irection, summoned the Baconites to join him,
so that his small band increased so rapidly, that when he reached
Jamestown he had a force of several hundred.

The governor prepared to receive the rebels. He threw up a strong
earth-work, and a palisade had been erected across the neck of the
island. Bacon, on reaching Jamestown, rode forward to reconnoitre it. He
then ordered his trumpeters to sound the battle cry, and a volley was
fired into the town; but no response came back.

Bacon made his headquarters at Greenspring, in Governor Berkeley's own
house, and while Sir William dined at the board of the thoughtful Mr.
Lawrence, the rebel fed at the table of the governor. Resolving on a
siege, Bacon threw up earth-works about the town in front of the
palisades. Berkeley's riflemen so annoyed the men at work, that Bacon
had recourse to a strange device to protect them. He sent a detachment
of horse into the surrounding country, captured and brought to camp the
wives of all the prominent gentlemen who fought with Berkeley. Perhaps
Mrs. Price only escaped by being on board the ship _Despair_. Madame
Bray, Madame Page, Madame Ballard and Madame Bacon, the wife of Bacon's
cousin, were among the number. These women were placed before the
workmen in the trenches to protect them from the bullets of Berkeley.

"Have no apprehensions from us, good-wives," said Bacon. "We shall not
harm a hair of your head. If your husbands shoot you we are not
to blame."

Bacon has been censured for this ungallant strategy; but it worked well
and saved his workmen from further annoyance. He sent one of the
good-wives into the town under a flag of truce to inform her own and the
others' husbands, that he meant to place them "in the forefront of his
workmen," during the construction of the earth-works, and if they fired
on them, the good-wives would suffer.

No attack was made on Bacon until the earth-works were completed, and
then the women were sent to their homes during the night. Next morning
at early dawn, Berkeley sounded his battle-cry, and his men mustered at
the roll of the drum. Bacon was on the alert. His eagle eye glanced
along his earth-works and the gallant men enrolled under him.

"They are coming! They are coming with their whole force!" he shouted,
as he stood on the ramparts, his sword in his hand and his eye flashing
with the glorious light of battle. Matches were burning, the cocks of
the fusees raised, and the Virginians sto