It would be difficult to reconcile this attitude of mind with Berkeley's oppressive administration, did we not know his views upon governmental matters. He had never been in sympathy with republican institutions. It was the height of folly, he thought, to allow the people to participate either in administrative or legislative affairs. The King alone should rule; the people's duty was to obey. It was but five years before the Rebellion that he wrote to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, "I thanke God there is noe ffree schooles nor printing (in Virginia)[467] and I hope wee shall not have these hundred yeares, for learning has brought disobedience & heresaye and sects into the world and printing has divulged them, and libells against the best Government: God keepe us from both."[468] A man that could utter such sentiments as these would not scruple to throttle, if he could, all representative institutions in his government. If he intimidated voters and corrupted the Burgesses, it was perhaps because he thought himself justified in any measures that would render the Governor, the King's substitute, supreme in the government.
But whatever is the verdict of posterity upon the conduct and motives of Sir William Berkeley, the causes of the Rebellion stand out with great clearness:--England's selfish commercial policy, the Culpeper-Arlington grant, the Dutch wars, storms and pestilence, inefficient if not corrupt government, excessive taxes. The only wonder is that the insurrection did not occur earlier. In fact two mutinies did break out in 1674, when the excessively heavy taxes of that year were announced, but the rebels lacked leaders and were suppressed without great difficulty.[469] As early as 1673 the defection of the planters was so great that it was feared many might attempt to deliver the colony into the hands of the Dutch. Berkeley wrote that a large part of the people were so desperately poor that they might reasonably be expected upon any small advantage of the enemy to "revolt to them in hopes of bettering their Condition by Shareing the Plunder of the Country with them".[470] A certain John Knight reported "that the planters there doe generally desire a trade with the Dutch and all other nations and would not be singly bound to the trade of England, and speake openly there that they are in the nature of slaves, soe that the hearts of the greatest part of them are taken away from his Majesty".[471] Thus the downtrodden planters, alienated from England, angered at the Governor, even distrusting their own Assembly, waited but an occasion and a leader to rise in open rebellion. A new Indian war offered the occasion, and they found their leader in young Nathaniel Bacon.