tye them to
the endeavour of the publique good; IT IS HEREBY ENACTED, that none but
freeholders and housekeepers who only are answerable to the publique for
the levies shall hereafter have a voice in the election of any burgesses
in this country."

*Hening's "Statutes", vol. II, p. 280.

Three years later another woe befell the colony. That same Charles
II--to whom in misfortune Virginia had so adhered that for her loyalty
she had received the name of the Old Dominion--now granted "all that
entire tract, territory, region, and dominion of land and water commonly
called Virginia, together with the territory of Accomack," to Lord
Culpeper and the Earl of Arlington. For thirty-one years they were to
hold it, paying to the King the slight annual rent of forty shillings.
They were not to disturb the colonists in any guaranteed right of life
or land or goods, but for the rest they might farm Virginia. The country
cried out in anger. The Assembly hurried commissioners on board a ship
in port and sent them to England to besiege the ear of the King.

Distress and discontent increased, with good reason, among the mass of
the Virginians. The King in England, his councilors, and Parliament,
played an unfatherly role, while in Virginia economic hardships pressed
ever harder and the administration became more and more oppressive.
By 1676 the gunpowder of popular indignation was laid right and left,
awaiting the match.

CHAPTER XII. NATHANIEL BACON

To add to the uncertainty of life in Virginia, Indian troubles flared up
again. In and around the main settlements the white man was safe enough
from savage attack. But it was not so on the edge of the English world,
where the white hue ran thin, where small clusters of folk and even
single families built cabins of logs and made lonely clearings in the
wilderness.

Not far from where now rises Washington the Susquehannocks had taken
possession of an old fort. These Indians, once in league with the
Iroquois but now quarreling violently with that confederacy, had
been defeated and were in a mood of undiscriminating bitterness and
vengeance. They began to waylay and butcher white men and women and
children. In self protection Maryland and Virginia organized in common
an expedition against the Indian stronghold. In the deep woods beyond
the Potomac, red men and white came to a parley. The Susquehannocks sent
envoys. There was wrong on both sides. A dispute arose. The white me