And your petitioners testify that all the testimony that had any tendency or bearing of criminality against said Joseph Smith, Jun., is false. We are personally acquainted with the circumstances, and being with him most of the time, and being present at the time spoken of by them, therefore we know that their testimony was false; and if he could have had a fair trial, and impartial, and lawful examination before the court, and could have been allowed the privilege of introducing his witnesses, he could have disproved everything that was against him; but the court suffered them to be intimidated, some of them in the presence of the court, and they were driven also and hunted, and some of them driven entirely out of the state. And thus he was not able to have a fair trial; that the spirit of the court was tyrannical and overbearing, and the whole transaction of his treatment during the examination was calculated to convince your petitioners that it was a religious persecution, proscribing him in the liberty of conscience which is guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the {279} United States, and the state of Missouri; that a long catalogue of garbled testimony was permitted by the court, purporting to be the religious sentiment of the said Joseph Smith, Jun., which testimony was false, and your petitioners know that it was false, and can prove that it was false; because the witnesses testified that those sentiments were promulgated on certain days, and in the presence of large congregations; and your petitioners can prove, by those congregations, that the said Joseph Smith, Jun., did not promulgate such ridiculous and absurd sentiments for his religion as were testified of and admitted before the Honorable Austin A. King; and at the same time those things had no bearing on the offenses that the said Joseph Smith, Jun., was charged with; and after the examination the said prisoner was committed to the jail for treason against the state of Missouri; whereas the said Joseph Smith, Jun., did not levy war against the state of Missouri; neither did he commit any overt acts; neither did he aid or abet an enemy against the state of Missouri during the time he is charged with having done so.