I think your honourable body can ask-that it was without provocation on the part of the sufferers; for if there had been provocation, then would the transgressors have had to suffer the penalty of broken laws; but their punishment, if such it can be called, was not the penalty inflicted for the breach of any law, for no law in existence knows such a penalty or penalties. Why, then, all this cruelty? Answer, because the people had violated no law; and they could not be restrained by law, nor prevented from exercising the rights which they (according to the laws) enjoyed, and had a right to be protected in, in any State in the Union.

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'Being refused redress by the authorities of Missouri, to whom shall your memorialist look ? He answers, to the people of his native State, and through them to the general government; and where can he look with more confidence than to the patriots of Pennsylvania, the State of his nativity, and the place of the sepulchres of his fathers? Yes, your memorialist says in his heart, 'I will tell my wrongs and grievance, and that of my brethren, in Pennsylvania; I will publish them in the streets, highways, and high places of the "Key-Stone State," that her statesmen may plead the cause of suffering innocence in the halls of the National Legislature; her matrons may arise in the strength of patriotism; her fair ones in virtuous indignation, and their united voices cease not until the cause of the innocent shall be heard, and their most sacred rights restored.' To your honourable body, then, the representatives of the people of his native State, your memorialist utters his complaining voice; to you he tells the tale of his wrongs and his woes, and that of his brethren, and appeals to your honourable body as one of Pennsylvania's native sons, and asks you in the name of all that is patriotic, republican, and honourable, to instruct the whole delegation of Pennsylvania in Congress, to use all lawful and constitutional means to obtain for us redress for our wrongs and losses; believing, as your memorialist does, that the general government has not only power to act in the premises, but are bound by every sacred obligation by which American citizens are bound to one another in our national compact, to see that no injury is inflicted without redress being made.

"Weak indeed must be our republican institutions, and as contemptible our national capacity, if it is a fact that American citizens, after having purchased lands from the government, and received the government guarantee to be protected in the enjoyment of them, they can be lawlessly and causelessly driven off by violence and cruelty, and yet the government have no power to protect them or redress their wrongs. Tell not this in Pennsylvania, publish it not in the streets of Harrisburgh, for surely the sons of the Key-Stone State' will feel themselves insulted.

6

"Well may the nations of the old world ridicule the weakness and impotency of our free institutions,-a government not able to protect its own citizens! A government, it must be famous indeed in the annals of history, and a pattern to the world, which is so governed as to admit of the most flagrant abuses known to the civilized world, and acknowledged by all to be such, and yet no power to redress them! Hear it, O ye barbarians! Listen to it, O ye savages! and hasten, yea, hasten all of you to America; there you can glut your avarice

by plunder, and riot in the blood of innocence till you are satisfied, and the government has no power to restrain, nor strength to punish, nor yet ability to redress, the sufferers at your hands.

"From the acquaintance which your memorialist has with the history of his native State, he has been induced to make his appeal to your honoured body:-a State whose people are noted for their civic virtues and zealous attachment to the principles of civil and religious liberty,—a people venerable from the beginning of our national existence, whose virtuous efforts to the sacred principles of freedom, religious, civil, and political, have obtained for themselves imperishable laurels in the history of our country's glory,—a people whose colonial organization was based upon the holy principles of equal rights and equal privileges, a people whose national escutcheon has never been stained with the martyr's blood,—a people whose statesmen, divines, and heroes, laboured in the cabinet, the desk, and the field, to secure and hand down to their posterity, in all succeeding ages, the boon of heaven, the sacred rights of freemen.

"It was in the honoured metropolis of Pennsylvania, the seat of the first colonial Congress, when the principles of liberty were matured, from whence emanated the voice of independence, whose echoes rolled and reverberated till it reached the circumference of the colonial settlements, and inspired the sons of freedom, until there was but one voice heard, Freedom or death!' It was there, when the leaders and heroes of the revolution pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honours to each other, to be scourged by a tyrant's sceptre no longer, until all they had, and all they were, were offered on the altar of freedom.

"Not only were the principles of equal rights inscribed in legible characters on the flags which floated on her towers in the incipient stages of our national existence, but they were engraven on the hearts of the people with an impression which could not be obliterated. All who collected in her towers or fought under her banners could contend and fight for freedom only. Her teachers of religion, whose influence in the pulpit and eloquence in public assemblies, wielded an overwhelming influence in forwarding the cause of liberty, did they use this influence in securing to themselves governmental patronage or religious preferences? All acquainted with the history of the times answer No. They were citizens of Pennsylvania, and the immortal Penn had inscribed on every pot and bell in the colony, 'Civil and Religious Liberty.' The patriotism of Pennsylvania's religious teachers was pure. They threw in their whole weight of character and influence to promote a cause which made others equal with themselves,—for the glorious privilege of seeing a people free. Her heroes bore the horrors of war, not to sway the tyrant's sceptre or enjoy a lordling's wealth; but to found an asylum for the oppressed, and prepare a land of freedom for the tyrant's slave. Her statesmen, while in the councils of the nation, devoted all their wisdom and talents to establish a government where every man should be free; the slave liberated from bondage, and the coloured African enjoy the rights of citizenship; all enjoying equal rights to speak, to act, to worship—peculiar privileges to none

Such were Pennsylvania's sons at the beginning, and surely their sons and successors must have degenerated, lamentably degenerated from the purity and patriotism of their fathers and predecessors, if crimes and cruelties, such as your memorialist complains of, go unheeded and unregarded. Honourable regard for the people of my native State forbids the thought.

