Why so oblivious to everything pertaining to the Mormon’s interest, and so alive and interested about the Mobocrats? At any rate, be this as it may he stands responsible for their blood and it is dripping on his garments. If it had not been for his promises of protection they would have protected themselves; it was plighted faith that led them to the slaughter; and to make the best of it, it was a breach of that faith, and a nonfulfillment of that promise, after repeated warnings, that led to their death.

Having said so much I must leave the with my readers and with his God. Justice, I conceive, demanded this much, and truth could not be told without it less; as I have said before, my opinion is that the would not have planned this murder; but he had not sufficient energy to resist popular opinion, even if that opinion led to blood and death.

It was rumored that a strong political party, numbering in its ranks many of the prominent men of the nation, were engaged in a plot for the overthrow of Joseph Smith, and that the was of this party, and , , and Capt. Smith and others <​were​> their accomplices; but whether this was the case or not I don’t know. It is very certain that a strong political feeling existed against Joseph Smith, and I have reason to believe that his letters to were made use of by political parties opposed to and were the means of that statesman’s defeat. Yet if such a combination as the one refered to, existed I am not apprised of it. [p. 63]