Somewhat discouraged the colonists again sent commissioners, this time to Saint Mary's, to resume the broken thread of negotiations. Here at last success seemed to crown their efforts, for all differences were adjusted, and the cessation was agreed upon by the three colonies.[403] But the joy of Virginia at this happy outcome was soon turned to grief and indignation, for the Marylanders received a letter from Lord Baltimore, "in absolute and princely terms prohibiting the execution of the ... articles of cessation". "This overtook us," wrote Governor Berkeley, "like a storm and enforced us like distressed marriners to throw our dear bought commodities into the sea, when we were in sight of our harbour, & with them so drown'd not only our present reliefs but all future hopes of being able to do ourselves good, whilst we are thus divided and enforced to steere by anothers compasse, whose needle is too often touched with particular interest. This unlimited and independent power ... of the Lord Baltimore doth like an impetuous wind blow from us all those seasonable showers of your Majesty's Royall cares and favours, and leaves us, and his own province withering and decaying in distress and poverty.... This unreasonable and unfortunate prohibition ... hath not only increased the discontent of many of the inhabitants of his province, but hath raised the grief and anger of allmost all your ... subjects of this colony to such a height as required great care to prevent those disturbances which were like to arise from their eluded hopes and vain expences."[404] Can there be any doubt that the Navigation Acts and the futility of all attempts to escape their baleful effects, were largely instrumental in bringing on Bacon's Rebellion? As prosperity and contentment are the greatest safeguards of the public peace, so poverty, nakedness and distress are breeders of sedition. Philip Ludwell spoke of Bacon's army as "a Rabble of the basest sort of People; whose Condicion was such as by a chaunge could not admitt of worse".[405] Had England been less selfish in her treatment of Virginia, there would not have been so many indigent men in the colony eager to join in this wild uprising against the government. Berkeley himself admitted, in 1673, that at least one third of the freemen had been rendered so desperate by poverty and debt that in times of foreign war their loyalty to England could not be relied upon.[406]