In a "Manifesto," defending the rights of the people, issued soon after his return, Bacon made a scornful and spirited reply to Governor Berkeley's charges of rebellion and treason. "If virtue be a sin," said he, "if piety be 'gainst all the principles of morality, goodness and justice be perverted, we must confess that those who are now called rebels may be in danger of those high imputations, those loud and several bulls would affright innocents and render the defence of our brethren and the inquiry into our sad and heavy oppressions treason. But if here be, as sure is, a just God to appeal to, if religion and justice be a sanctuary here, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty's honor and the public good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the loss of a great part of his Majesty's colony, deserted and dispeopled, freely with our lives and estates to endeavor to save the remainders, be treason, Lord Almighty judge and let the guilty die." Can it be that these words were in the mind of Patrick Henry, when, nearly a hundred years later, he cried, "If this be treason, make the most of it"? VI. THE JUNE ASSEMBLY. Governor Berkeley, finding the wrath of the people past his control, gave up for the time the chase after Bacon, returned home, and to appease the people, not only had the offensive forts dismantled, but even, upon the 18th of May, dissolved the legislature that had established them, and for the first time for fourteen years gave orders for the election of a new free Assembly. This Assembly, whose immediate work, the Governor declared, should be to settle the "distracted" condition of Virginia, was "new" in more senses than one, for, departing from the usual custom of electing only freeholders to represent them, some of the counties chose men "that had but lately crept out of the condition of servants," for their Burgesses. Thus showing the strong democratic feeling that had arisen, to the exasperation of the aristocratic Berkeley. Bacon had by this time returned from his march into the wilderness and the countryside was ringing with glowing reports of his success against the Indians. The people welcomed him with wild enthusiasm, for they not only regarded him as their champion against the brutalities of savages, but attributed to him the calling of the new Assembly, to which they looked for relief from the "hard times." Their hopes, as will be seen, were not doomed to disappointment. A short time before the meeting of this "June Assembly," as it was commonly called, Bacon made his friend and neighbor, Captain Crews, the bearer of a letter from him to Sir William Berkeley, in which he said: