equally an object there of public
hatred and contempt on account of his cruelties, and he died in July of
the same ye