Nathaniel Bacon, a young lawyer, distinguished for his talents and activity, was the popular leader in this movement.
In the midst of his successes, Bacon was suddenly taken sick and died; and no proper person being found to take his place, the army was dispersed, and the insurrection abandoned. Berkeley punished the rebels with great rigor, some of their leaders being condemned and executed and others were sentenced to pay heavy fines. He then went to England, where, instead of the praise and rewards that he expected, he was severely censured for his cruelty. He died a few months afterwards, as it was reported, of chagrin. An act of general pardon and oblivion was sent out from England, and other mild and popular measures soon wiped out the memory of Bacon's rebellion. Needy and covetous governors still provoked occasional discontent; but the spirit of the people was eminently loyal, so that they were tardy and reluctant to acknowledge the revolution of 1688, and only after repeated commands was a proclamation issued announcing the succession of William and Mary to the English throne.
Far different was the character of the emigrants who founded the New England Colonies, under grants from the Plymouth Company. These were Puritans of the straitest sect, Independents in their notions of Church government, and now fast verging toward republicanism, in consequence of their long continued opposition to the constituted authorities of Church and State at home. The intolerant spirit of the English hierarchy and the arbitrary proceedings of the court made their residence in England uncomfortable, if not perilous; and they looked to voluntary exile for deliverance. A company of them, under the Rev. John Robinson as pastor, and William Brewster as ruling elder, embarked for Holland in 1608, carrying their wives, children, and little property along with them. They were kindly received by the Dutch, who were Protestants, and they remained over ten years in peace at Leyden. But Puritans as they were, they were still Englishmen; they disliked the sound of a foreign language, and the prospect that their children would intermarry with the Dutch, and forget their English parentage and the customs of their forefathers. The greater part of them, therefore, determined to emigrate to America, and for this purpose, returned first to England, where they easily procured the promise of a grant of land from the London Company, as they intended to establish themselves within what were then the limits of Virginia. They sailed from Plymouth in the ship Mayflower, and after a tedious and stormy voyage of over two months, arrived at Cape Cod, nearly two degrees north of the place they had aimed at. The lateness of the season, however, the the fatigues of the voyage, and the perils of coasting along a shore which had been but imperfectly explored, preventing them from putting to sea again, they sought a spot for their settlement in that neighborhood. But as they were then without the limits of the Virginia Company, and the Crown had refused to grant them a charter, they deemed it necessary, before leaving the vessel, to sign an agreement, promising to submit to whatever 'just and equal laws and ordinances might be thought convenient for the general good.' They selected Plymouth, which offered a tolerable good harbor in the southwestern part of Massachusetts Bay, as a suitable place for the commencement of a colony; and on the 22d of December, 1620, the Pilgrims, as they might now well be termed, landed there, numbering only one hundred and one, including the women and children.
