bury your wrongs
here in my heart. I dare you to do your worst!"

"Down with your guns!" shouted Bacon, angrily. But it needed not the
order of their leader to cause them to drop their weapons in an instant.
The calm smile which still played around the countenance of the old
Governor, the unblenching glance of that eagle eye, and the unawed
manner in which he dared them to revenge, all had their effect in
allaying the resentment of the soldiers. And with this came the memory
of the olden time, when he was so beloved by his people, because so just
and gentle. Something of this old feeling now returned, and as they
lowered their weapons a tear glistened in many a hardy soldier's eye.

With the quick perception of true genius, Nathaniel Bacon saw the effect
produced. Well aware of the volatile materials with which he had to
work, he dreaded a revolution in the feelings of the men. Anxious to
smother the smouldering ashes of loyalty before they were fanned into a
flame, he cried with a loud voice,

"Not a hair of your head shall be touched. No, nor of any man's. I come
for justice, not for vengeance. I come to plead for the mercy which
ill-judged and cruel delay has long denied this people. I come to plead
for the living--my argument may be heard from the dead. The voices of
murdered Englishmen call to you from the ground. We demand a right,
guarantied by the sacred and inviolable law of self-preservation! A
right! guarantied by the plighted but violated word of an English knight
and a Virginia Governor. A right! which I now hold by the powerful,
albeit unwritten, sanction of these, the sovereigns of Virginia."

The last artful allusion of Bacon entirely restored the confidence of
his soldiers, and with loud cries they shouted in chorus, "And we will
have it!--we will have it!"

Berkeley listened patiently to this brief address, and then turned from
the window where he was standing, and took his seat at the
council-table. Here, too, he was surrounded by many who, either alarmed
at the menaces of the rebels, and convinced of the futility of resisting
their demands, or, what is more probable, who had a secret sympathy in
the causes of the rebellion, exerted all their influence in mollifying
the wrath and obstinacy of the old Governor. But it was all in vain. To
every argument or persuasion which was urged, his only reply was,

"To have forced from me by rebels the trust confided in me by my king!
To yield to force what