The temporary duties of the government were resigned into the hands of Sir H. Chicherley, while Sir William Berkley, Sir Herbert Jeffries, Francis Beverly, Philip Ludwell, and their compeers, assumed the most important stations of command in the army of the loyalists. Much the larger portion of the regular troops were composed of foreign mercenaries, sent over from England to perform those very duties which Bacon and his followers were now to be punished for assuming. The very soldiers who ought to have protected the whites against the incursions of the Indians were to be turned against the patriot band which had volunteered to perform a service no longer to be deferred with safety to the colony. It is true that the commissions of Bacon and his officers were not legally signed by the constituted authorities; but an emergency had arisen which threw the citizens back at once upon their original rights and powers. The government having failed to afford them protection for their lives and property, they had assumed that office for themselves. This was the condition of the colony at the juncture of which we write. While Sir William and his coadjutors were thus busily collecting and disciplining their forces, the citizens of the capital were not uninterested spectators of this unwonted succession of military preparations. Most of those remaining in the city had friends and relations in the ranks of the popular army, and though they dared not openly express their disapprobation of the Governor's proceedings, their discontent was deep and settled, and only awaited the departure of the present overpowering force, again to burst into open resistance against the government. While these preparations for civil strife were going on in the streets of the city, a discussion of not less interesting import to some of the leading characters of our story, was carried on within the walls of the Governor's mansion. The stout old Cavalier had fixed upon the day preceding the departure of his army, for the solemnization of the marriage between his niece and his kinsman Beverly. He had himself held several interviews with the former, but had failed to make the least impression on her mind, either by his reasoning or his more artful appeals to her filial duty and affections.