ttering threats and "new coined oaths," Bacon mounted the steps to
the Long Room, where the Burgesses sat, and demanded a commission to
lead a force out against the Indians. One of them told him that
governor alone had the right to grant a commission. But when he left
they sent a message to Sir William advising him to issue the
commission. The Council, too, pointing out that he and they were in
Bacon's power, added their voices. At last, though with intense
bitterness, he yielded.

But new humiliations awaited him. He was forced to write the King
justifying Bacon's conduct, sign blank commissions for Bacon's
officers, and imprison some of his most loyal friends. So long as it
did not concern "life and limb" he was willing to do anything to be
rid of him.

In his determination to secure a commission Bacon did not neglect the
matter of reform. When Berkeley suggested that they decide their
controversy by a duel with swords, he replied that "he came for
redress of the people's grievances." In the Assembly he "pressed hard,
nigh an hour's harangue on preserving our lives from the Indians,
inspecting the revenues, the exorbitant taxes, and redressing the
grievances and calamities of that deplorable country." After this
impassioned plea he must have been greatly surprised when the Assembly
told him "that they had already redressed their grievances." Since,
had the so-called Bacon's Laws been passed while he was sitting in the
Council he would have known it, they must have been rushed through
during the brief period between his flight from Jamestown and his
return.

It will be helpful to recall the situation in the little capital at
the time. With hundreds of enraged frontiersmen "within a day's
journey", with no force which could be trusted to oppose them, the
governor and his friends were in a state of panic. Even before Bacon's
escape Ludwell wrote: "We have all the reason in the world to suspect
their designs are ruinous." And now, with Bacon back at their head to
tell them of his humiliation and report that he still had no
commission, Berkeley feared the worst. Then came the certain
information that Bacon was marching on the town.

Obviously the Assembly and the governor rushed Bacon's Laws through in
a desperate, last minute attempt to appease Bacon and his men. When
the governor affixed his signature he must have been almost within
hearing distance of the tramp of armed men. And it is significant that
both the gov