Such, then, was the condition of the little colony which had struggled and hoped and hoped and struggled again, until now hope seemed to have withdrawn her light altogether, and a despairing struggle to be all that was left. IV. ENTER, MR. BACON. Throughout all history of all lands, at the supreme moment when any country whatsoever has seemed to stand in suspense debating whether to give itself over to despair or to gather its energies for one last blow at oppression, the mysterious star of destiny has seemed to plant itself--a fixed star--above the head of some one man who has been (it may be) raised up for the time and the need, and who has appeared, under that star's light, to have more of the divine in him than his brother mortals. To him other men turn as to a savior, vowing to follow his guidance to the death; upon his head women call down Heaven's blessings, while in their hearts they enshrine him as something akin to a god. Oftentimes such men fall far short of their aims, yet their failures are like to be more glorious than common victories. The star that led them on in life does not desert them in death--it casts a tender glow upon their memory, and through the tears of those who would have laid down their lives for them it takes on the softened radiance of the martyr's crown. Other times and other countries have had their leaders, their heroes, their martyrs--Virginia, in 1676, had her Nathaniel Bacon. This young man was said to be a "gentleman of no obscure family." He was, indeed, a cousin of Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., the highly esteemed president of the Virginia Council of State, who remained loyal to the government during the rebellion against Sir William Berkeley's rule, and is said to have offered to make his belligerent relative his heir if he would remain loyal, too. The first of the family of whom anything is known was Robert Bacon, of Drinkstone, who married Isabella Cage and had two sons, one of whom was Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and father of the great Lord Bacon; and the other James Bacon, Alderman of London, who died in 1573. Alderman Bacon's son, Sir James Bacon, of Friston Hall, married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Francis Bacon, of Hessett, and had two sons, James Bacon, Rector of Burgate (father of President Nathaniel, of Virginia), and Nathaniel Bacon, of Friston Hall, who married Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas De Grasse, of Norfolk, England, and died in 1644. Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bacon were the parents of Thomas Bacon, of Friston, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Brooke, of Yexford. Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., styled "the Rebel," was their son.