| 366 on the subject of an immediate court of inquiry to be held in Jackson County, and by their request to me I hasten to lay before your excellency serious difficulties attending our people on an immediate court of inquiry being called.
"Our church is at this time scattered in every direction; some in the new county of Van Buren, a part in this county, and a part in Lafayette, Ray, etc. Some of our principal witnesses would be women and children, and while the rage of the mob continues it would be impossible to gather them in safety at Independence. And that your excellency may know of the unabating fury with which the last remnant of our people remaining in that county are pursued at this time, I here state that a few families, perhaps fifteen to twenty, who settled themselves more than two years ago on the prairie about fifteen miles from the county seat of Jackson County, had hoped from the obscurity of their location that they might escape the vengeance of the enemy through the winter; consequently they remained on their plantations, receiving occasionally a few individual threats, till last Sunday, when a mob made their appearance among them, some with pistols cocked and presented to their breasts, commanding them to leave the county in three days or they would tear their houses down over their heads, etc., etc.
"Two expresses arrived here from said neighborhood last Monday morning for advice, and the council advised their speedy removal for the preservation of life and their personal effects. I suppose these families will be out of the county of Jackson this week. In this distressed situation, in behalf of my brethren I pray your excellency to await a further communication, which will soon follow this, setting forth among other things the importance of our people being restored to their possessions, that they may have an equal chance with their enemies in producing important testimony before the court, which the enemy are now determined to deprive them of. Trusting that your excellency will perceive the agitation and consternation that must necessarily prevail among most of our people at this day from the unparalleled usage they have received, and many of them wandering at this time destitute of shelter. that an immediate
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