These phenomena, which excited so deeply the superstitious fears of the Virginians, were contemporaneous with those which we have already mentioned as exciting similar feelings in the breast of New England at the commencement of the great Indian war. Here, also, were they attended by the breaking out of an Indian war. The Susquehannah Indians, being driven by the Senecas from the head of the Chesapeake, came down upon Maryland, and the Virginian planters of the Northern Neck aided in their expulsion. Among these planters was John Washington, great-grandfather of the celebrated General Washington, and who, with his brother Lawrence, had emigrated about eighteen years before from England. Washington was colonel of the forces employed against the Indians; and having unfortunately and unjustifiably put to death six Indian chiefs who had come to him to treat of peace, war broke out with tenfold violence. It was now a war of reprisals; the savage was inflamed with vengeance, and the midnight war-whoop was the signal of death to the peaceful and defenceless inhabitants of the frontier. The people rose in terror and demanded means of defence. But Berkeley, who held a monopoly of the beaver trade in Virginia, discouraged the war and disregarded their danger. The people, irritated by their wrongs, and now incensed at the indifference of the governor to their immediate distress, looked round for a leader, and one was at hand. This insurgent chief was Nathaniel Bacon, a young man not yet thirty, of great wealth and expectations, who had studied law in London. His uncle, of the same name, and to whom he was presumptive heir, was a member of the council; young Bacon also was about to be admitted, though he was suspected by Berkeley of being “popularly inclined.”