| 403 and stages back to Dayton, Ohio."-Millennial Star, vol. 17, pp. 584, 585.
Judge Higbee, who remained in Washington to look after the interests of the petition, wrote under date of February 20, 1840, as follows:-
"WASHINGTON CITY, February 20, 1840.
"Dear Brother:-I have just returned from the committee room, wherein I spoke about one hour and a half. There were but three of the committee present, for which I am very sorry. I think they will be obliged to acknowledge the justice of our cause. They paid good attention, and I think my remarks were well received. It was a special meeting appointed to hear me by my request. The Missouri senators and representatives were invited to attend. Dr. Linn and Mr. Jamieson attended, and God gave me courage, so that I was not intimidated by them. Dr. Linn, I thought, felt a little uneasy at times; but manifested a much better spirit afterwards than Mr. Jamieson.
"I told them firstly that I represented a suffering people, who had been deprived, together with myself, of their rights in Missouri; who numbered something like fifteen thousand souls; and not only they, but many others were deprived of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States. At least the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand freeborn citizens are deprived of the enjoyment of citizenship in each or every State; that we had no ingress in the State of Missouri; nor could any of us have, only at the expense of our lives; and this by the order of the Executive.
"I then took their own declaration of the cause of our expulsion; referred them to P. P. Pratt's pamphlet, which I held in my hand; then showed that the first accusation therein contained was on account of our religious tenets; furthermore, that the others were utterly groundless. I went on to prove that the whole persecution from beginning to end was grounded on our religious faith. For evidence of this I referred them to Porter Rockwell's testimony and P. Powell's. I stated that there was abundant testimony to prove this to be a fact, among the documents.
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