| 346 jail, and that too by men of note, that without any doubt many lives would be lost the next day; for now, not only the mob, but the whole county were engaged and greatly enraged against us, and that nothing would stop them short of our leaving the county forthwith; and they thought that they were so enraged that even this would not stop them from taking our lives.
"We accordingly sent word that night to our brethren that they might not expect anything the next day but a general slaughter of our people, and that they must take care of themselves the best way they could. However, we at the same time came to the conclusion, on seeing the rage of the people, that it would be wisdom for us to leave the county immediately, rather than to have so many lives lost as probably would be. The sheriff and two others took us out of the jail and went with us to see our brethren upon this subject. Our brethren agreed to it; and as we were returning to the jail about one o'clock at night, we were hailed by a party of men with guns, who intended no doubt to kill us. I wheeled and left them, they fired a rifle at me; Brother Morley also left them; but Bro. Gilbert stood his ground. They came up to him; presented two guns in order to kill him, but as Providence would, one snapped and the other flashed in the pan. He was then knocked down by one of them, but his life was preserved and he not materially hurt.
"Our agreement to leave the county not being known to only a few, the people in their wrath collected together in the morning, well armed for war, and Col. Pitcher called out the militia, as he said, to quell the mob: but it would have been difficult for one to have distinguished between the militia and the mob, for all the most conspicuous characters engaged in the riot were found in his ranks. Our proposals to leave the county, however, were laid before the people, and we were told that it was with much difficulty that they were constrained to let us go, but seemed determined on taking our lives.
"At the same time our brethren west of Independence, not knowing that we had agreed to leave the county, and supposing that nothing but death awaited them, gathered together
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