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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 14 Page: 263 (~1838-1839)

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263 and the other military authorities in arranging a compromise or truce. Doubtless he feared that if he disclosed the real purpose for which they were wanted, they would refuse to surrender themselves, and the most direful results would follow. He knew that the militia against him numbered about 3,000, or about five to one of his own force; that a fight could result but one way, and under the Governor's orders the consequences would be most frightful and terrible-practically wholesale slaughter. 'Gen.' [Col.] Hinkle was a Kentuckian, and personally brave and fearless. He did not fear danger for himself, but for his brethren, and his course, it must be admitted, was certainly for the best. Yet the Mormons ever afterwards regarded him as a traitor, and he was cut off from the church, and spent his last days in Iowa, and died aloof from his former brethren."-History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, pp. 135,136.

Article 2 of the contract between Hinkle and Lucas, as given on page 256 of this work, was afterward interpreted to hold the saints for the payment of the debts of the war which had been waged against them. This whole procedure has been looked upon by men of fairness as being extraordinary and cruel.

The History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri, has this to say upon the subject:-

"What authority General Lucas had to make such a 'treaty' and to impose such conditions, is not clear. It would seem that he regarded the Mormons as composing a foreign nation, or at least as forming an army with belligerent rights, and with proper treaty-contracting powers. The truth was they were and had not ceased to be citizens of Missouri, amenable to and under jurisdiction of its laws If they had committed any crime they ought to have been punished, just the same as other criminals. There was no authority for taking their arms from them except that they were proved to be militia in a state of insubordination. There was no sort of authority for requiring them to pay the expenses of the war. There was no sort of authority for requiring them to leave the State. It was monstrously illegal and unjust to attempt to punish them for offenses for

(page 263)

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