AFTER THE MASSACRE. 189
seventeenth century destroy the cause of monarchy. The deed but reacted on those who committed it.
When two miles on his way from Nauvoo, the gov- ernor was met by messengers who informed him of the assassination, and, as he relates, he was " struck with a kind of dumbness." At daybreak the next morning all the bells in Carthage were ringing. It was noised abroad throughout Hancock county, he says, that the Mormons had attempted the rescue of Joseph and Hy- rum ; that they had been killed in order to prevent their escape, and that the governor was closely besieged at Nauvoo by the Nauvoo Legion, and could hold out only for two days. Ford was convinced that " those whoever they were who assassinated the Smiths meditated in turn his assassination by the Mormons," thinking that they would thus rid themselves of the Smiths and the governor, and that the result would be the expulsion of the saints, for Ford had shown a determination to defend Nauvoo, so far as lay in his power, from the threatened violence. Arriving at Carthage at ten o'clock at night, he found the citi- zens in flight with their families and efl"ects, one of his companies broken up, and the Carthage Greys also disbanding, the citizens that remained being in instant fear of attack. At length he met with John Taylor and Willard Richards, who, notwithstanding the ill- usage they had received, came to the relief of the panic-stricken magistrate, and addressed a letter to their brethren at Nauvoo, exhorting them to preserve the peace, the latter stating that he had pledged his word that no violence would be used.
The letter of Richards and Taylor, signed also by Samuel H. Smith, a brother of the deceased, who a few weeks afterward died, as the Mormons relate, of a broken heart, prevented a threatened uprising of the saints.^ On the 29th of June, the day after the news was received, the legion was called out, the letter read,
'^To the letter was appended a postscript from the governor, bidding the Mormons defend themselves until protection could be furnished, and one from
