It will be helpful to recall the situation in the little capital at the time. With hundreds of enraged frontiersmen "within a day's journey", with no force which could be trusted to oppose them, the governor and his friends were in a state of panic. Even before Bacon's escape Ludwell wrote: "We have all the reason in the world to suspect their designs are ruinous." And now, with Bacon back at their head to tell them of his humiliation and report that he still had no commission, Berkeley feared the worst. Then came the certain information that Bacon was marching on the town. Obviously the Assembly and the governor rushed Bacon's Laws through in a desperate, last minute attempt to appease Bacon and his men. When the governor affixed his signature he must have been almost within hearing distance of the tramp of armed men. And it is significant that both the governor and the Assembly wished to have the laws read before Bacon's men "for their satisfaction." That Bacon, who was in no humor to be appeased, refused to permit this, is no indication that he did not heartily approve of the laws. We do not know who drew up Bacon's Laws. It may have been Lawrence and Drummond, who introduced them through some ally in the House. It may have been Bacon's neighbor, Thomas Blayton, whom Colonel Edward Hill afterwards called "Bacon's great engine" in the Assembly. It may have been James Minge, clerk of the Assembly, "another [of] Bacon's great friends in forming the laws." More probably it was the committee on grievances. But whoever drew them up, whoever introduced them, most of the credit goes to Bacon. They were aimed at the abuses he repeatedly denounced, they were passed in an Assembly which Bacon had incited the people to demand and which Berkeley declared overwhelmingly pro-Bacon, and signed under the threat of Bacon's armed forces. Although the governor and the King both voided Bacon's Laws and the Assembly of February 1677 repealed them, they constitute a landmark in the development of self-government in Virginia. They broadened the franchise by giving the right to vote to all freemen; they gave the voters representation in the county courts in assessing taxes; they put an end to self-perpetuating vestries; they fixed the fees of sheriffs, collectors, and other officials; they made it illegal for sheriffs to serve more than one year at a time; no person could hold two of the offices of sheriff, clerk of the court, surveyor, or escheator at the same time; members of the Council were barred from sitting on the county courts.