His first victim was Hansford. When he was condemned by Berkeley's council of war, he pleaded that he might be shot like a soldier not hanged like a dog. "But you are not condemned as a soldier, but as a rebel taken in arms," he was told. As he stood on the scaffold he spoke to the crowd, protesting "that he died a loyal subject and a lover of his country."
When Major Cheeseman was brought in, Berkeley sternly asked him why he had joined the rebels. But as he was about to reply his wife rushed in and told the governor that it was she who had urged him to take up arms, and pleaded that she might be hanged in his place. Though the governor knew that what she said "was near the truth," he spurned her with a vile insult. Yet he was cheated of his revenge, for Cheeseman died in prison, and so escaped the ignominy of the gallows.
When Farloe was brought to trial he pointed out that he held a commission to serve under Bacon signed by Berkeley himself. But this did not save him. The court told him he had been authorized only to fight the Indians, not to take up arms against the governor. "Be silent, while sentence is pronounced on you." The executions of Hansford, Carver, Farloe, Wilford, and John Johnson, "a stirrer up of the people but no fighter," brought to an end the hangings on the Eastern Shore.
Word now reached Berkeley that Major Lawrence Smith had raised the loyal standard in Gloucester, and had assembled a force so large that they could have "beaten all the rebels in the country only with their axes and hoes." In nearby Middlesex another large force was ready to cooperate with him. This seemed the opportunity to crush the rebellion. So the governor embarked 100 men on four ships and several sloops and entered the York river to close in on Ingram from the south while the others attacked from the north and east. But the plan failed miserably.
Ingram met the Middlesex threat by sending Gregory Wakelett out with a body of horse. But when he arrived he found that the enemy had dispersed. Nor were Smith's loyalists more resolute. As they faced Ingram's force a certain Major Bristow stepped out of the ranks and offered to try the justice of the governor's cause after the manner of the Middle Ages by single combat. Ingram himself would have accepted the challenge, but his men caught him by the arm and pulled him back. As it turned out there was no battle, for the rank and file of the so-called loyal forces tamely laid down their arms and went home.