Bacon, who was chiefly responsible for the
uprising. Bacon "was too young," he points out, "too much a stranger
there, and of a disposition too precipitate to manage things to that
length they were carried, had not thoughtful Mr. Lawrence been at the
bottom."

This man had his personal grievance, Mathews states, for he had been
cheated out of a "considerable estate on behalf of a corrupt
favorite." His wife kept a tavern at Jamestown, which gave him an
opportunity to meet persons from all parts of the colony. So he filled
their ears with complaints of the governor. Mathews himself had heard
him suggest "some expedient not only to repair his great loss, but
therewith to see those abuses rectified that the country was oppressed
with through ... the forwardness, avarice, and French despotic methods
of the governor." As for Bacon and his adherents, they "were esteemed
as but wheels agitated by the weight" of Lawrence's resentments, after
their rage had been raised to a high pitch by Berkeley's failure to
put a stop to the effusions of blood by the Indians.

Lawrence had the hearty support of William Drummond, a Scotsman who
also resided in Jamestown. Like Lawrence he had a grievance against
Berkeley. In fact the governor was inclined to believe that he had
been "the original cause of the whole rebellion." We know that
Lawrence and Drummond stood at Bacon's elbow from the beginning to the
end. The importance of the part they played may be gauged by the
bitterness of Berkeley's resentment. "I so hate Drummond and Lawrence
that though they could put the country in peace in my hands, I would
not accept it from such villains," he declared.

But whatever was the role of these two men, whatever the part played
by Bacon, the rebellion is a landmark in the development of
self-government in Virginia. Though Bacon met an untimely death,
though Drummond was led to the gallows, though Lawrence disappeared in
the icy forest, their efforts were not in vain. They, and the
thousands who supported them, had taught future governors that there
was a limit to oppression beyond which they dare not go. The roar of
their cannon proclaimed to the world that Virginians would resist to
the end all attempts to deprive them of their heritage of English
liberty.

ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES

The opening to investigators of the Marquess of Bath Papers by
the British Manuscripts Project has thrown new light on
Bacon's Rebellion. There are s