Sir William Berkeley had hardly taken up the reins of government when the history of the colony was marked by a great calamity. Opechancanough was now an old man, enfeebled in body and physically incapable of leading his people; but his mind was still as active as ever, his savage cunning was in no way dimmed by years, and he had ever nursed the hatred he had felt for the settlers since the failure of his attack in the days of the Company. The rumours of the outbreak of the Civil War in England soon reached the ears of the Indians, some of whom had actually seen two ships of the white settlers bombarding each other in the Bay. Opechancanough seized this opportunity of division and strife among the Virginians, and fell upon the colony. Before the settlers were ready to resist, three hundred men, women and children had been slain. The local militia at last made headway against the savages, and after the capture and death of the old chief in 1646 a treaty was made as to the boundary between the English and the Indians, under which peace reigned for thirty years. It has been the fashion to regard Virginia as a purely Cavalier colony; this is probably due to an attempt to accentuate the difference between the Southern colony and the New England group. It is, however, an exaggeration to say that Virginia was entirely composed of those supporting cavalier principles. Certainly there were large landowners who sympathised with Charles and his party, but there was a very large and prosperous middle class, composed of small landowners and well-to-do tradesmen, amongst whom it was only natural to find various opinions and sympathies. As a whole, however, Virginia may be said to have been Royalist, not from any rooted objection to the Commonwealth, but rather because the Royalist party was temporarily predominant in the settlement. Sir William Berkeley, as a loyal Governor, forbade the showing of any sympathy to the Parliamentary rebels, and he was supported in his action by Charles II., who, in 1650, before he left Breda, despatched a commission empowering Berkeley to act in his name. The far-reaching power of Cromwell was not to be stayed by any such commission, for the Commonwealth was determined "to grasp the whole of the inheritance of the Stuart Kings,"[52] and so Ayscue was sent in 1651 to reduce the colonies to submission. On March 12 of the following year, Virginia acknowledged the new power in England, much to the rage and discontent of the Governor. Berkeley had indeed done his best, and had issued a stirring declaration which concluded with these words, "But, gentlemen, by the Grace of God we will not so tamely part with our King and all those blessings we enjoy under him, and if they oppose us, do but follow me, I will either lead you to victory or lose a life which I cannot more gloriously sacrifice than for my loyalty and your security."[53] The settlers, however, were not stirred, and though a