with scarcely a show of resistance.  This was the first news that reached Ava of the commencement of hostilities.  It surprised the court there, but by no means alarmed them.  Never having come into collision with the English, and having the most extravagant conceit of their own invincibility, they did not for a moment doubt their power to drive the invaders from their country; and even sent by one of their generals a pair of golden fetters with which to chain the governor-general, and bring him captive to Ava.

The first effect of the intelligence of the war upon the situation of the missionaries, was an order that no man wearing a hat should enter the palace.  This was somewhat startling, still nothing of importance occurred for several weeks, during which Mrs. J. continued her school, while her husband went on building a house.  But at length suspicion having been excited that the Englishmen who resided in Ava were spies, they were seized and put in confinement.  Dr. Price and Mr. Judson were strictly examined also, but nothing being proved against them, they were left at liberty.  They might probably have escaped further molestation, had it not been found in examining the accounts of one of the Englishmen, that he had paid over considerable money to the missionaries.  Ignorant of money transactions as carried on by foreigners, this was an evidence to the natives, that the teachers were in the pay of the British, and probably spies.  This being represented to the king, he gave an angry order for their arrest.

On the 8th of June, Mr. Judson’s house was rudely entered by an officer, followed by eight or ten men, one of whom, by the hideous tattooing on his face, they knew to be the executioner, or ‘son of the prison.’  On seeing Mr. Judson—­“You are called by the king,” said the officer, the usual form of arrest.  In an instant the spotted-faced man threw him on the floor, and drew forth that instrument of torture, the small cord.  Mrs. Judson tried in vain to bribe him with money.  “Take her too,” said the officer, “she also is a foreigner.”  But this order Mr. Judson prevailed on them to disregard.  All was now confusion and dismay, the children crying, the neighbors collecting around and in the house, while the executioner bound Mr. Judson with the cords, and took a fiendish pleasure in making them as tight as possible.  Mrs. Judson gave Moung Ing money that he might follow and procure a mitigation of this torture, instead of which, Mr. Judson was again thrown down, and the cords so tightened as almost to prevent respiration.  Then he was hurried on to the court-house, thence to “the death prison,” into which he was hurled, and Moung Ing saw him no more.