There was a combination of horse-thieves extending from Galena to Alton. There were counterfeiters engaged in merchandising, trading, and store-keeping in most of the cities and villages, and in some districts, I have been credibly informed by men to whom they have disclosed their secrets, the judges, sheriffs, constables, and jailors, as well, as professional men, were more or less associated with them. These had in their employ the most reckless, abandoned wretches, who stood ready to carry into effect the most desperate enterprises, and were careless alike of human life and property. Their object in persecuting the Mormons was in part to cover their own rascality, and in part to prevent them from exposing and prosecuting them; but the principal reason was plunder, believing that if they could be removed or driven they would be made fat on Mormon spoils, besides having in the deserted city a good asylum for the prosecution of their diabolical pursuits. This conglomeration of apostate Mormons, religious bigots, political fanatics and black-legs, all united their forces against the Mormons, and organized themselves into a party, denominated anti-Mormons. Some of them, we have reason to believe, joined The Church in order to cover their infamous practices, and when they were expelled for their unrighteousness only raged with greater violence. They circulated every kind of falsehood that they could collect or manufacture against the Mormons. They also had a paper to assist them in their nefarious designs, called the _Warsaw Signal_, edited by a Mr. Thomas Sharp, a violent and unprincipled man, who shrunk not from any enormity. The anti-Mormons had public meetings, which were very numerously attended, where they passed resolutions of the most violent and inflammatory kind, threatening to drive, expel and exterminate the Mormons from the State, at the same time accusing them of every evil in the vocabulary of crime. They appointed their meetings in various parts of Hancock, M'Donough, and other counties, which soon resulted in the organization of armed mobs, under the direction of officers who reported to their headquarters, and the reports of which were published in the anti-Mormon paper, and circulated through the adjoining counties. We also published in the _Times and Seasons_ and the _Nauvoo Neighbor_ (two papers published and edited by me at that time) an account, not only of their proceedings, but our own. But such was the hostile feeling, so well arranged their plans, and so desperate and lawless their measures, that it was with the greatest difficulty that we could get our papers circulated; they were destroyed by postmasters and others, and scarcely ever arrived at the place of their destination, so that a great many of the people, who would have been otherwise peaceable, were excited by their misrepresentations, and instigated to join their hostile or predatory bands.