Nathaniel Bacon

“ With the quick perception of true genius, Nathaniel Bacon saw the effect produced. Well aware of the volatile materials with which he had to work, he dreaded a revolution in the feelings of the men. Anxious to smother the smouldering ashes of loyalty before they were fanned into a flame, he cried with a loud voice,
“Not a hair of your head shall be touched. No, nor of any man's. I come for justice, not for vengeance. I come to plead for the mercy which ill-judged and cruel delay has long denied this people. I come to plead for the living—my argument may be heard from the dead. ”

“ To a man like Nathaniel Bacon it would have been impossible to do anything by halves. Having once for all committed himself to the people's cause, he threw his whole heart and soul into the work before him, and recognizing the danger of delay and the importance of letting stroke follow stroke while the iron of enthusiasm was still aglow, he began at once to gather his forces and to plan the Indian campaign. ”

“ Had it not been for my state of disgrace and my outlook for the welfare of the Cavendishes, I should most assuredly have fought with that brave man myself, for 'twas a good cause, and one which has been good since the beginning of things, and will hold good till the end—the cause of the poor and down-trod against the tyranny of the rich and great. No greater man will there ever be in this new country of America than Nathaniel Bacon, though he had but twenty weeks in which to prove his greatness ”

“ And to keep company with a pirate captain! Fie! When he looks at me, I clutch my gold chain and turn the flash of my rings from sight, and Dick and Nick Barry are the worst rakes in the colony! Naught was ever heard good of them, except their following of General Bacon, but a good cause makes not always worthy adherents." This last she said with a toss of her head and a proud glance, for Nathaniel Bacon was to this maid a hero of heroes, and naught but her sex and her tender years, she being but twelve or so at the time, had kept her from joining his ranks. ”

“ Then the people arose in their anger, and since their Governor would not lead them to the war, with unanimous voice they called upon one of their own number to be their leader, Nathaniel Bacon, a man only thirty years of age, of considerable landed wealth, of high social connections, a lawyer trained in the Inns of Court in London, an orator of commanding eloquence, a man who by his endowments of brain and eye and hand was a natural leader and king of men. ”

“ Before young Nathaniel Bacon set foot on Virginia soil Berkeley and his henchmen were trembling in their boots. The governor thought that if an opportunity offered itself the planters might go over to the Dutch "in hopes of bettering their condition by sharing the plunder of the country with them."
Into this mass of dynamite an Indian war threw a torch. The resulting explosion was Bacon's Rebellion.
In 1674 two mutinies had failed, it was said because the [9] people, after assembling in arms, could not find a leader. ”

“ It would be impertinent to enter into an account of this amazing genius or his works; both will be universally admired so long as science exists."
7th. Sir Nathaniel Bacon, K.B., a younger son by his second wife of Sir Nicholas, was an excellent painter. He studied his art in Italy, but his style and colouring approach nearer to the Flemish school. I can find no date of his birth, &c.
8th. Phanuel Bacon, D.D., an admirable wit and poet. He died at Balden, Jan. ”

“ We had been at work some little time when a tall woman in black on a black horse came up at a steady amble, her horse being old. She dismounted near me and her horse went to nibbling the low-hanging boughs of a locust nearby, and the moon shone full on her face, and I saw she was the Widow Tabitha Story, with that curious patch on her forehead. Down to the tobacco she bent and went to work stiffly with unaccustomed hands to such work, and then again rang that cry of "Remember Nathaniel Bacon!" ”

“ Oftentimes such men fall far short of their [41] aims, yet their failures are like to be more glorious than common victories. The star that led them on in life does not desert them in death—it casts a tender glow upon their memory, and through the tears of those who would have laid down their lives for them it takes on the softened radiance of the martyr's crown.
Other times and other countries have had their leaders, their heroes, their martyrs—Virginia, in 1676, had her Nathaniel Bacon. ”

“ In person Bacon was (in Camden's phrase) 'exceeding gross-bodied.' As Elizabeth said of him, 'his soul lodged well' (Naunton, p. 38) . The unwieldiness of his body is frequently the subject of amusing comment in his own letters. A portrait of Sir Nicholas by Zucchero has been often engraved, and a coloured terra cotta bust besides two portraits are at the modern Gorhambury house.
Bacon was twice married, first to Jane, daughter of William Fernley of West Creting, Suffolk, by whom he had three sons, Nicholas, Nathaniel, and Edward, and three daughters, Anne, Jane, and Elizabeth. ”

“ In any case Berkeley, who operated gainfully in his capacity as a British fur factor, did not respond with enough enthusiasm to the planters’ demands for protection, and a civil war resulted in 1676 that set back the colony’s economy by years. The rebellion was led by a fiery, twenty-nine-year-old patriot named Nathaniel Bacon. Before he died suddenly of a camp malady, Bacon chased the governor across the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Shore and burned Jamestown, the capital of Virginia, to the ground. ”

“ He said, that he knew there were far worse pains than those he then suffered: "For the wicked shall rise to their judgment; but they shall not stand in judgment,". Psalm i. This I tremble to think of! yet I do desire nothing more, than that I might come to that place where I might be sure to feel the worst, and to be freed from fear of worse to come." Ay, but you are to consider, said one, that those opinions, for which you were accused before the Legate, were impious ”

“ The next intelligence that I had of Miss Bacon was by a letter from the mayor of Stratford-on-Avon. He was a medical man, and wrote both in his official and professional character, telling me that an American lady, who had recently published what the mayor called a "Shakespeare book," was afflicted with insanity. In a lucid interval she had referred to me, as a person who had some knowledge of her family and affairs. What she may have suffered before her intellect gave way, we had better not try to imagine. No author had ever hoped so confidently as she; none ever failed more utterly. ”

