When the news of these bloody doings reached London, Charles, who, with all his faults, was not cruel, exclaimed with indignation, “The old fool has taken away more lives in that naked country than I have for the murder of my father!” There was some mercy in England, though there was none in Virginia; for when Sarah Drummond, on the execution of her husband and the confiscation of his estate for the use of the governor, was driven out, with her five small children, to starve in the woods, she, like a brave-hearted woman, as she was, having sent to London a petition setting forth the cruel treatment of her husband and the destitution of herself and her children, the Lord Chancellor Finch exclaimed—Sir William Berkeley being then dead—“I know not whether it be lawful to wish a person alive, otherwise I could wish Sir William Berkeley so, to see what could be answered to such barbarity; but he has answered that before this.” As regarded the causes of this insurrection and the true character of its leaders, every possible means were taken to veil them in obscurity, or to throw disrepute and infamy upon them. No printing-press was allowed in Virginia. It was a crime punishable by fine and whipping to speak ill of Berkeley and his friends, or to write anything favourable to the rebels or the rebellion. Every accurate account remained in manuscript for more than a hundred years: so that the struggles and sufferings of these unfortunate patriots were for so long misunderstood and cruelly maligned. “It was on the occasion of this rebellion,” says the historian, “that English troops were first introduced into America. In three years, however, they were disbanded, and became amalgamated with the people. Sir William Berkeley returned to England with the squadron which brought out these forces, it being necessary to justify his conduct there, where the report of his cruelties had excited a strong feeling against him; and, spite even of the strong faction which adhered to his principles in Virginia, and which had restored the old order of things, so great was the public joy at his departure, that guns were fired and bonfires made. Arrived in England, he found the public sentiments so violent against him that he died, it was said of a broken heart, and before he had had an opportunity of justifying himself with the monarch.”