It is not our purpose to trouble the reader with a detailed account of all the proceedings of the famous Rebellion, which forms the basis of our story. We, therefore, pass rapidly over the stirring incidents which immediately succeeded the flight of Sir William Berkeley. Interesting as these incidents may be to the antiquary or historian, they have but little to do with the dramatis personæ of this faithful narrative, in whose fate we trust our readers are somewhat interested. Accomac is divided from the mainland of Virginia by the broad Chesapeake Bay. Although contained in the same grant which prescribed the limits to the colony, and although now considered a part of this ancient commonwealth, there is good reason to believe that formerly it was considered in a different light. In one of the earliest colonial state papers which has been preserved, the petition of Morryson, Ludwell & Smith, for a reformed charter for the colony, the petitioners are styled the “agents for the governor, council and burgesses of the country of Virginia _and territory of Accomac_;” and although this form of phraseology appears in but few of the records, yet it would appear that the omission was the result of mere convenience in style, just as Victoria is more frequently styled the Queen of England, than called by her more formal title of Queen of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith. It was, therefore, not without reason, that Nathaniel Bacon, glad at least of a pretext for advancing his designs, should have considered the flight of Sir William Berkeley to Accomac as a virtual abdication of his authority, more especially as it had been ordained but two years before by the council at Whitehall, that the governor should be actually a resident of Virginia, unless when summoned by the King to England or elsewhere. At least it was a sufficient pretext for the young insurgent, who, in the furtherance of his designs did not seem to be over-scrupulous in regard to the powers with which he was clothed. But twelve years afterwards a similar pretext afforded by the abdication of James the Second, relieved the British government of one of the most serious difficulties which has arisen in her constitutional history.