"The next day Bacon orders 3 grate guns to be brought into the camp, two whereof he plants upon his trench. The one he sets to worke against the Ships, the other against the entrance into the towne, for to open a pasage to his intended storm."[669] Had the rebels delayed no longer to make an assault it seems certain they could have carried the palisades with ease, taken many of the enemy, and perhaps captured the Governor himself. The loyal soldiers were thinking only of flight. "Soe great was the Cowardize and Basenesse of the generality of Sir William Berkeley's party that of all at last there were only some 20 Gentlemen willing to stand by him." So that the Governor, "who undoubtedly would rather have dyed on the Place than thus deserted it, what with (the) importunate and resistless solicitations of all was at last over persuaded, nay hurried away against his will".[670] "Takeing along with him all the towne people, and their goods, leaveing all the grate guns naled up, and the howses emty", he left the place a prey to the rebels.[671] "So fearful of discovery they are, that for Secrecy they imbarque and weigh anchor in the Night and silently fall down the river."[672] Early the next morning Bacon marched across the Sandy Bay and took possession of the deserted town.[673] Here he learned that the Governor had not continued his flight, but had cast anchor twenty miles below, where he was awaiting a favorable opportunity to recapture the place.[674] At the same time, news came from the north that Colonel Brent, Bacon's former ally, was collecting troops in the counties bordering upon the Potomac River, and would soon be on the march to the Governor's assistance, with no less than a thousand men.[675] Should this new army, by acting in concert with the fleet, succeed in blocking Bacon up at Jamestown, the rebels would be caught in a fatal trap. The peninsula could hardly be defended successfully against superior forces by land and water, and they would be crushed between the upper and nether millstones. On the other hand, should they desert the town, in order to go out against Brent, Berkeley would undoubtedly return to take possession of it, and all the fruits of their victory would be lost. After long consultation with his chief advisors, Bacon decided to destroy the town.[676] That very night he set fire to the place, which in a few hours was reduced to ashes. Not even the state-house, or the old church were spared. Drummond and Lawrence, it is said, showed their unselfish zeal for the cause by applying the torch to their homes with their own hands.[677] As the Governor, from his ships, saw in the distance the glare of the burning buildings, he cursed the cowardice of his soldiers that had forced him to yield the place to the rebels. But as it could now serve him no longer as a base, he weighed anchor, and set sail for Accomac.[678]