Joseph and his companion prepared a long petition to place before Congress. They met a committee of the representatives and senators from Illinois and other friendly congressmen and laid their cause plainly before them. They again visited President Van Buren, but he had now turned against them and at this time spoke those cowardly, traitorous words: "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you. If I take up for you I shall lose the vote of Missouri." The committee appointed by Congress to consider the petition reported against it also. For their own political reasons, like the President, they did not wish to favor the Mormons, and besides this they probably feared to touch the great question of State's Rights, which was not settled until the Civil War. Joseph's mission to Washington seemed to be in vain. Yet it was not entirely a failure. He preached a number of public sermons and he did much to spread the truth, and gained many friends. He also had a chance to become acquainted with those who were in high places in the nation, and measure his strength and intelligence with theirs. At the April conference of 1840, Apostle Orson Hyde, who had not gone with the other members of the Twelve to England, was called on a mission to Jerusalem. Apostle John E. Page was appointed to go with him, but this he refused to do. Elder Hyde left Nauvoo nine days later, traveled to the Holy Land and there offered a prayer of dedication on the Mount of Olives, that the Jews might gather home. He then went to Europe, and in Germany published a pamphlet telling of the rise and doctrines of the Church. His mission lasted over two years. In midsummer of the year 1840, a circumstance happened which showed that the old spirit had not died out in Missouri. A party of men from that state came to Nauvoo and took away by force--actually kidnapped--four of the brethren. These were James Allred, Alanson Brown, Noah Rogers and Benjamin Boyce, and before they escaped they were nearly killed by the cruelties of the Missourians. Two or three months later, on the fifteenth of September, Governor Boggs asked Governor Carlin of Illinois to have Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Parley P. Pratt, Caleb Baldwin and Alanson Brown arrested for having fled from the Missouri prisons. Although Governor Carlin must have known that the object of Boggs was murder, yet he issued an order for their arrest, and the sheriff was sent with it to Nauvoo. Joseph and the others who were there went into hiding, because they knew that if they were taken back to Missouri it meant foul play. The sheriff, therefore, returned the order to Governor Carlin. The danger was past and Joseph again came out among the people.