Note 6 — WILLIAMSBURG
Reading edition
One of these papers, styled “Nathaniel Bacon, Esq., his Manifesto concerning the present troubles in Virginia,” has words which ring out very much like the celebrated language of Patrick Henry—“If this be treason, make the most of it.” Bacon said: “If virtue be a sin, if piety be guilt, if all the principles of morality and goodness be perverted, we must confess that those who are now called ‘Rebels,’ may be in danger of this high imputation; but if there be, as sure there is, a just God to appeal to, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty’s honor and the public good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the loss of a great part of his Majesty’s Colony deserted and dispeopled, freely with our lives and estates to endeavor to save the remainder—be treason, God Almighty judge and let the guilty die.”