e dared to speak a word to the king or queen in favor of a
foreigner, while there were such continual reports of the success of the
English arms.

"During these seven months, the continual extortions and oppressions to
which your brother, and the other white prisoners were subject, are
indescribable. Sometimes sums of money were demanded, sometimes pieces
of cloth and handkerchiefs; at other times, an order would be issued,
that the white foreigners should not speak to each other, or have any
communication with their friends without. Then again, the servants were
forbidden to carry in their food, without an extra fee. Sometimes, for
days and days together, I could not go into the prison till after dark,
when I had two miles to walk, in returning to the house. O how many,
many times, have I returned from that dreary prison at nine o'clock at
night, solitary and worn out with fatigue and anxiety, and thrown myself
down in that same rocking chair which you and Deacon L. provided for me
in Boston and endeavoured to invent some new scheme for the release of
the prisoners. Sometimes, for a moment or two, my thoughts would glance
toward America, and my beloved friends there--but for nearly a year and
a half, so entirely engrossed was every thought with present scenes and
sufferings, that I seldom reflected on a single occurrence of my former
life, or recollected that I had a friend in existence out of Ava.

"You, my dear brother, who know my strong attachment to my friends, and
how much pleasure I have hitherto experienced from retrospect, can judge
from the above circumstances, how intense were my sufferings. But the
point, the acme of my distresses, consisted in the awful uncertainty of
our final fate. My prevailing opinion was, that my husband would suffer
violent death; and that I should, of course, become a slave, and
languish out a miserable though short existence, in the tyrannic hands
of some unfeeling monster. But the consolations of religion, in these
trying circumstances, were neither 'few nor small.' It taught me to look
beyond this world, to that rest, that peaceful, happy rest, where Jesus
reigns, and oppression never enters. But how have I digressed from my
relation. I will again return.

"The war was now prosecuted with all the energy the Burmese government
possessed. New troops were continually raised and sent down the river,
and as frequent reports returned of their being all cut off. But that
part of the B