The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas by Frederick Marryat

Let us now examine into the political views of the Mormons, and follow Smith in his lofty and aspiring visions of sovereignty for the future. He is a rogue and a swindler, -- no one can doubt that; yet there is something grand in his composition. Joe, the mean, miserable, half-starved money-digger of western New York, was, as I have before observed, cast in the mould of conquerors, and out of that same clay which Nature had employed for the creation of a Mahomet.

His first struggle was successful; the greater portion of his followers surrounded him in Kirkland, and acknowledged his power, as that of God's right hand; while many individuals from among the better classes repaired to him, attracted by the ascendancy of a bold genius, or by the expectation of obtaining a share in his fame, power, and glory.