_Saturday, 21_.--I spent the day with the High Council of Nauvoo, investigating the case of Robert D. Foster, Chauncey L. Higbee and others. _Sunday, 22_.--I spent the day mostly at home. In looking at the papers, I discovered the following in the Quincy _Whig_: ASSASSINATION OF EX-GOVERNOR BOGGS OF MISSOURI. Lilburn W. Boggs, late governor of Missouri, was assassinated at his residence in Independence, Missouri, by an unknown hand, on the 6th instant. He was sitting in a room by himself, when some person discharged a pistol loaded with buckshot, through an adjoining window, three of the shots took effect in his head, one of which penetrated the brain. His son, a boy, hearing the report of the pistol, ran into the room in which his father was seated, and found him in a helpless situation, upon which he gave the alarm. Footprints were found beneath the window, and the pistol which gave the fatal shot. The governor was alive on the seventh, but no hopes are entertained of his recovery. A man was suspected, and is probably arrested before this. There are several rumors in circulation in regard to the horrid affair; one of which throws the crime upon the Mormons, from the fact, we suppose, that Mr. Boggs was governor at the time, and in no small degree instrumental in driving them from the state. Smith, too, the Mormon Prophet, as we understand, prophesied, a year or so ago, his death by {15} violent means. Hence, there is plenty of foundation for rumor. The citizens of Independence had offered a reward of $500 for the murderer. I went to the editor's office, and inserted the following in the _Wasp_: NAUVOO, ILLINOIS, MAY 22, 1842. _Mr. Bartlett_: DEAR SIR:--In your paper (the _Quincy Whig_) of the 21st instant, you have done me manifest injustice in ascribing to me a prediction of the demise of Lilburn W. Boggs, Esq., ex-governor of Missouri, by violent hands. Boggs was a candidate for the state senate, and, I presume, fell by the hand of a political opponent, with "his hands and face yet dripping with the blood of murder;" but he died not through my instrumentality. My hands are clean, and my heart pure, from the blood of all men. I am tired of the misrepresentation, calumny and detraction, heaped upon me by wicked men; and desire and claim, only those principles guaranteed to all men by the Constitution and laws of the United States and of Illinois. Will you do me the justice to publish this communication? and oblige, Yours respectfully, [Signed] JOSEPH SMITH. _An Epistle of the High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, to the Saints scattered abroad, Greeting_: