| 456 State of Illinois; and notwithstanding the false reports which were circulated to our prejudice, we were received with kindness by the noble hearted citizens of Illinois; who relieved our necessities, and bade us welcome; for which kindness we feel thankful.
"That under your Excellency's administration we have had every encouragement given us, and have every reason, from the kindness and sympathy which you have ever manifested towards us in our sufferings, to feel confident that your aid will ever be offered to us in common with the rest of the citizens of the State. That feeling ourselves so happy and secure, and beginning again to enjoy the comforts of life, we are sorry to say that our quiet has been disturbed, our fears alarmed, and our families annoyed by the citizens of Missouri; who, with malice and hatred which is characteristic of them, have unconstitutionally sent an armed force and abducted some of our friends; namely, James Allred, Noah Rogers, Alanson Brown, and one Boyce, and carried them into the State of Missouri, and treated them with the greatest barbarity and cruelty; even now their wives and children, as well as their friends, are alarmed for the safety of their lives.
"Therefore we have felt it our duty to place the circumstances of this unheard-of outrage before you, and appeal to your Excellency for protection from such marauders, and take such measures as you may deem proper, that our friends may be again restored to the bosom of their families, and the offenders punished for their crimes.
"We have the greatest confidence in your Excellency, that every constitutional means will be resorted to to restore our friends to the society of their families, etc., that we, in common with other citizens of the State of Illinois, may enjoy all the rights and privileges of freemen.
"Your memorialists have under all circumstances paid the greatest respect to the laws of the country, and if any should break the same they have never felt a disposition to screen such from justice, but when under false pretenses, to gratify and satiate a revengeful disposition; for the citizens of another State, regardless of both the laws of God and
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