| 391 investigate the whole matter of the mob against the Mormons; and we will ever pray.
"W. W PHELPS.
"JOHN WHITMER.
"JOHN CORRILL.
"ISAAC MORLEY.
"EDWARD PARTRIDGE.
"A. S. GILBERT.
"The following letter accompanied the foregoing petition:-
"Liberty, December 6,1833
Dear Sir:-Your Excellency will perceive by the petition bearing date with this letter, that we intend to return to Jackson County as soon as arrangements can be made to protect us, after we are again placed into our possessions.
"We do not wish to go till we know that our lives are not in danger of a lawless mob. Your Excellency will understand that, at this inclement season, it will require time to restore us, and troops to protect us, after we are there, for the threats of the mob have not ceased.
"Your obedient servant,
"W. W. Phelps.
"To Daniel Dunklin, Governor of Missouri."
On Thursday, December 12, a messenger arrived at Liberty, Missouri, bearing the intelligence that the saints who had removed from Jackson County to Van Buren County were about to be driven from there. In the history of Joseph Smith as published in Times and Seasons, volume 6, pages 929, 930, it is thus stated:-
"December 12. An express arrived at Liberty, from Van Buren County, with information, that those families which had fled from Jackson County and located there are about to be driven from that county, after building their houses and carting their winter's store of provision, grain, etc., forty or fifty miles. Several families are already fleeing from thence. The contaminating influence of the Jackson County mob is predominant in this new county of Van Buren, the whole population of which is estimated at about thirty or forty families. The destruction of crops, household furniture, and clothing is very great, and much of their stock is lost. The main body of the church is now in Clay County, where the people are as kind and accommodating as could reasonably be
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