It was with great difficulty they could gain the square, so dense was the barricade of ox carts loaded with furniture, and wagons thronged with negro children; while families in carriages and on horseback, and thousands of the multitude promiscuously huddled together, increased the difficulty of making way. Since he had heard the startling news of the death of Mrs. Fairfax, his mind was more than ever bent upon joining the proposed expedition; and had it not been for the interruption to the anticipated meeting with the Doctor, no one could have appeared upon the rostrum with greater alacrity. The contumaceous conduct of the Governor toward the respectful remonstrances and petitions of the citizens, and more especially his unwarranted and disrespectful treatment of himself, recurred to his mind in good time. He mounted the rude platform hastily erected in front of the state house, burning with indignation, and glowing with patriotism.[2] "He thanked the people for the unexpected and unmerited honour they had just conferred upon him. He accepted the office tendered to him with alacrity, and none the less so that yonder stubborn old man will not endorse it with his authority, and sanction our proceeding under the ordinary forms of law. What has produced this simultaneous explosion in the colony? What are the circumstances which can thus array all the wealth, intelligence and respectability of the people against the constituted authorities. Let your crippled commerce, your taxed, overburdened and deeply wronged citizens answer? The first has been embarrassed by acts of parliament, which originated here, the most severe, arbitrary and unconstitutional, while your citizens both gentle and hardy, have been enormously and indiscriminately taxed in order to redeem your soil from the immense and illegal grants to unworthy and sometimes non-resident favourites. [Footnote 2: This is an abstract of the speech really delivered by Bacon.] "There was a time when both Cavalier and yeoman dared to be free; when your assembly, boldly just to their constituents, scrupled not to contend with majesty itself in defence of our national and chartered rights. But melancholy is the contrast which Virginia at this time presents. The right of suffrage which was coeval with the existence of the colony, which had lived through the arbitrary reign of James, and with a short interruption through that of the first Charles, which was again revived during the commonwealth, and was considered too sacred to be touched even by the impure hands of the Protector, is now sacrilegiously stolen from you during a season of profound peace and security.