"In the course of nine or ten days we arrived safely in Quincy, Adams County, where we found our families in a state of poverty, although in good health--they having been driven out of the state previously by the murderous militia under the exterminating order of the Executive of Missouri. And now the people of that state, or a portion of them, would be glad to make the people of this state believe that my brother Joseph has committed treason, and this they seek to do for the purpose of keeping up their murderous and hellish persecution. They seem to be unrelenting in thirsting for the blood of innocence, for I do know most positively that my brother Joseph has committed no treason, nor violated one solitary item of law or rule in the State of Missouri. "But I do know that the Mormon people, _en masse_, were driven out of that State, after being robbed of all they had, and that he barely escaped with his life. And all this in consequence of the exterminating order of Governor Boggs; the same being confirmed by the Legislature of that State. "And I do know, so does this Court and every rational man who is acquainted with the circumstances, and every man who shall hereafter become acquainted with the particulars thereof, will know that Governor Boggs and Generals Clark, Lucas, Wilson and Gillum, also Austin A. King, have committed treasonable acts against the citizens of Missouri, and did violate the Constitution of the United States, and also the Constitution and laws of the State of Missouri, and did exile and expel, at the point of the bayonet, some twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants of the State, and did murder some three or four hundred of men, women and children in cold blood in the most horrid and cruel manner possible. And the whole of it was caused by religious bigotry and persecution, and because the _Mormons_ dared to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience and agreeably to His Divine Will, as revealed in the Scriptures of eternal truth; and had turned away from following the vain traditions of their fathers and would not worship according to the dogmas and commandments of those men who preach for hire and divine for money, and teach for doctrines the commandments of men, expecting that the Constitution of the United States would have protected them therein. "But, notwithstanding the _Mormon_ people, had purchased upwards of two hundred thousand dollars' worth of land, most of which was entered and paid for at the Land Office of the United States, in the State of Missouri, and although the President of the United States has been made acquainted with these facts and the particulars of our persecutions and oppressions by petitions to him and to Congress, yet they have not even attempted to restore the Saints to their rights, or given any assurance that we may hereafter expect redress from them.