A second attempt of Missouri to drag the Prophet from the state of Illinois by extradition procedure, was even more infamous than the first. No sooner was Joseph released from arrest and departed from Springfield than John C. Bennett arrived there and wrote some of his friends in Nauvoo his intention to leave immediately for Missouri and obtain a new indictment by a grand jury on the old charge of "murder, treason, burglary, theft," etc., brought against the Prophet, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, Parley P. Pratt _et al_., in 1838, hoping that upon this charge he might succeed in getting out extradition papers on the ground that the Prophet was a fugitive from the justice of the state of Missouri. It will be remembered that a former attempt was made under this same charge, in June, 1841, when the Prophet was tried on writ of _habeas corpus_ at Monmouth, Warren county, Illinois, before Judge Douglas and set at liberty. It was on this occasion that Esquire O. H. Browning declared that to ask Joseph Smith "to go to Missouri for a trial was adding insult to injury" (Vol. IV, chapter XX). An indictment on these old charges was finally obtained, supposedly at the instance of Bennett and the Prophet's old Missouri enemies, at a special term of the Circuit Court of Daviess county, Missouri, on the 5th of June, 1843. Governor Reynolds, of Missouri issued a requisition on Governor Ford for Joseph Smith, and appointed J. H. Reynolds as agent of Missouri to receive the Prophet from the authorities of Illinois. The story of the arrest and the incidents thereto are given in great detail in the body of this volume, and need not be dwelt upon here. It will be sufficient to say that Joseph finally succeeded in bringing {XXV} his captors to Nauvoo where he obtained a writ of_ habeas corpus_ from the municipal court of Nauvoo by which the validity of the procedure of Missouri might be tested. When Joseph was on trial upon these same charges before Judge Douglas on a writ of _habeas corpus_ in 1841, the Monmouth court refused to enter into a consideration of the merits of the case, as the judge doubted whether on the writ of _habeas corpus_ he had a right to go beyond the writ and inquire into the merits of the case, but ordered the release of the prisoner on the ground of some defect in the writ under which he was held. The same point was avoided by Judge Pope in the hearing at Springfield on the charge against the Prophet for complicity in the assault upon ex-Governor Boggs. But the Nauvoo municipal court had no such scruples, and at once proceeded to try the case _exparte_ on its merits, and Hyrum Smith, P. P. Pratt, Brigham Young, Geo. W. Pitkin, Lyman Wight, and Sidney Rigdon were examined as witnesses. Their affidavits before the court concerning events that happened to the Saints in Missouri, afford the most circumstantial, reliable and exhaustive data for the history of the Church while in that state. They will be found in the Appendix to Vol.