, MS., 16.
whole camp of Israel."^ He then went on to say that
as the Lord had been with them in times past, how-
soever singular had been his method of proving his
presence, so would he be with them in the future.
His empire, the empire of his people, was established,
and the powers of hell should not prevail against it.®
After this, with comparatively light hearts, they broke camp, and slowly wending their way westward, disappeared at length beyond the horizon, in pursuit once more of the ever-mocking phantom of home. Whither they journeyed they were as yet uncertain. They knew only that they were to search out, prob- ably beyond the Rocky Mountains, if not indeed among them, some isolated spot, where, far away from the land of boasted freedom, the soil, the skies, and mind and manners were free. If they were offensive to the laws, if the laws of the land were offensive to them, they would go where they might have land and laws of their own.
Considering their situation, and what they had been lately called to undergo — ignominy, insult, the loss of property, the abandonment of home — there was little complaint. It was among their opponents, and in the midst of a general recital of their wrongs, that the saints were accustomed to put on a long face and strike into a doleful strain. Among themselves there were
^ The camp of Israel was wherever the president and apostles were.
®It has been stated that after dismissing his congregation on the 17th the president led several of the twelve aside to a valley east of the camp, and held a council. A letter was then read from Samuel Brannan, a Mormon elder then in New York, together with a copy of an agreement between him and one A. G. Benson. Brannan was at that time in charge of a company of saints bound for the Pacific coast by way of Cape Horn, and the agreement which he forwarded for Brigham's signature required the pioneers to transfer to A. G. Benson and company the odd numbers of all the town lots that they might acquire in the country where they settled. 'I shall select,' writes Brannan, ' the most suitable spot on the bay of San Francisco for the location of a commer- cial city.' The council refused to take any action in the matter. In case they refused to sign the agreement, Tullidge soberly relates, Life of Brighom- Young, 19-23, the president, it was said, would issue a proclamation, setting forth that it was the intention of the Mormons to take sides with either Mex- ico or Great Britain against tlie United States, and order them to be disarmed or dispersed! Further mention of this matter is made in History of Califor- nia, vol. v. cap. XX., this series.
