On the evening that General Parks arrived at Diahman, the wife of the late Don Carlos Smith, my brother, came into Colonel Wight's about eleven o'clock at night, bringing her two children along with her, one about two and a half years old, the other a babe in her arms. She came in on foot, a distance of three miles, and waded Grand River, and the water was then about waist deep, and the snow about three inches deep. She stated that a party of the mob, a gang of ruffians, had turned her out of doors, had taken her household goods, and had burnt up her house, and she had escaped by the skin of her teeth. Her husband at that time was in Virginia, and she was living alone. This cruel transaction excited the feelings of the people in Diahman, especially Col. Wight, and he asked Gen. Parks, in my hearing, how long we had got to suffer such base violence. Gen. Parks said he did not know how long. Col. Wight then asked him what should be done. Gen. Parks told him, "he should take a company of men, well armed, and go and disperse the mob wherever he should find any collected together, and take away their arms." Col. Wight did so precisely, according to the orders of Gen. Parks, and my brother, Joseph Smith, senior, made no words about it. And after Col. Wight had dispersed the mob, and put a stop to their burning houses belonging to the "Mormon" people and turning women and children out of doors, which they had done up to that time, to the amount of eight or ten houses, which were consumed to ashes, after being cut short in their intended designs, the mob started up a new plan. They went to work and moved their families out of the county, and set fire to their houses, and not being able to incense the "Mormons" to commit crimes, they had recourse to this strategem--to set their houses on fire, and send runners into all the counties adjacent, to declare to the people, that the "Mormons" had burned up their houses, and destroyed their fields; and if the people would not believe them, they would tell them to go and see if what they had said was not true. Many people came to see--they saw the houses burning, and being filled with prejudice, they could not be made to believe, but that the "Mormons" set them on fire; which deed was most diabolical and of the blackest kind; for indeed the "Mormons" did not set them on fire nor meddle with their houses or their fields. And the houses that were burnt, together with the pre-emption rights, and the corn in the fields, had all been previously purchased by the "Mormons," of the people, and paid for in money, and with wagons and horses, and with other property, about two weeks before; but they had not taken possession of the premises; but this wicked transaction was for the purpose of clandestinely exciting the minds