Nor were they
unmindful of that proud old man, Sir William Berkeley, over on the Eastern
Shore, a well-peopled region where traveling by boat and by sandy road was
sufficiently easy. Bacon, Lawrence, and Drummond finally decided to take
Sir William captive and to bring him back to Jamestown. For this purpose
they dispatched a ship across the Bay, with two hundred and fifty men,
under the command of Giles Bland, "a man of courage and haughty bearing,"
and "no great admirer of Sir William's goodness." The ship proceeded to the
Accomac shore, anchored in some bight, and sent ashore men to treat with
the Governor. But the Governor turned the tables on them. He made himself
captor, instead of being made captive. Bland and his lieutenants were
taken, whereupon their following surrendered into Berkeley's hands. Bland's
second in command was hanged; Bland himself was held in irons.
Now Berkeley's star was climbing. In Accomac he gathered so many that, with
those who had fled with him and later recruits who crossed the Bay, he had
perhaps a thousand men. He stowed these upon the ship of the ill-fated
Bland and upon a number of sloops. With seventeen sail in all, the old
Governor set his face west and south towards the mouth of the James.
In that river, on the 7th of September, 1676, there appeared this fleet of
the King's Governor, set on retaking Virginia. Jamestown had notice. The
Bacon faction held the place with perhaps eight hundred men, Colonel
Hansford at their head.
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