| 686 flesh, would be considered a popular deed of notoriety; but the people on learning that it would not take, tried to keep it secret; but the fact was noised abroad before they took that precaution.
"Whilst we were incarcerated in prison we petitioned the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri for habeas corpus, twice, but were refused both times by Judge Reynolds, who is now the Governor of that State. We also petitioned one of the county judges for a writ of habeas corpus, which was granted in about three weeks afterwards; but were not permitted to have any trial; we were only taken out of jail and kept out for a few hours and then remanded back again. In the course of three or four days after that time Judge Turnham came into the jail in the evening, and said he had permitted Mr. Rigdon to get bail; but said he had to do it in the night, and had also to get away in the night, and unknown to any of the citizens, or they would kill him, for they had sworn to kill him if they could find him; and as to the rest of us, he dared not let us go, for fear of his own life, as well as ours. He said it was damned hard to be confined under such circumstances, for he knew we were innocent men, and he said the people also knew it; and that it was only a persecution and treachery, and the scenes of Jackson County acted over again, for fear that we would become too numerous in that upper country. He said the plan was concocted from the Governor down to the lowest judge, and that that damned Baptist priest, Riley, who was riding into town every day to watch the people, stirring up the minds of the people against us all he could, exciting them and stirring up their religious prejudices against us, for fear they would let us go. Mr. Rigdon, however, got bail and made his escape to Illinois. The jailor [jailer], Samuel Tillery, Esq., told us also, that the whole plan was concocted by the Governor down to the lowest judge in that upper country, early in the previous spring, and that the plan was more fully carried out at the time that General Atchison went down to Jefferson City, with General Wilson, Lucas, and Gillium, the self-styled 'Delaware chief.' This was sometime in the month of September, when the mob were collected at De Witt, in Carroll
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