nd to himself or escaped northward, for he
disappears from history. "The last account of Mr. Lawrence was from an
uppermost plantation whence he and four other desperadoes with horses,
pistols, etc., marched away in a snow ankle deep." They "were thought
to have cast themselves into a branch of some river, rather than to
be treated like Drummond." Thus came to early and untimely end the
ringleaders of Bacon's Rebellion. In all, by the Governor's command,
thirty-seven men suffered death by hanging.

There comes to us, down the centuries, the comment of that King for whom
Berkeley was so zealous, a man who fell behind his colonial Governor in
singleness of interest but excelled him in good nature. "That old fool,"
said the second Charles, "has hanged more men in that naked country than
I have done for the murder of my father!"

That letter which Berkeley had written some months before to his
sovereign about the "waters of rebellion" was now seen to have borne
fruit. In January, while the Governor was yet running down fugitives,
confiscating lands, and hanging "traitors," a small fleet from England
sailed in, bringing a regiment of "Red Coates," and with them three
commissioners charged with the duty of bringing order out of confusion.
These commissioners, bearing the King's proclamation of pardon to all
upon submission, were kinder than the irascible and vindictive Governor
of Virginia, and they succeeded at last in restraining his fury. They
made their report to England, and after some months obtained a second
royal proclamation censuring Berkeley's vengeful course, "so derogatory
to our princely clemency," abrogating the Assembly's more violent acts,
and extending full pardon to all concerned in the late "rebellion,"
saving only the arch-rebel Bacon--to whom perhaps it now made little
difference if they pardoned him or not.

But with this piece of good nature, so characteristic of the second
Charles, there came neither to the King in person nor to England as a
whole any appreciation of the true ills behind the Virginian revolt, nor
any attempt to relieve them. Along with the King's first proclamation
came instructions for the Governor. "You shall be no more obliged to
call an Assembly once every year, but only once in two years.... Also
whensoever the Assembly is called fourteen days shall be the time
prefixed for their sitting and no longer." And the narrowed franchise
that Bacon's Assembly had widened is narrowed ag