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renown. When Bacon in 1676 drove Sir William Berkeley from Jamestown, here at Middle Plantation, just a hundred years before the American Revolution, the former, calling himself "General by consent of the People," held his famous parliament of the leading men of the Colony, who published those papers which sound so much like the inspiring literature of the Revolution.[1]
In preparing an oath to be administered to the people, the three articles proposed were read by James Minge, Clerk of the House of Burgesses: First, that they should aid General Bacon in the Indian war; second, that they would oppose Sir William Berkeley's endeavor to hinder the same; third, that they
- ↑ One of these papers, styled "Nathaniel Bacon, Esq., his Manifesto concerning the present troubles in Virginia," has words which ring out very much like the celebrated language of Patrick Henry—"If this be treason, make the most of it." Bacon said: "If virtue be a sin, if piety be guilt, if all the principles of morality and goodness be perverted, we must confess that those who are now called 'Rebels,' may be in danger of this high imputation; but if there be, as sure there is, a just God to appeal to, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty's honor and the public good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the loss of a great part of his Majesty's Colony deserted and dispeopled, freely with our lives and estates to endeavor to save the remainder—be treason, God Almighty judge and let the guilty die."
