oubt this Assembly's
intentions, once it gave itself rein. He directs it therefore to confine
its attention to Indian troubles. It did, indeed, legislate on Indian
affairs by passing an elaborate act for the prosecution of the war.
An army of a thousand white men was to be raised. Bacon was to be
commander-in-chief. All manner of precautions were to be taken. But this
matter disposed of, the Assembly thereupon turned to "the redressing
several grievances the country was then labouring under; and motions
were made for inspecting the public revenues, the collectors' accounts,"
and so forth. The Governor thundered; friends of the old order
obstructed; but the Assembly went on its way, reforming here and
reforming there. It even went so far as to repeal the preceding
Assembly's legislation regarding the franchise. All white males who are
freemen were now privileged to vote, "together with the freeholders and
housekeepers."

A certain member wanted some detail of procedure retained because it was
customary. "Tis true it has been customary," answered another, "but
if we have any bad customs amongst us, we are come here to mend 'em!"
"Whereupon," says the contemporary narrator, "the house was set in
a laughter." But after so considerable an amount of mending there
threatened a standstill. What was to come next? Could men go further--as
they had gone further in England not so many years ago? Reform had come
to an apparent impasse. While it thus hesitated, the old party gained in
life.

Bacon, now petitioning for his promised commission against the Indians,
seems to have reached the conclusion that the Governor might promise but
meant not to perform, and not only so, but that in Jamestown his very
life was in danger. He had "intimation that the Governor's generosity
in pardoning him and restoring him to his place in the Council were no
other than previous wheedles to amuse him."

In Jamestown lived one whom a chronicler paints for us as "thoughtful
Mr. Lawrence." This gentleman was an Oxford scholar, noted for "wit,
learning, and sobriety... nicely honest, affable, and without blemish in
his conversation and dealings." Thus friends declared, though foes said
of him quite other things. At any rate, having emigrated to Virginia and
married there, he had presently acquired, because of a lawsuit over land
in which he held himself to be unjustly and shabbily treated through
influences of the Governor, an inveterate prejudice again