e, and offered my own mediation to restore
peace and quiet to the Colony. Had my advice been taken the beams of
peace would have once more burst upon Virginia, the scenes which are
constantly enacted here, and which will continue to be enacted, would
never have disgraced the sacred name of justice; and the name of Sir
William Berkeley would not be handed down to the execrations of
posterity as a dishonoured knight, and a brutal, bloody butcher."

"Silence!" cried the incensed old Governor, in tones of thunder, "or by
the wounds of God, I'll shorten the brief space which now interposes
between you and eternity. Is this redeeming your promise of respect?"

"I beg pardon," said Hansford, undaunted by the menace. "Excuse me, if I
cannot speak patiently of cruelty and oppression. But let this pass.
That perfidious wretch who would rise above my ruins, never breathed a
word of this, when on the evangelist of Almighty God he was sworn to
speak the truth. But if such evidence be sufficient to convict me of
treason now, why was it not sufficient then? Why, with the same facts
before you, did you, Sir William Berkeley, discharge the traitor in
arms, and now seek his death when disarmed and impotent? One other link
remains in the chain, this feeble chain of evidence. I aided in the
siege of Jamestown, and once more drove the Governor and his fond
adherents from their capital, to their refuge in the Accomac. I cannot,
I will not deny it. But neither can this be treason, unless, indeed, Sir
William Berkeley possesses in his own person the sacred majesty of
Virginia. For when he abdicated the government by his first flight from
the soil of Virginia, the sovereign people of the Colony, assembled in
solemn convention, declared his office vacant. In that convention, you,
my judges, well know, for you found it to your cost, were present a
majority of the governor's council, the whole army, and almost the
entire chivalry and talent of the colony. In their name writs were
issued for an assembly, which met under their authority, and the
commission of governor was placed in the hands of Nathaniel Bacon."

"By an unauthorized mob," said Berkeley, unable to restrain his
impatience.

"By an organized convention of sovereign people," returned Hansford,
proudly. "You, Sir William Berkeley, deemed it not an unauthorized mob,
when confiding in your justice, and won by your soft promises, a similar
convention, composed of cavaliers and rich landh