es--not always--he
displayed chivalry. For that day "the ladies' white aprons" guarded
General Bacon and all his works. The next day, the defenses completed,
this "white garde" was withdrawn.

Berkeley waited no longer but, though now at a disadvantage, opened fire
and charged with his men through gate and over earthworks. The battle
that followed was short and decisive. Berkeley's chance-gathered army
was no match for Bacon's seasoned Indian fighters and for desperate men
who knew that they must win or be hanged for traitors. The Governor's
force wavered and, unable to stand its ground, turned and fled, leaving
behind some dead and wounded. Then Bacon, who also had cannon, opened
upon the town and the ships that rode before it. In the night the King's
Governor embarked for the second time and with him, in that armada from
the Eastern Shore, the greater part of the force he had gathered. When
dawn came, Bacon saw that the ships, large and small, were gone, sailing
back to Accomac. Bacon and his following thus came peaceably into
Jamestown, but with the somewhat fell determination to burn the place.
It should "harbor no more rogues." What Bacon, Lawrence, Drummond,
Hansford, and others really hoped--whether they forecasted a republican
Virginia finally at peace and prosperous--whether they saw in a vision
a new capital, perhaps at Middle Plantation, perhaps at the Falls of
the Far West, a capital that should be without old, tyrannic
memories--cannot now be said. However it all may be, they put torch
to the old capital town and soon saw it consumed, for it was no great
place, and not hard to burn.

Jamestown had hardly ceased to smoke when news came that loyalists under
Colonel Brent were gathering in northern counties. Bacon, now ill but
energetic to the end, turned with promptness to meet this new alarm. He
crossed the York and marched northward through Gloucester County. But
the rival forces did not come to a fight. Brent's men deserted by
the double handful. They came into Bacon's ranks "resolving with the
Persians to go and worship the rising sun." Or, hanging fire, reluctant
to commit themselves either way, they melted from Brent, running
homeward by every road. Bacon, with an enlarged, not lessened army, drew
back into Gloucester. Revolutionary fortunes shone fair in prospect. Yet
it was but the moment of brief, deceptive bloom before decay and fall.

At this critical moment Bacon fell sick and died. Some said th