The singularity about this agreement is that not one word is said about giving up Pickett, to arrest whom the forces under Singleton were ostensibly called out. Does it not reveal the fact that the Pickett episode was merely a ruse--a pretext for gathering a mob to sack Nauvoo and drive away the Mormons? This proposed settlement, however, was rejected by the mob forces. It did not sufficiently gratify their implacable hatred. They did, in very deed, as the Prophet Joseph foretold his people they would, thirst for the blood of every man in whose heart dwelt a single spark of the spirit of the fullness of the Gospel. But when the mob rejected these terms, Singleton and other leaders left them; saying the Mormons had done all that could be required of them. On the retirement of Singleton and others, the command of the mob was given to Thomas S. Brockman, a Campbellite preacher, known familiarly as "Old Tom," among his followers. He at once went into active preparations for bombarding the city; and with a force of more than one thousand men, and six pieces of cannon, took up a position about one mile east of the city, in a cornfield just at the head of Mulholland street; and not far from the house of Squire D. H. Wells. From this position Brockman issued the terms upon which he would grant peace. The terms he offered were much more outrageous than those proposed by the Quincy committee, and therefore were rejected by the people of Nauvoo, both by Mormon and non-Mormon. Brockman addressed his insolent terms of peace to "the commanding officer of Nauvoo, and the trustees of the Mormon Church." The "commanding officer" was Major Clifford, who had succeeded Major Parker in that position. He was vested with the governor's commission as Parker had been, and it was to this representative of Illinois' executive that the demand of Brockman to surrender the city, and stack his arms, was addressed; so that he and his mob forces were pitted against the laws and lawful authority of the State, and we shall see, as we proceed, how mobs were more powerful than the State authorities; or rather, how the lawful authorities of the State were so lost to all sense of shame, so recreant to the trust reposed in them, so neglectful of the honor and dignity of the State, that they permitted their own representatives to be driven in disgrace from the field by the mob led by Brockman: and furthermore, those same authorities were so lost to every principle of humanity, that they permitted the helpless and unoffending people to be driven from their homes out into the wilderness to perish from exposure.