For Mr. Bacon, though he had the repute of a _preux chevalier_, yet sent one of the ladies to inform her husband and those of the other dames that he meant to place the ladies "in the forefront of his men" while the fortifications were in progress, thus securing his forces against attack by interposing the shield of sacred femininity between them and their enemies. When the "white-aproned" herald delivered her message, "the poor gentlewomen were mightily astonished, and neather were their husbands void of amazement at this subtill invention." No wonder; for though as a conception the words of General Bosquet, _C'est magnifique!_ might have been applied, certainly they would needs be followed by the rest of the famous saying, _mais ce n'est pas la guerre!_ The chronicler of the affair continues in a strain which is worthy of at least partial quotation for its sardonic humor. "If Mr. Fuller thought it strange that the Divell's black garde should be enrouled God's soldiers," he says, the husbands made it no less wonderful that their innocent and harmless wives should thus be entred a white garde to the Divell. And this action was a method in war that they were not well acquainted with that before they could come to pierce their enemy's sides they must be obliged to dart their weapons through their wives brest. "The Divell" of the foregoing is of course Bacon himself; and really, when we think of the poor ladies set in their "white aprons" on the breastworks, not sure whether they have most to fear from front or rear, from friend or foe, we are tempted to consider the title well bestowed. Yet Bacon was generally held to be a man of gallantry as well as a gallant man; but the incident is not to the point. At last "the guardian angells withdrew into a place of safety," the works being finished; and, strange to say, we hear no more concerning them, though they were left in the camp of the rebels when Berkeley's troops were repulsed, and what befel them during the subsequent triumph--a brief one--of the Baconian forces and the burning of Jamestown we are not told. It is to be hoped that they were restored to their homes with more courtesy than they were brought thence.