These Anti-Mormons held public meetings, which were very numerously attended, where they passed resolutions of the most violent and inflamitory kind, threatening to drive expel and <​the Mormons from the or​> exterminate the<​m​> Mormons from the ; at the same time accusing them of all the vocabulary of crime. Among the resolutions that were passed, the following is a sample: (Insert resolutions of and meetings) They appointed their meetings in various parts of , & other Counties; which soon resulted in the organization of armed mobs, under the direction of officers, who reported to their headquarters, & 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 of 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 Post Masters and others, & scarcely ever arrived at <​the place of​> their destination, so that a great many of the people who would have been otherwise peacable, were excited by their misrepresentations, & instigated to join their hostile or predatory bands.

Emboldened by the acts of those outside, these apostate Mormons, associated with the others, commenced [p. 6]