Bacon now hastened back to Gloucester Court House to meet the county folk there, in accordance with his appointment. The cautious denizens of Gloucester, reckoning that in such uncertain times there might be danger in declaring too warmly for either the one side or the other, petitioned through Councillor Cole, who acted as spokesman, that they might be excused from taking the oath of fidelity, and "indulged in the benefit of neutrality." Lukewarmness in his service was a thing wholly new to Bacon, and utterly contemptible in his eyes. He haughtily refused to grant so unworthy a request, telling those who made it that they put him in mind of the worst of sinners, who desired to be saved with the righteous, "yet would do nothing whereby they might obtain their salvation." He was about to leave the place in disgust when one of the neutrals stopped him and told him that he had only spoken "to the horse"--meaning the troopers--and had said nothing to the "foot." Bacon cuttingly made answer that he had "spoken to the men, and not to the horse, having left that service for him to do, because one beast would best understand the meaning of another." Mr. Wading, a parson, not only refused to take the oath himself, but tried to persuade others against it, whereupon Bacon had him arrested, telling him that "it was his place to preach in the church--not in the camp," and that in the one place he might say what he pleased, in the other only what Bacon pleased, "unless he could fight better than he could preach." It was clearly the clause regarding resistance of the English forces that made the people suspicious and afraid of the oath. John Goode, a Virginia planter, and a near neighbor of Bacon's, had been one of the first among the volunteers to enlist under him, but afterward went over to Governor Berkeley. He wrote the Governor a letter reporting a conversation between himself and Bacon which he said they had had upon the second of September. This must have been during Bacon's last Indian march, and about ten days before the siege of Jamestown. According to Goode, Bacon had spoken to him of a rumor that the King had sent two thousand "red-coats" to put down the insurgents, saying that if it were true he believed that the Virginians could beat them--having the advantages of knowing the country, understanding how to make ambuscades, etc., and being accustomed to the climate--which last would doubtless play havoc in the King's army. Goode writes that he discouraged resistance of the "red-coats," and charged Bacon with designing a total overthrow of the Mother Country's government in Virginia--to which Bacon coolly made answer, "Have not many princes lost their dominions in like manner?" and frankly expressed the opinion that not only Virginia, but Maryland and Carolina would cast off his Majesty's yoke as soon as they should become strong enough.