Noble Deeds of American Women: With Biographical Sketches of Some of the More Prominent
History
Noble Deeds of American Women: With Biographical Sketches of Some of the More Prominent
Women -- United States -- Biography
"During this period of a year and a half Mrs. Judson followed them from
prison to prison, beneath the darkness of night and the burning sun of
noon-day, bearing in her arms her infant daughter,--the child of sorrow
and misfortune, who was born after the imprisonment of its
father,--procuring for them food which Burman policy never supplies to
prisoners, and perpetually interceding for them with their successive
keepers, with the governor of the city, with the kinsmen of the monarch,
and the members of the royal household. More than once the queen's
brother gave orders that they should be privately put to death; but such
was the influence which Mrs. Judson possessed over the mind of the
governor, that he evaded the order each time it was given, and assured
her that for her sake he would not execute her husband, even though he
was obliged to execute all the others. And when at last they were to be
taken from his jurisdiction and driven to the horrid prison-house of
Oung-pen-la, at the command of the pakah-woon, the old man humanely
summoned Mrs. Judson from the prison where he had permitted her to go
and sit with her husband, in order that she might be spared the pangs
of a separation which he had not the power to prevent. Her own pen has
traced, in lines that will never be forgotten by those who read them,
the affecting history of the dismal days and nights of her husband's
captivity. We follow her alike with admiration and the deepest sympathy
as she takes her solitary way from Ava, at first in a boat upon the
river, and then in a Burman cart, in search of the unknown place to
which the prisoners have been carried. At length, overcome with fatigue,
with exposure, and the bitter pangs of hope deferred, we see her in a
comfortless cabin, prostrate with disease and brought to the very gates
of death,--while her infant is carried about the village by its father
in the hours of his occasional liberation, to be nourished by such
Burman mothers as might have compassion on its helpless necessities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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