n.[586] The neighboring militia was summoned. Four
guns were dragged to Sandy Bay to command the narrow neck of land that
connected the peninsula with the left bank of the river.[587] It was
proposed to construct palisades across the isthmus. Early on the morning
of the 23d, Berkeley went out himself to direct the mounting of the
guns.[588] But it was too late. On all sides the people were crying, "To
arms! To arms! Bacon is within two miles of the town." The rebels were
threatening, it was reported, that if a gun was fired against them, they
would kill and destroy all.[589] Seeing that resistance would be
useless, and might be fatal, the Governor ordered the guns to be
dismounted, withdrew his soldiers, and retired to the state house.[590]

And so the rebels streamed unresisted into the town, a motley crew of
many sorts and conditions: Rough, weather-beaten, determined
frontiersmen, bent on having the commission for their leader; poor
planters, sunk deep in debt, denouncing the government and demanding
relief from their taxes; freedmen whose release from bondage had brought
them little but hunger and nakedness. Moderation and reason were not to
be expected of such a band, and it is not strange that many of them
talked openly of overthrowing the government and sharing the property of
the rich among themselves. Sixteen years of oppression and injustice
were bearing their natural fruit--rebellion.[591]

"Now tagg, ragg & bobtayle carry a high hand."[592] Bacon leaves a force
to guard Sandy Bay, stations parties at the ferry and the fort, and
draws up his little army before the state-house.[593] Two Councillors
come out from Berkeley to demand what he wants. Bacon replies that he
has come for a commission as general of volunteers enrolled against the
Indians. And he protests that if the Assembly intends a levy for new
forces, his men will refuse to pay it. The ragged troops shout their
approval with cries of "Noe Levies! Noe Levies!"[594]

It is easy to imagine with what anger the Governor drew up and signed
the commission. But he dared not refuse it. He was in the power of the
rebels, who were already muttering threats of bloodshed and pillage. To
defy them might bring instant ruin.[595] When the commission was brought
out, and Bacon had read it to his soldiers, he refused to accept it,
declaring the powers granted insufficient. Thereupon he drew up the
heads of a new paper, in which his loyalty to the king and the legal