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'In confidence of the purity and patriotism of the representatives of the people of his native State, your memorialist comes to your honourable body through this his winged messenger, to tell you that the altar which was erected by the blood of your ancestors to civil and religious liberty, from whence ascended up the holy incense of pure patriotism and universal good will to man into the presence of Jehovah, a savour of life, is thrown down, and the worshippers thereat have been driven away, or else they are laying slain at the place of the altar. He comes to tell your honourable body that the temple your fathers erected to freedom, whither their sons assembled to hear her precepts and cherish her doctrines in their hearts, has been desecrated, its portals closed, so that those that go up hither are forbidden to enter.

"He comes to tell your honourable body that the blood of the heroes and patriots of the revolution, who have been slain by wicked hands for enjoying their religious rights, the boon of heaven to man,--has cried, and is crying, in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, saying: 'Redress, redress our wrongs, O Lord God of the whole earth!'

"He comes to tell your honourable body that the dying groans of infant innocence, and the shrieks of insulted and abused females, and many of them widows of revolutionary patriots, have ascended up into the ears of Omnipotence, and are registered in the archives of eternity, to be had in the day of retribution as a testimony against the whole nation, unless their cries and groans are heard by the representatives of the people, and ample redress made, as far as the nation can make it, or else the wrath of the Almighty will come down in fury against the whole nation.

"Under all these circumstances, your memorialist prays to be heard by your honourable body touching all the matters of his memorial, and as a memorial will be presented to Congress this session for redress of our grievances, he prays your honourable body will instruct the whole delegation of Pennsylvania, in both houses, to use all their influence in the national councils, to have redress granted.

"And, as in duty bound, your memorialist will ever pray. SIDNEY RIGDON, P.M."

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SECT IN ILLINOIS-BUILDING OF THE CITY AND TEMPLE OF NAUVOO -JOSEPH A LIEUTENANT-GENERAL-THE PROPHET'S RIGHT-HAND MAN-THE MORMONS IN ENGLAND-PROSPERITY OF NAUVOO.

IN the course of a few months after their expulsion from Missouri, the number of Mormons that found refuge in Illinois amounted to fifteen thousand souls, including men, women, and children. Many of these had never resided in Missouri, but flocked to the new location of the sect from all parts of the Union, and even from England, to make a last stand against oppression, and to support their prophet against his enemies. The organization of the sect began to be more fully and admirably developed; and the Mormons were even at this early period of their career, a pre-eminently industrious, frugal, and pains-taking people. They felt the advantages of co-operation.

Though robbed and plundered, they did not lose their time in vain repinings, but set themselves to repair the calamities they had suffered. The needy were aided by the more affluent in the purchase of land, and in the plenishing of their farms; and the inducements which they held out to skilled mechanics and others to join them, were not merely of a religious and spiritual, but of a social and worldly character. The Mormons as a body understood the dignity and the holiness of hard work, and they practised to the fullest extent the duty of self-reliance. They soon found themselves so numerous in the vicinity of the village of "Commerce," that their leaders conceived the project of converting it first into a town, and afterwards into a city. They gave it the name of "Nauvoo," or the "Beautiful,” a word that occurs in the Book of Mormon. In the course of a year and a half they erected about 2,000 houses, besides schools and other public buildings, and called the place the "Holy City." Joseph Smith was appointed its Mayor, and for a brief period in his troubled career enjoyed the supremacy, which was the great object of his existence, and the darling dream of his ambition. His word was law. He was both the temporal and spiritual head of his people, and enjoyed, beside the titles of "Prophet," "President," and "Mayor," the military title of "General" Smith, in right of his command over a body of militia, which he organized under the name of the Nauvoo Legion.

It was shortly previous to this time that the sect first began to be heard of in England. In a short sketch of the rise, progress, and faith of the Mormons, inserted in the fifth volume of the Times and Seasons, it is stated that in 1837 the first mission to England was undertaken, under the direction of Elders O. Hyde, the same whose signature appears to the disparaging affidavit relative to the Danite Band already quoted, and H. C. Kimball. These two baptized two thousand people into the Mormon faith, chiefly in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, and South Wales. In 1843, the number of the sect in England had increased to upwards of 10,000. In 1844, Elder Lorenzo Snow, being then in England, forwarded, by desire of the "Prophet," a copy of the Book of Mormon to Queen Victoria, and another to his Royal Highness Prince Albert, a circumstance at which the Saints in Nauvoo seemed greatly to rejoice. A Mormon poet exclaimed, in reference to it

"Oh! would she now her influence lend

The influence of royalty

Messiah's kingdom to extend,

And Zion's nursing mother be,