Here he camped, and here took counsel with
Lawrence and Drummond and others, and here addressed, with a curious, lofty
eloquence, the throng that began to gather. Hence, too, he issued a
"Declaration," recounting the misdeeds of those lately in power, protesting
against the terms rebel and traitor as applied to himself and his
followers, who are only in arms to protect his Majesty's demesne and
subjects, and calling on those who are well disposed to reform to join him
at Middle Plantation, there to consider the state of the country which had
been brought into a bad way by "Sir William's doting and irregular actings."
Upon his proclamation many did come to Middle Plantation, great planters
and small, men just freed from indentured service, holders of no land and
little land and much land, men of all grades of weight and consideration
and all degrees of revolutionary will, from Drummond -- with a reported
speech, "I am in overshoes; I will be in overboots!" and a wife Sarah who
snapped a stick in two with the cry, "I care no more for the power of
England than for this broken straw!" -- to those who would be revolutionary
as long as, and only when, it seemed safe to be so.
How much of revolution, despite that speech about his Majesty's demesne and
subjects, was in Bacon's mind, or in Richard Lawrence's mind and William
Drummond's mind, or in the mind of their staunchest supporters, may hardly
now be resolved. Perhaps as much as was in the mind of Patrick Henry,
Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason a century later.
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