Virginia in 1698 seems to have welcomed the returning Nicholson.
Jamestown had been hastily rebuilt, after Bacon's burning, and then by accident burned again.

The word malaria was not in use, but all knew that there had always been sickness on that low spit running out from the marshes.

The place might well seem haunted, so many had suffered there and died there.

Poetical imagination might have evoked a piece of sad pageantry--starving times, massacres, quarrels, executions, cruel and unusual punishments, gliding Indians.

A practical question, however, faced the inhabitants, and all were willing to make elsewhere a new capital city.
Seven miles back from the James, about halfway over to the blue York, stood that cluster of houses called Middle Plantation, where Bacon's men had taken his Oath.