The new world had defied the old.

At midnight by torchlight, the grim-faced pioneers of Virginia had sworn to be free.
Everywhere men and women hailed the oath with enthusiasm.
"Now we can build ships and, like New England, trade with any other part of the world," they declared.

Sarah Drummond, the wife of the Scottish conspirator, exclaimed: "The child that is unborn shall have cause to rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country." And when a person by her side said, "We must expect a greater power from England, that will certainly be our ruin," Drummond's wife took up a stick, broke it in two and cried disdainfully: "I fear the power of England no more than a broken straw! We will do well enough." The women took great interest in public affairs at this time.

The wife of Cheeseman urged him to join Bacon and fight for their liberties, which he did, as she afterward declared, at her own request.

The whole country was with Bacon, and, after instructing them to resist any force that might come from England, he crossed James River at Curles with a force of three hundred men, and fell upon the Appomattox Indians at what is now Petersburg, with such fury that he killed or routed the entire tribe.