Thomas Webster, who was baptized in England in 1837 by Orson Hyde and became an elder, saw the falsity of the Mormon professions through the failure of their miracles and other pretensions, and, after renouncing their faith, published a pamphlet exposing their methods. He relates many of the declarations made by the first missionaries in Preston to their ignorant hearers. Hyde declared that the apostles Peter, James, and John were still alive. He and Kimball asserted that neither of them would "taste death" before Christ's second coming. At one meeting Kimball predicted that in ten or fifteen years the sea would be dried up between Liverpool and America. "One of the most glaring things they ever brought before the public," says Webster, "was stated in a letter written by Orson Hyde to the brethren in Preston, saying they were on the way to the promised land in Missouri by hundreds, and the wagons reached a mile in length. They fell in with some of their brethren in Canada, who told him the Lord had been raining down manna in rich profusion, which covered from seven to ten acres of land. It was like wafers dipped in honey, and both Saints and sinners partook of it. I was present in the pulpit when this letter was read."

However ridiculous such methods may appear, their success in Great Britain was great.* In three years after the arrival of the first missionaries, the General Conference reported a membership of 4019 in England alone; in 1850 the General Conference reported that the Mormons in England and Scotland numbered 27,863, and in Wales 4342. The report for June, 1851, showed a total of 30,747 in the United Kingdom, and said, "During the last fourteen years more than 50,000 have been baptized in England, of which nearly 17,000 have migrated from her shores to Zion." In the years between 1840 and 1843 it was estimated that 3758 foreign converts settled in and around Nauvoo.**

* "There is no page of religious history which more proudly tells
its story than that which relates this peculiar phase of Mormon
experience. The excitement was contagious, even affecting persons in the
higher ranks of social life, and the result was a grand outpouring
of spiritual and miraculous healing power of the most astonishing
description. Miracles were heard of everywhere, and numerous
competent and most reliable witnesses bore testimony to their
genuineness."—"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 10.

** Two of the most intelligent English converts, who did
proselyting work for the church and in later years saw their error, have
given testimony concerning this work in Great Britain. John Hyde, Jr.,
summing up in 1857 the proselyting system, said: "Enthusiasm is the
secret of the great success of Mormon proselyting; it is the universal
characteristic of the people when proselyted; it is the hidden and
strong cord that leads them to Utah, and the iron clamp that keeps them
there."—"Mormonism," p. 171.

Stenhouse says: "Mormonism in England, Scotland and Wales was a grand triumph, and was fast ripening for a vigorous campaign in Continental Europe" (when polygamy was pronounced). The emigration of Mormon converts from Great Britain to the United States, in its earlier stages, was thoroughly systemized by the church authorities in this country. The first record of the movement of any considerable body tells of a company of about two hundred who sailed for New York from Liverpool in August, 1840, on the ship North American, in charge of two elders. A second vessel with emigrants, the Shefeld, sailed from Bristol to New York in February, 1841. The expense of the trip from New York to Nauvoo proved in excess of the means of many of these immigrants, some of whom were obliged to stop at Kirtland and other places in Ohio. This led to a change of route, by which vessels sailed from British ports direct to New Orleans, the immigrants ascending the Mississippi to Nauvoo.

The extent of this movement to the time of the departure of the Saints from Nauvoo is thus given by James Linforth, who says the figures are "as complete and correct as it is possible now to make them*":—

* "Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley," 1855.

Year *** No. of Vessels *** No. of Emigrants

1840
1
200
1841
6
1177
1842
8
1614
1843
5
769
1844
5
644
1845-46
3
346

Total
3750