These troubles, coming so soon after Bacon's Rebellion, caused great apprehension, both to the colonial government and to the Privy Council. "I know," wrote Secretary Spencer, "the necessities of the inhabitants to be such ... their low estate makes them desperate.... If they goe forward the only destroying Tobacco plants will not satiate their rebellious appatites who, if they increase and find the strength of their own arms, will not bound themselves."[927] And, although the actual rioters were "inconsiderable people", yet it was thought they had been instigated by men of position and wealth.[928] Grave suspicion rested upon Major Robert Beverley.[929] It had been the importunities of "the over-active Clerk" that had persuaded Chicheley, against the advice of the Council, to convene the Assembly. It was he that had been the most industrious advocate of a cessation, that had fomented the disputes in the Assembly, that had most strenuously opposed adjournment. And it was he, the Council believed, that had "instilled into the multitude ... the right of making a Cessation by cutting up Plants".[930] Moreover, they thought it not improbable that he would lead the people into a new insurrection. The rabble regarded him with veneration and love. His activity in suppressing the Rebellion and his opposition to the county grievances of 1677 had been forgotten, and they saw in him now only the defender of the poor and helpless. Were he to assume the rôle of a Bacon and place himself at the head of the commons, he might easily make himself master of the colony. Although there was no evidence against him, "but only rudeness and sauciness", it was thought advisable to render him powerless to accomplish harm, by placing him under arrest.[931] He was taken without resistance by Major-General Smith, "though to his own great loss of 2 or 300 pounds, by the Rabbles cutting up his Tobacco plants within two days after out of Spight".[932]