o two parts, the part when
Berkeley had Bacon in his power, and the part when Bacon had escaped
and was once more at the head of his army. During the first part
Berkeley seems to have dominated the Assembly despite the pro-Bacon
majority, during the second part the threat of coercion by Bacon's
angry frontiersmen undoubtedly affected all legislation. Without this
division many of the known facts seem incongruous and conflicting;
with it they fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.

At the opening of the session "some gentlemen took this opportunity to
endeavor the redressing several grievances the country then labored
under," and a committee was about to be named for this purpose when
they "were interrupted by pressing messages from the governor to
meddle with nothing until the Indian business was dispatched." So the
matter of grievances was sidetracked.

Then followed a heated debate on whether the House would ask that two
Councillors sit with the committee on Indian Affairs. In the end "this
was huddled off without coming to a vote, and so the committee must
submit to be overawed, and have every carped at expression carried
straight to the governor."

And the governor, closing his eyes to the fact that the Pamunkeys
hated the English and were sullen and resentful, insisted that they
return to their towns and join in the defence of the colony. So their
queen was brought in and asked how many men she would furnish. In
reply she reproached the English for not giving her people
compensation for their aid in a former war in which her husband had
been killed. In the end she promised twelve men, but it must have been
obvious to all that she and they were not to be trusted. When she had
gone the committee proceeded with their plans for prosecuting the war.
Some of the forts were to be abandoned and their garrisons distributed
among fourteen frontier plantations, and an army of 1,000 men was to
be raised and sent out against the enemy.

Bacon was a discontented spectator of these proceedings. The governor
was as overbearing as ever, the Burgesses were overawed, the plans for
reform were set aside, the Indian war was mismanaged. He must have
been disgusted that the Burgesses were too cowardly to vote down a
resolution requesting the governor not to resign. The Assembly did not
prove "answerable to our expectations", he said later, for which he
thought they should be censured. So, telling Berkeley that his wife
wa