He [Smith] claimed that the angel of the Lord had appeared and made known to him that in the neighborhood of Palmyra, there were golden plates hidden in the earth on which was written the fate of a Jewish prophet’s family, together with many as yet unfulfilled prophesies, and that the Lord had appointed him to translate the same from ancient languages into English. He claimed that a pair of spectacles had been hidden beneath the plates—without which he could not translate the plates—and that through the use of these spectacles he (Smith) was enabled to read these languages which he had never studied and that the Holy Ghost would give him the translation in English. He (Smith) had, therefore, made his way to Manchester Township, Ontario County, and found everything as described, had dug the plates and the spectacles next to them out of the earth, and now had almost completed the translation of the work.