This was between nine and ten o'clock on the night of the twenty-second of June, and preparations were at once entered into to carry out this impression of the Spirit. W. W. Phelps was instructed to take the families of the Prophet and his brother to Cincinnati; and that night O. P. Rockwell rowed Joseph, Hyrum and Dr. Richards over the Mississippi to Montrose, and then returned with instructions to procure horses for them and make all necessary preparations to start for "the great basin in the Rocky Mountains." About ten o'clock the next day the governor's _posse_ arrived in Nauvoo to arrest Joseph, but not finding him it returned to Carthage, leaving a man by the name of Yates to watch for the Prophet's appearing. This man said that if the mayor and his brother were not given up, the governor had expressed a determination to send his troops into the city and guard it until they were found, if it took three years. At this crisis, some of Joseph's friends instead of rendering him all possible assistance to escape from his enemies, complained of his conduct as cowardly and entreated him to return to Nauvoo and not leave them like a false shepherd leaves his flock when the wolves attack them. The parties most forward in making this charge of cowardice were Reynolds Cahoon, L. D. Wasson and Hiram Kimball. Emma Smith, his wife, also sent a letter by the hand of Reynolds Cahoon, entreating him to return and give himself up, trusting to the pledges of the governor for a fair trial. Influenced by these entreaties to return, and stung by the taunts of cowardice from those who should have been his friends, he said: "If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of none to myself." And after a brief consultation with Rockwell and his brother Hyrum, against his better judgment, and with the conviction fixed in his soul that he would be killed, he resolved to return; and crossed over the river that evening to Nauvoo. His first act after arriving in the beautiful city of which he was the chief founder, was to send word to the governor, by the hand of Theodore Turley and Jedediah M. Grant that he would be ready to go to Carthage as early on the morrow as his (the governor's) _posse_ could meet him--provided he could be assured a fair trial, and his witnesses not be abused. That message was delivered to the governor, and he decided at once to send a _posse_ to escort Joseph and his party to Carthage; but through the influence which Wilson Law, Joseph H. Jackson and others of like character had over him, he changed his good intention of sending a _posse_, and ordered Joseph's messengers to return that night with orders to him to be in Carthage the next day by ten o'clock without an escort; and he threatened that if Joseph did not give himself up by that time, Nauvoo would be destroyed.