c faith.

It may, indeed, be affirmed that, among all the acts of selfish
perfidy which royal ingratitude conceived and executed, there have
been few more characteristic and none more base.

[1] From Brodhead's "History of New York."

[2] Now called Governor's Island.

[3] A fortification from which has come the modern name of Wall
Street.

BACON'S REBELLION IN VIRGINIA

(1676)

BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER[1]

There is no nation this day under the copes of Heaven can so
experimentaly speak the sad effects of men of great parts being
reduc't to necessity, as England; but not to rake up the notorious
misdemeanours of the dead, I shall endeavour to prevent the sad
effects of so deplorable a cause, by giving you an account of the
remarkable life and death of this gentleman of whom I am about to
discourse. And because when a man has once ingag'd himself in an ill
action, all men are ready to heap an innumerable aspersions upon him,
of which he is no ways guilty, I shall be so just in the History of
his Life as not to rob him of those commendations which his Birth and
Acquisitions claim as due, and so kind both to Loyalty and the wholsom
constituted Laws of our Kingdom, as not to smother any thing which
would render him to blame.

This Gentleman who has of late becconed the attention of all men of
understanding who are any ways desirous of Novelty, [or] care what
becomes of any part of the World besides that themselves live in, had
the honour to be descended of an Ancient and Honourable Family, his
name Nathanael Bacon, to whom to the long known Title of Gentleman, by
his long study [at] the Inns of Court he has since added that of
Esquire. He was the Son of Mr. Thomas Bacon of an ancient Seat known
by the denomination of Freestone-Hall, in the County of Suffolk, a
Gentleman of known loyalty and ability. His Father as he was able so
he was willing to allow this his Son a very Gentile Competency to
subsist upon, but he as it proved having a Soul too large for that
allowance, could not contain himself within bounds; which his careful
Father perceiving, and also that he had a mind to Travel (having seen
divers parts of the World before) consented to his inclination of
going to Virginia, and accommodated him with a Stock for that purpose,
to the value of 1,800l. Starling, as I am credibly informed by a
Merchant of very good wealth, who is now in this City, and had the
fortune to carry him thither.