The most cruel persecutors of the Christians or Reformers in pagan or papal Rome will start with astonishment from their long slumbers, and, with a mixture of envy and admiration, yield to her the palm. As a State she has acted the part of a pirate, a wholesale murderer and robber. Every department--civil, military, executive and legislative--tramples all law under foot, and plunges into crime and blood. Many of the State journals have tried to hide the iniquity of the State by throwing a covering of lies over her atrocious deeds. But, can they hide the Governor's cruel order for extermination or banishment? Can they conceal the fact of the disgraceful treaty of the generals with a portion of their own officers and men at Far West? Can they conceal the fact that ten or twelve thousand citizens, of all ages and of both sexes, have been banished from the State without trial or condemnation? Can they conceal the fact that the State Legislature appropriated two hundred thousand dollars to pay the criminals for committing these crimes; and this while the petitions of the sufferers lay on the table before them, praying for investigation, redress and protection? Can they conceal the fact that citizens have been kidnapped and imprisoned for many months, while their families, friends and witnesses have been driven from the State? Can they conceal the blood of the murdered husbands and fathers, or stifle the cries of widows and orphans? Nay, the rocks and the mountains may cover them in unknown depths; the awful abyss of the fathomless deep may swallow them up, and still their horrid deeds will stand forth in the broad light of day, for the wondering gaze of angels and of men--they cannot be hid. CHAPTER XXVIII. ------------------------ Joseph Smith and his Fellow Prisoners in Clay County:--Mock Trial in the County of Davies:--Final Escape:--Their Arrival in Illinois. This chapter is an extract from the statement of Hyrum Smith, one of the prisoners, given under oath, before the Municipal Court of the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, in the summer of 1843.