Berkeley was also determined to make good his personal losses from the estates of the rebels. "I have lost at least £8000 sterling in houses, goods, plantation, servants, and cattle, and never expect to be restored to a quarter of it," he complained. The rebels left "me not one grain of corn, not one cow.... I have not £5 in the world." So he, Beverley, Philip Ludwell, and others of the "loyal party," were furious when Jeffreys insisted that they stop breaking open and plundering the houses and barns of the former rebels, and take their complaints to the courts.
For three months Berkeley postponed his departure, but at last, on April 25, he went on board the _Rebecca_, the vessel which had been of such vital importance to him during the rebellion, and set sail for England. But he was now a very ill man. "He came here alive but ... unlike to live," wrote Secretary Coventry. He died on July 13, 1677, and was interred at Twickenham.
With the death of Berkeley a main cause of discontent and insubordination in Virginia was removed. Though Culpeper and Effingham, who succeeded in turn to the governorship, made onslaughts on the liberties of the people, they acted, not from any overwhelming desire to make themselves absolute, but because they reflected the spirit of the Second Stuart Despotism. But this came to an end with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, and from that time to the passage of the Stamp Act, the people of Virginia had no need to take arms to defend their liberties. For decades after Bacon's Rebellion, the King and the governors were wary of bearing down upon them too hard for fear of causing another uprising. For the time they had learned their lesson. And had they not forgotten it after the lapse of a century, there might have been no American Revolution.
When one reviews the tragic events in Virginia during the fateful year of 1676, one may well ask: "Would the rebellion have occurred had there been no Indian war?" Possibly not. Berkeley was aging and within a few years he might have died, and a less despotic governor taken his place. Had the planters waited, their lot would have been bettered by the rising price of tobacco. On the other hand, it is possible that if the war had not touched off the rebellion something else would have done so.