THE PLOT OF AN APOSTATE--THE PUBLICATION OF THE NAUVOO "EXPOSITOR"--DECLARED A NUISANCE AND ABATED AS SUCH--JOSEPH'S LAST PUBLIC SPEECH--HE AND HIS BROTHER HYRUM LEAVE NAUVOO--RETURN TO THE CITY--"I AM GOING LIKE A LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER." The mutterings of that storm of hatred, lies and murder changed to the storm itself when the _Nauvoo Expositor_ came out on the seventh of June, 1844. It was a weekly newspaper printed by the Laws, Higbees and Fosters, and was filled with the apostate spirit. Joseph and Hyrum were the main objects of its lying attacks. It also urged that the charter of Nauvoo be withdrawn on account of the fraud and crimes which, it said, were practiced under it. On this same day Robert Foster came to the Prophet and asked to see him alone, saying he wished to come back into the Church. Joseph refused to see him without witnesses, and as they spoke he pointed to Foster's breast and said, "What have you concealed there?" Foster confessed it was his pistol, and after a few more words, left the house, promising to come back, but he never came. It was soon learned that he had wished to draw Joseph off alone and then murder him. Three days after the _Expositor_ came out, the city council met and decided that this paper was a public nuisance, and, as in ordinary cases, Marshal John P. Greene was directed to remove it. Taking a number of men with him as assistants, he quietly went to the office, took the press out of the building, broke it and pied the type. Joseph, as mayor of the city, made a proclamation telling why this action had been taken. It was simply self-protection. If the _Nauvoo Expositor_ had gone on, sooner or later mobs would have come upon Nauvoo, and the city would have suffered the terrible fate of Far West. The publishers hurried to Carthage and told their story. Constable David Bettis worth was sent to arrest Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the others who had been concerned in destroying the _Expositor_. Thomas Morrison, justice of the peace at Carthage, had issued a warrant and had directed the officers to bring the prisoners before him or some other justice of the peace within the county. Joseph and Hyrum asked that they be taken before a justice of the peace in Nauvoo, but the constable said, "I will be damned but I will carry you before Justice Morrison at Carthage." The brethren therefore obtained a writ of habeas corpus from the city court of Nauvoo and after being examined were set free.