Minutes and Testimonies, 12–29 November 1838, Copy [State of Missouri v. Gates et al. for Treason]
Source Note
Minutes and Testimonies, , Ray Co., MO, 12–29 Nov. 1838, State of MO v. Gates et al. for Treason (Fifth Judicial Circuit of MO 1838). Copied ca. late 1838–ca. early 1839; unidentified handwriting; fifty-seven pages; Mormon War Papers, MSA.
<Sequel?> did you practice the promised reformation? you know you did not, but by secret efforts, continued to practise your iniquity, and secretly to injure their character notwithstanding their kindness to you.? are such things to be borne, you yourselves would answer that they are unsufferable If you were to answer according to the feelings of your own hearts, As we design this paper to be published to the world we will give an epitome of your scandalous conduct and treachery for the last two years. We wish to remind you that and were among the prinicipal of those who were the means of gathering us to this place by their testimony which they gave concerning the plates of the book of Mormon; That they were shewn to them by an Angel which testimony we believe now as much as before you had so scandalously disgraced it; You Commenced your wickedness by heading a party to disturb the worship of the Saints in the first day of the week and made the in to be a scene of abuse and slander, to destroy the reputation of those whom the church had appointed to be their teachers and for no other cause only that you were not the persons
The saints in having elected to be a justice of the peace, he used the power of that office to take their most sacred rights from them and that contrary to law
He supported a parcel of Blacklegs and in disturbing the worship of the saints, and when the men whom you <the> church had chosen to preside over their meetings endeavoured to put the to order, he helped (and by the authority of his Justices office too) these wretches to continue their confusion and threatened the church with a prosecution for trying to put them out of , and issued writs against the saints for endeavouring to sustain their rights, and bound themselves under heavy bonds to appear before his honor, and required bonds which were both inhuman and unlawful, and one of these was the venerable who had been appointed by the church to preside, a man of upwards of seventy years of age, and notorious for his peacble habits, and united with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars, and blacklegs of the deepest dye to deceive, cheat, and defraud the saints out of their property, by every act and stratagem which wickedness could invent, using the influence of the vilest [p. [14]]