he privately confessed his crimes, produced an affidavit that Smith had no part in his adultery, and was disciplined accordingly. Later life After Bennett left Nauvoo in May 1842, he claimed he had been the target of an attempted assassination by Nauvoo Danites, who were disguised as women. In July 1842, he wrote a series of letters to The Sangamo Journal, accusing Smith of conspiring to assassinate former Missouri Governor Boggs. In late 1842, Bennett published History of the Saints: Or, An Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism, accusing Smith and his church of crimes including treason, conspiracy to commit murder, prostitution, and adultery, with a preface that begins: "I have been induced to prepare and publish the following work by a desire to expose the enormous iniquities which have perpetrated by one of the grosses and most infamous impostors that ever appeared upon the face of the earth, and by many of his minions, under the name and garb of Religion, and professedly by the direct will and command of Almighty God." Through his newspaper writings and book, Bennett appeared to encourage Missouri's June 1843 attempt to extradite Smith to stand trial for treason. Ironically, Smith escaped extradition, albeit narrowly, by virtue of the powerful Nauvoo charter for which Bennett had been a principal author. In the fall of 1843, Bennett visited George M. Hinkle, a Mormon who was excommunicated after surrendering Smith to the Missouri Militia in 1838. Bennett's subsequent letter to the editor of the Hawk-Eye and Iowa Patriot describing the Mormon "Doctrine of Marrying for Eternity" is the first of his writings that discusses eternal marriage, as compared to the free love/spiritual wife doctrine he previously accused Smith of practicing, in which sexual relations were not in the context of committed marriage. It is unclear whether Bennett learned of eternal marriage from Hinkle or from correspondents inside Nauvoo. Bennett briefly returned to Nauvoo in December 1843, but the sole record of that visit is a notation in Smith's daybook from his general store showing a payment of the rent Bennett owed for the 39 weeks he lived in the Mansion House in 1840 to 1841. After December 1843, Bennett is recorded to have lectured only once more against Mormonism during Smith's life, in Boston, during the spring of 1844. At the 1844 Boston lecture, Bennett was not well received: he was pelted with rotten eggs and