out small parties of horse,
which captured the wives of these men and brought them into camp. Among
them were the lady of Colonel Bacon, Madame Bray, Madame Page, and
Madame Ballard. He sent one of these ladies to the town, with a warning
to the husbands not to attack him in his camp, or they would find their
wives in front of his line.

What Bacon actually wanted these ladies for was to make use of them in
building his works. He raised by moonlight a defensive work of trees,
brushwood and earth around the governor's outwork of palisades, placing
the ladies in front of the workmen to keep the garrison from firing on
them. But he had the chivalry to take them out of harm's way when the
governor's men made a sortie on his camp.

The fight that took place may have been a hard one or a light one. We
have no very full account of it. The most we know is that Bacon and his
men won the victory, and that the governor's men were driven back,
leaving their drum and their dead behind them. Whether hard or light,
his repulse was enough for Sir William's valor. Well intrenched as he
was and superior in numbers, his courage suddenly gave out, and he fled
in haste to his ships, which set sail in equal haste down the river,
their speed accelerated by the cannon-balls which the "rebels" sent
after them.

Once more the doughty governor was a fugitive, and Bacon was master of
the situation. Jamestown, the original Virginia settlement, was in his
hands. What should he do with it? He could not stay there, for he knew
that Colonel Brent, with some twelve hundred men, was marching down on
him from the Potomac. He did not care to leave it for Berkeley to return
to. In this dilemma he concluded to burn it. To this none of his men
made any objection. Two of them, indeed, Lawrence and Drummond, who had
houses in the place, set fire to them with their own hands. And thus the
famous old town of John Smith and the early settlers was burned to the
ground. Old as it was, we are told that it contained only a church and
sixteen or eighteen houses, and in some of these there were no families.
To-day nothing but the ruined church tower remains.

Bacon now marched north to York River to meet Colonel Brent and his men.
But by the time he got there the men had dispersed. The news of the
affair at Jamestown had reached them, and they concluded they did not
want to fight. Bacon was now master of Virginia, with the power though
not the name of governor.

W