It is needless to say that the people of Nauvoo resented the vicious slanders published in the _Expositor_. They resented, moreover, the unrighteous purposes for which it was founded. The matter of this new periodical, the _Nauvoo Expositor_, was brought to the attention of the city council of Nauvoo. After several days' careful investigation, the council passed an ordinance declaring the _Nauvoo Expositor_ a nuisance, and issued an order to the mayor, Joseph Smith, to have the nuisance abated. On the night of Monday, June tenth, 1844, the city marshal, accompanied by the major-general of the Nauvoo Legion and the members of the Legion, carried the press, the type, the printed paper, and the fixtures of the _Nauvoo Expositor_, into the street and destroyed them. This summary action of the city council of Nauvoo against the _Nauvoo Expositor_ was the beginning of the final trouble that led to the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. There was raised such a hue and cry by the apostate publishers of the short-lived _Nauvoo Expositor_, that the whole state of Illinois was roused to attention. Mass-meetings were held in which the action of the city council of Nauvoo was denounced. Joseph Smith was arrested for riot. His case was heard before a non-Mormon justice. On June twelfth, he was acquitted. But the enemies of the Prophet had become thoroughly aroused. They banded themselves together, and determined to do him to death. He was arrested a second time for the _Expositor_ affair, and was again acquitted. But the disturbance continued to grow worse. The spirit of mobocracy took possession of the defamers of the Prophet. They began to clamor for his blood, and for the blood of those that should dare to remain loyal to him. Their frenzy had grown to such uncontrollable proportions that nothing short of the shedding of blood could satisfy them. The _Nauvoo Expositor_, though dead, was bringing to pass the very results for which it was first given life. It was with the affair reduced thus to utter hopelessness, that the Prophet decided finally to try to save the situation by taking himself away from the seat of trouble. It was the evening of Saturday, June twenty-second, 1844. The Prophet had met with several men in an upper room of his house. The subject of discussion was naturally the serious difficulties that had grown out of the destruction of the _Nauvoo Expositor_--an act that had been twice justified by properly constituted courts of law. "Brethren," said the Prophet, "here is a letter from the Governor which I wish to have read." The letter was read. Then the Prophet spoke again, sorrowfully, "There is no mercy--no mercy here." "No," replied his brother Hyrum; "Just as sure as we fall into their hands we are dead men." "Yes," said Joseph; "what shall we do, Brother Hyrum ?" And Hyrum answered, "I don't know."