THE COUNTRY IN ARMS. 171
stroyed the establisliuicnt, tearing clown the presses and throwing the type into the street.^^ For this act the proprietors obtained from the authorities of the town of Carthage, some twenty miles distant, a war- rant for the arrest of Joseph Smith, which was placed in the hands of the Carthage constable to be served.
It was a proceeding not at all to the taste of the Mormons that their mayor should be summoned for misdemeanor before the magistrate of another town, and Smith refused to go. He was willing to be tried before a state tribunal. Meanwhile the offenders were brought before the municipal court of Nauvoo, on a Avrit of habeas corpus, and after examination were discharged. The cry was then raised through- out the country that Joseph Smith and associates, pub- lic offenders, ensconced among their troops in the stronghold of Nauvoo, defied the law, refusing to re- spond to the call of justice; whereupon the men of Illinois, to the number of two or three thousand, some coming even from Missouri, rallied to the support of the Carthage constable, and stood ready, as the}' said, not only to arrest Joe Smith, but to burn his town and kill every man, woman, and child in it.
As the forces of the enemy enlarged and grew yet more and more demonstrative in their wrath, the town prepared for defence, the Nauvoo Legion being called out and placed under arms, by instructions from Gov- ernor Ford to Joseph Smith, as general in command. This gave rise to a report that they were about to make a raid on the neighboring gentile settlements.^^
^'Letter of John S. Fullmer to the New York HeraM, dated Nauvoo, Oct. 30, 1844 (but not published until several years later). A copy of it will be found in Utah Tracts, ix. p. 7. Smith had been elected mayor on the resignation of JobnC. Bennett April 19, 1842. Mackay, The Mormons, 168, says: 'A body of the prophet's adherents, to the number of two hundred and upward, sallied forth in obedience to this order, and proceeding to the office of the Expositor, speedily razed it to the ground. ' Reiny states that ' an order to destroy the journal signed by Joseph was immediately put into execution by a police officer, w ho pro- ceeded the same day to break uj) the presses.' Journey, i. 389. Furd declares that the marshal aided by a portion of the legion executed his warrant by de- stroying the press and scattering the type and other materials of the office. Message to lU. Sen., 14th Ass. 1st Sess., 4.
^* 'At a meeting of the citizens of Hancock co. held at Carthage, on the
