eys insisted that they stop breaking open and
plundering the houses and barns of the former rebels, and take their
complaints to the courts.

For three months Berkeley postponed his departure, but at last, on
April 25, he went on board the _Rebecca_, the vessel which had been of
such vital importance to him during the rebellion, and set sail for
England. But he was now a very ill man. "He came here alive but ...
unlike to live," wrote Secretary Coventry. He died on July 13, 1677,
and was interred at Twickenham.

With the death of Berkeley a main cause of discontent and
insubordination in Virginia was removed. Though Culpeper and
Effingham, who succeeded in turn to the governorship, made onslaughts
on the liberties of the people, they acted, not from any overwhelming
desire to make themselves absolute, but because they reflected the
spirit of the Second Stuart Despotism. But this came to an end with
the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, and from that time to the passage
of the Stamp Act, the people of Virginia had no need to take arms to
defend their liberties. For decades after Bacon's Rebellion, the King
and the governors were wary of bearing down upon them too hard for
fear of causing another uprising. For the time they had learned their
lesson. And had they not forgotten it after the lapse of a century,
there might have been no American Revolution.

When one reviews the tragic events in Virginia during the fateful year
of 1676, one may well ask: "Would the rebellion have occurred had
there been no Indian war?" Possibly not. Berkeley was aging and within
a few years he might have died, and a less despotic governor taken his
place. Had the planters waited, their lot would have been bettered by
the rising price of tobacco. On the other hand, it is possible that if
the war had not touched off the rebellion something else would have
done so.

Would the Indian war have started the rebellion had the mass of the
people had no other grievances? This seems unlikely. When the news of
the uprising reached Charles II he thought it past belief that "so
considerable a body of men, without the least grievance or oppression,
should rise up in arms and overturn the government." And so it would
have been past belief had there been no grievance or oppression.

Had the dispute between Bacon and Berkeley as to how the war should be
conducted been all there was at issue, the people would hardly have
risen in wild anger to overthrow the