husbands
and friends in the town, and kept them there until he completed his
works. The peninsula of Jamestown is formed by the James River on the
south, and a deep creek on the north encircling it within ten paces of
the river. This island, for it is so styled, is about two miles long,
east and west, and one mile broad. It is low, consisting mainly of
marshes and swamps, and in consequence very unhealthy. There are no
springs, and the water of the wells is brackish. Jamestown stood along
the river bank about three-quarters of a mile, containing a church, and
some sixteen or eighteen well-built brick houses. The population of this
diminutive metropolis consisted of about a dozen families, (for all of
the houses were not inhabited,) "getting their living by keeping of
ordinaries at extraordinary rates."

Bacon, after completing his works, in which he was much assisted by the
conspicuous white aprons of the ladies, now mounted a small battery of
two or three cannon, according to some commanding the shipping, but not
the town, according to others commanding both. Sir William Berkley had
three great guns planted at the distance of about one hundred and fifty
paces. But such was the cowardice of his motley crowd of followers, the
bulk of them mere spoilsmen, "rogues and royalists," intent only on the
plunder of forfeited estates promised them by "his honor," that although
superior to Bacon's force in time, place, and numbers, yet out of six
hundred of them, only twenty gentlemen were found willing to stand by
him. So great was their fear, that in two or three days after the sortie
they embarked in the night with all the town people and their goods, and
leaving the guns spiked, weighing anchor secretly, and dropping silently
down the river; retreating from a force inferior in number, and which,
during a rainy week of the sickliest season, had been exposed, lying in
open trenches, to far more hardship and privation than themselves. At
the dawn of the following day, Bacon entered, where he found empty
houses, a few horses, two or three cellars of wine, a small quantity of
Indian-corn, "and many tanned hides." It being determined that it should
be burned, so that the "rogues should harbor there no more," Lawrence
and Drummond, who owned two of the best houses, set fire to them in the
evening with their own hands, and the soldiers, following their example,
laid in ashes Jamestown, including the church, the first brick one
erecte