"I therefore, most sincerely pray your honor, and all the authorities in the State, to either banish me without further persecution, or I freely consent to a trial before the Judiciary of the United States.

"With sentiments of consideration and due respect, I have the honor to subscribe myself,

"Your prisoner,
"P. P. PRATT."

CHAPTER XXXI.

The Prison:—Fare:—Conduct of the Guards:—A Strange Couple:—My Wife Visits the Prison:—Fasting and Prayer:—An Important Question:—Vision:—A Ministering Spirit:—The Question Answered:—Visit from Judge King:—Change of Venue:—Handcuffs:—Departure from the Prison:—Journey:—Arrival in Columbia, Boone County:—Enter Another Prison:—Treatment:—Arrival of Friends:—News from my Family:—Impressions of the Spirit:—Plan and Preparations for Escape:—Fourth of July Celebration:—Flag:—Public Dinner:—Now's the Day:—Our Friends take Leave:—Rendezvous.

The four following chapters are extracted from the Millennial Star, published in Liverpool, England, Numbers 9, 10 and 11, Vol. VIII. I give them in full, with some little revision, although they contain a repetition of some of the things recorded in the foregoing chapters:

At the end of this extraordinary mock trial or inquisition, which lasted over two weeks, I was unchained from Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and the others, and being separated from them, was conducted to a gloomy, dark, cold and filthy dungeon in Richmond, Ray County, where I was doomed to spend the winter and spring, and await a further trial; while they shared a similar fate in a place called Liberty, in Clay County.

When I first entered the dungeon there were some twenty men, mostly heads of families, who had been torn from their families in those awful times, and thrust into prison. It was not only crowded to suffocation, without a chair, stool, bench, bed, furniture or window light, but just then completely filled with smoke by a fire which was lighted in a stove without a pipe, or any conductor for the smoke to pass out, except at the crevices between the timbers, where the winter storm was passing in. When my guard conducted me to the door of this miserable cell it grated on its huge hinges and opened like the pit yawning to receive me; a volume of thick smoke issued forth and seemed to forbid my entrance; but, urged in my rear by bayonets and loaded pistols in the hands of savage beings, I endeavored to enter, but was forced to retreat again outside of the door to breathe for a moment the free air. At this instant several pistols were cocked and presented at my head and breast, with terrible threats and oaths of instant death if I did not go in again. I told them to fire as soon as they pleased, for I must breathe a moment or die in the attempt. After standing a few moments, I again entered the prison, and threw myself down, my face to the floor, to avoid the smoke. Here I remained for some time, partly in a state of insensibility; my heart sickened within me, and a deathlike feeling came over me, from which I did not wholly recover for several days.

I arose, however, as soon as I was able, and began to speak to and recognize my fellow prisoners—most of whom were my neighbors and acquaintances. The door was now locked, bolted and barred, and several guards placed before it. The fire died away, and the smoke gradually cleared away from the dungeon; but the floor formed a hard and cold winter lodging.

In a few days all those in our prison, except five, were released on bail, and themselves and bail banished from the State, with the rest of the Society; thus compelling them to forfeit their bail bonds, which amounted in all to many thousand dollars. The five who remained were Morris Phelps, Darwin Chase, Norman Shearer, Luman Gibbs and myself. Two of these were finally dismissed—being boys scarcely out of their teens. But another was soon added by the name of King Follett.