At the head of the insurgents was colonel Nathaniel Bacon, a gentleman who had received his education, in England, at the inns of court; and had been appointed a member of the council soon after his arrival in Virginia. Young, bold, and ambitious; possessing an engaging person, and commanding elocution; he was well calculated to rouse and direct the passions of the people. Treading the path by which ambition marches to power, he harangued the people on their grievances, increased their irritation against the causes of their disgust, and ascribed the evils with which they thought themselves oppressed to those who governed them, while he professed no other object than their good. He declaimed particularly against the languor with which the Indian war had been prosecuted; and, striking the note to which their feelings were most responsive, declared that, by proper exertions, it might have been already terminated. The people, viewing him as their only friend, and believing the zeal he manifested to be produced solely by his devotion to their cause gave him their whole confidence and elected him their general. In return, he assured them that he would never lay down his arms until he had avenged their sufferings on the savages, and redressed their other grievances. {1676} He applied to the governor for a commission appointing him general to prosecute the war against the Indians. A temporising policy being pursued, he entered Jamestown at the head of six hundred armed men, and obtained all he demanded, from an intimidated government. No sooner had he withdrawn from the capital than the governor, at the request of the assembly which was then in session, issued a proclamation declaring him a rebel, and commanding his followers to deliver him up, and to retire to their respective homes. Bacon and his army, equally incensed at this piece of impotent indiscretion, returned to Jamestown, and the governor fled to Accomack.