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Hansford:

A TALE OF BACON'S REBELLION.




BY ST. GEORGE TUCKER.




    Rebellion! foul dishonouring word--
      Whose wrongful blight so oft has stained
    The holiest cause that, tongue or sword
      Of mortal ever lost or gained.
    How many a spirit, born to bless,
      Hath sank beneath that withering name;
    Whom but a day's, an hour's success,
      Had wafted to eternal fame!
                                      MOORE.




RICHMOND, VA.:
PUBLISHED BY GEORGE M. WEST
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
1857.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857,
BY GEORGE M. WEST,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Virginia.




PREFACE.


It is the design of the author, in the following pages, to illustrate
the period of our colonial history, to which the story relates, and to
show that this early struggle for freedom was the morning harbinger of
that blessed light, which has since shone more and more unto the perfect
day.

Most of the characters introduced have their existence in real
history--Hansford lived, acted and died in the manner here narrated, and
a heart as pure and true as Virginia Temple's mourned his early doom.

In one of those quaint old tracts, which the indefatigable antiquary,
Peter Force, has rescued from oblivion, it is stated that Thomas
Hansford, although a son of Mars, did sometimes worship at the shrine of
Venus. It was his unwillingness to separate forever from the object of
his love that led to his arrest, while lurking near her residence in
Gloucester. From the meagre materials furnished by history of the
celebrated rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon the following story has been
woven.

It were an object to be desired,