“ The clerk apparently listened with not unfavorable ears; but, as his situation (which the fees of pilgrims, more numerous than at any Catholic shrine, render lucrative) would have been forfeited by any malfeasance in office, he stipulated for liberty to consult the vicar. Miss Bacon requested to tell her own story to the reverend gentleman, and seems to have been received by him with the utmost kindness, and even to have succeeded in making a certain impression on his mind as to the desirability of the search. ”

“ We thought it best to bury him in the forest where his enemies could not find him. Brent is crushed; his men have deserted him, and all are with us. The general died very suddenly in the arms of Major Pate."
It was the purpose of the friends of liberty to keep the death of Bacon a secret, and there is some dispute in history as to where and when he died. News of this character cannot be suppressed. It came out, and the republicans of Virginia began to lose heart from that hour, while the royalists' hopes increased. ”

“ He fell upon hard times, first the courtier of a princess whose thirst of praise and requisition of humility was unbounded, then the courtier and servant of a king who all but believed himself to be a god. The most marvellous fact of Bacon’s character is, that he who knew men so well, and whose insight into their feelings and motives was so clear, should have been so blind as to remain totally ignorant, as is apparent from all his letters and writings, of that youthful spirit of freedom which in the subsequent reign sprung into such vigorous manhood. ”

“ Bacon was now master of Virginia, with the power though not the name of governor.
What would have come of his movement had he lived it is impossible to say, for in the hour of his triumph a more perilous foe than Sir William Berkeley was near at hand. While directing his men in their work at the Jamestown trenches a fever had attacked him, and this led to a dangerous dysentery which carried him off after a few weeks' illness. His death was a terrible blow to his followers, for the whole movement rested on the courage and ability as a leader of this one man. ”

“ Often there seems little to distinguish him from the ordinary place-hunters, obsequious and selfish, of every age; little to distinguish him from the servile and insincere flatterers, of whom he himself complains, who crowded the antechambers of the great Queen, content to submit with smiling face and thankful words to the insolence of her waywardness and temper, in the hope, more often disappointed than not, of hitting her taste on some lucky occasion, and being rewarded for the accident by a place of gain or honour. Bacon's history, as read in his letters, is not an agreeable one ”

“ He subsequently made friends with Anthony Standen, an English catholic—well known as a spy of Walsingham—who was at the time in prison at Bordeaux on suspicion of holding treasonable correspondence with Spain. Bacon's influence with the English government procured his release in 1591, and Standen was afterwards one of Bacon's many regular correspondents. At the end of 1591 Bacon returned to England, where he arrived in very poor health in February 1591-2. ”

“ The Council frightened with hearing 2000 men were armed to deliver him." Philip Ludwell wrote Lady Berkeley who a few weeks before had sailed for England, that she must wonder why instead of death "such favors were heaped on." But it was unavoidable, since hundreds of enraged men were within a day's march of Jamestown, and the forces at hand to oppose them secretly in sympathy with Bacon. "There is not a part of the country free from the infection. Never was there so great a madness as the people generally were seized with." ”

“ The one, that I shall lead such a course of life as whatsoever the King doth for me shall rather sort to his Majesty's and your Lordship's honour than to envy; the other, that whatsoever men talk, I can play the good husband, and the King's bounty shall not be lost."
It might be supposed from the tone of these applications that Bacon's mind was bowed down and crushed by the extremity of his misfortune. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In his behaviour during his accusation there was little trace of that high spirit and fortitude shown by far inferior men under like disasters. ”

“ And, in a word, it seemed that Nature had exempted from the ordinary frailities of men him whom she had marked out to deal with their crimes. All these good qualities made him the darling of the people and prized by the great ones of the State. But when it seemed that nothing could destroy his position, Fortune made clear that she did not yet wish to abandon her character for instability, and that Bacon had too much worth to remain so long prosperous. ”

“ The whole country was with Bacon, and, after instructing them to resist any force that might come from England, he crossed James River at Curles with a force of three hundred men, and fell upon the Appomattox Indians at what is now Petersburg, with such fury that he killed or routed the entire tribe. Bacon fought so viciously, that his name was a dread to the savages fifty years after his death. For one without training, he displayed wonderful military ability. ”

“ Bacon was now past thirty, Essex a few years younger. In spite of Bacon's apparent advantage and interest at Court, in spite of abilities, which, though his genius was not yet known, his contemporaries clearly recognised, he was still a struggling and unsuccessful man: ambitious to rise, for no unworthy reasons, but needy, in weak health, with careless and expensive habits, and embarrassed with debt. He had hoped to rise by the favour of the Queen and for the sake of his father. ”

“ Trust in one who has never failed thee in need. I will be with thee in this last struggle—for there is something whispers me that it will be the last. Leave the event, therefore, with him who rules the destinies of battles." And with these words he sprang upon the shore and disappeared in the forest.
In a few hours more, Bacon was again at the head of his devoted troops, who were entirely ignorant of the cause of his protracted absence, but now that they knew its cause, were bursting with ardour to avenge his own and his country's wrongs. ”

“ He is writing thoughts rather than words, set down without art, disguising or reservation. But if his Lordship will not carry him along he has definitely decided on his course of action. The law is not now even referred to. If the object of the suit was not stated in 1580, there cannot be much doubt now but that it had to do with the making of books and pioneer work in the mine of truth. For ten years Francis Bacon had waited, buoyed up by encouragements and false hopes. Now he decides to take his fortune into his own hands and rely no more on assistance either from the Queen or Burghley. ”