"GENTLEMEN: You, whose names are not on this list, will now have the privilege of going to your fields to obtain grain for your families—wood, etc. Those that compose the list will go hence to prison, to be tried, and receive the due demerits of their crimes. But you are now at liberty, all but such as charges may hereafter be preferred against. It now devolves upon you to fulfill the treaty that you have entered into—the leading items of which I now lay before you.
"The first of these items you have already complied with—which is, that you deliver up your leading men to be tried according to law. Second, that you deliver up your arms—this has been attended to. The third is, that you sign over your property to defray the expenses of the war; this you have also done. Another thing yet remains for you to comply with; that is: that you leave the State forthwith; and, whatever your feeling concerning this affair, whatever your innocence, it is nothing to me. General Lucas, who is equal in authority with me, has made this treaty with you. I am determined to see it executed.
"The orders of the Governor to me, were, that you should be exterminated, and not allowed to remain in the State. And had your leaders not been given up, and the treaty complied with, before this you and your families would have been destroyed and your houses in ashes.
"There is a discretionary power resting in my hands, which I shall try to exercise for a season. I did not say that you must go now, but you must not think of stopping here another season, or of putting in crops; for the moment you do, the citizens will be upon you. I am determined to see the Governor's orders fulfilled, but shall not come upon you immediately. Do not think that I shall act as I have done any more; but if I have to come again because the treaty which you have made is not complied with, you need not expect any mercy, but extermination; for I am determined that the Governor's order shall be executed.
"As for your leaders, do not think, do not imagine for a moment, do not let it enter your minds that they will be delivered, or that you will see their faces again, for their fate is fixed, their die is cast, their doom is sealed.
"I am sorry, gentlemen, to see so great a number of apparently intelligent men found in the situation that you are. And, oh! that I could invoke the spirit of the unknown God to rest upon you, and deliver you from that awful chain of superstition, and liberate you from those fetters of fanaticism with which you are bound. I would advise you to scatter abroad and never again organize with bishops, presidents, etc., lest you excite the jealousies of the people, and subject yourselves to the same calamities that have now come upon you.
"You have always been the aggressors; you have brought upon yourselves these difficulties by being disaffected, and not being subject to rule; and my advice is, that you become as other citizens, lest by a recurrence of these events you bring upon yourselves inevitable ruin."
CHAPTER XVII.
EPISODES OF THE PERSECUTIONS—CONTINUATION OF ELIZA R. SNOW'S NARRATIVE—BATHSHEBA W. SMITH'S STORY—LOUISA F. WELLS INTRODUCED TO THE READER—EXPERIENCE OF ABIGAIL LEONARD—MARGARET FOUTZ.
The prophet and his brother Hyrum were in prison and in chains in Missouri; Sidney Rigdon, Parley Pratt and others were also in prison and in chains, for the gospel's sake.
The St. Peter of Mormondom was engaged in removing the saints from Missouri to Illinois. He had made a covenant with them that none of the faithful should be left. Faithfully he kept that covenant. It was then, in fact, that Brigham rose as a great leader of a people, giving promise of what he has been since the martyrdom of the prophet.
While Joseph is in chains, and Brigham is accomplishing the exodus from Missouri, the sisters shall relate some episodes of those days.
Sister Snow, continuing the thread of her narrative already given, says:
In Kirtland the persecution increased until many had to flee for their lives, and in the spring of 1838, in company with my father, mother, three brothers, one sister and her two daughters, I left Kirtland, and arrived in Far West, Caldwell county, Mo., on the 16th of July, where I stopped at the house of Sidney Rigdon, with my brother Lorenzo, who was very sick, while the rest of the family went farther, and settled in Adam-Ondi-Ahman, in Davies county. In two weeks, my brother being sufficiently recovered, my father sent for us and we joined the family group. My father purchased the premises of two of the "old settlers," and paid their demands in full. I mention this, because subsequent events proved that, at the time of the purchase, although those men ostensibly were our warm friends, they had, in connection with others of the same stripe, concocted plans to mob and drive us from our newly acquired homes, and repossess them. In this brief biographical sketch, I shall not attempt a review of the scenes that followed. Sufficient to say, while we were busy in making preparations for the approaching winter, to our great surprise, those neighbors fled from the place, as if driven by a mob, leaving their clocks ticking, dishes spread for their meal, coffee-pots boiling, etc., etc., and, as they went, spread the report in every direction that the "Mormons" had driven them from their homes, arousing the inhabitants of the surrounding country, which resulted in the disgraceful, notorious "exterminating order" from the Governor of the State; in accordance therewith, we left Davies county for that of Caldwell, preparatory to fulfilling the injunction of leaving the State "before grass grows" in the spring.
The clemency of our law-abiding, citizen-expelling Governor allowed us ten days to leave our county, and, till the expiration of that term, a posse of militia was to guard us against mobs; but it would be very difficult to tell which was better, the militia or the mob—nothing was too mean for the militia to perform—no property was safe within the reach of those men.
One morning, while we were hard at work, preparing for our exit, the former occupant of our house entered, and in an impudent and arrogant manner inquired how soon we should be out of it. My American blood warmed to the temperature of an insulted, free-born citizen, as I looked at him, and thought, poor man, you little think with whom you have to deal—God lives! He certainly overruled in that instance, for those wicked men never got possession of that property, although my father sacrificed it to American mobocracy.