Joseph and Hyrum are dead. Taylor wounded, not very badly. I am well. Our guard was forced, as we believe, by a band of Missourians from 100 to 200. The job was done in an instant, and the party fled towards Nauvoo instantly. This is as I believe it. The citizens here are afraid of the Mormons attacking them; I promise them no. W. RICHARDS. N. B. The citizens promise us protection. Alarm guns have been fired. JOHN TAYLOR. CHAPTER XVII. WAS GOVERNOR FORD A PARTY TO THE MASSACRE?--SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. Relative to Governor Ford's complicity in this awful tragedy, Elder Taylor has the following: "There had been various opinions about the complicity of the governor in the murder, some supposing that he knew all about it, and assisted or winked at its execution. It is somewhat difficult to form a correct opinion; from the facts presented it is very certain that things looked more than suspicious against him." "In the first place, he positively knew that we had broken no law. "Secondly. He knew that the mob had not only passed inflammatory resolutions, threatening extermination to the Mormons, but that they had actually assembled armed mobs and commenced hostilities against us. "Thirdly. He took those very mobs that had been arrayed against us, and enrolled them as his troops, thus legalizing their acts. "Fourthly. He disbanded the Nauvoo Legion, which had never violated law, and disarmed them, and had about his person in the shape of militia known mobocrats and violators of the law. "Fifthly. He requested us to come to Carthage without arms, promising protection, and then refused to interfere in delivering us from prison, although Joseph and Hyrum were put there contrary to law. "Sixthly. Although he refused to interfere in our behalf, yet, when Captain Smith went to him and informed him that the prisoners refused to come out, he told him that he had a command and knew what to do, thus sanctioning the use of force in the violation of law when opposed to us, whereas he would not for us interpose his executive authority to free us from being incarcerated contrary to law, although he was fully informed of all the facts of the case, as we kept him posted in the affairs all the time. "Seventhly. He left the prisoners in Carthage jail contrary to his plighted faith. "Eighthly. Before he went he dismissed all the troops that could be relied upon, as well as many of the mob, and left us in charge of the "Carthage Greys," a company that he knew were mobocratic, our most bitter enemies, and who had passed resolutions to exterminate us, and who had been placed under guard by General Demming only the day before. "Ninthly. He was informed of the intended murder, both before he left and while on the road, by several different parties.