to visit the men
in arms, he readily consented.

When they saw the slender, black-haired youth, they set up a great
cry: "A Bacon! A Bacon! A Bacon!" This was too much for him to resist.
It is stated by one of the old chroniclers that he had "a most
imperious and dangerous hidden pride of heart." The leadership thus
thrust upon him must have pleased him. He was now no longer the
erratic youth who had been withdrawn from Cambridge, had caused his
father great trouble and anxiety, and had been duped by sharpers. He
was the leader of men. But there can be no doubt that he yielded to
the pleas of his friends and neighbors in part at least because of his
loathing of the Indians and his horror at their cruelty. He yielded
also because his spirit revolted at Berkeley's system of government by
corruption, because he sympathized with the people in their outcry
against the killing burdens placed on them, and because he hoped to
redress their grievances. His rough followers listened with approval
as he denounced the government as "negligent and wicked, treacherous
and incapable, the laws unjust and oppressive," and declared that
reform was absolutely necessary. So he listed their names on a huge
round-robin, and "enjoined them by an oath to stick fast together and
to him." As word spread throughout the colony that at last the people
had a champion, almost overnight he became the popular hero, and "the
only patron of the country and the preserver of their lives and
fortunes."

He first wrote Berkeley asking for a commission to go out to attack
the Indians, and then, without waiting for a reply, crossed the
Chickahominy into New Kent to overawe or perhaps attack the Pamunkeys.
He found the people of this county "ripe for rebellion" and eager to
wipe out their treacherous neighbors. But when he heard that the
Pamunkeys had fled from their villages to the inaccessible Dragon's
Swamp, he turned back to pursue a body of Susquehannocks who had
moved south to the Roanoke river.

When the news reached Berkeley that the frontier planters had
assembled in arms, chosen Bacon their leader, denounced his
administration, and driven the Pamunkeys into hiding, he was furious.
But as he had broken up previous mutinies by proclamations, he tried
the same expedient now. He declared the action of Bacon and his men
illegal and rebellious. But pardon would be granted provided they
disperse at once and return to their duty and allegiance.

Bacon ha