When Mr. Judson arrived at Rangoon, he found that his little mission, the result of ten years of hard work, was completely broken up. He had left the Wades and Houghs in charge, but the war had driven them to Calcutta. At the very beginning of the campaign, before advancing up the Irrawaddy River, the English army had, of course, captured Rangoon, situated at its mouth—Burmah’s great seaport. Rangoon offered but little resistance to the foreign invader. The missionaries, however, narrowly escaped with their lives. As the English fleet approached the town, Mr. Hough and Mr. Wade were arrested, imprisoned, and even put in irons. It was in vain for them to remonstrate, saying that “they were Americans and not English,” for Burmans were not disposed to make any such nice distinctions. The prison-guard were ordered to massacre them upon the discharge of the first British gun. The executioners sharpened the instruments of death, and brandished them about the heads of the missionaries, to show with what dexterity and pleasure they would execute the fatal orders. The floor was strewn with sand to receive their blood. At this moment the foundations of the prison were shaken by a heavy broadside from Her Majesty’s ship _Liffey_, and a thirty-two-pound shot passed with a tremendous noise directly over the prison. The executioners, stricken with panic, threw down their knives and fled from the prison, fastening the door, however, behind them. Soon other Burmans came and dragged the prisoners to the place of execution. They were forced to kneel down. The executioner, with a large knife, was ordered to proceed. He had just lifted it to strike off the head of the prisoner nearest him, when Mr. Hough begged permission to speak to the officer in charge. He proposed that one or two of the prisoners be sent to the English ships, and assured the cowardly Burman that the firing would then cease directly. At that moment another broadside came from the _Liffey_, and the Burman officers and men again forsook their prisoners, and took refuge under the banks of a neighboring tank. During all this time Mrs. Hough and Mrs. Wade had been exposed to the greatest danger, from which they had escaped by disguising themselves as Burman women. Over their own clothes they had put the garments of their servants; had dressed their heads in the Burman style and blackened their hands and faces. Meanwhile Sir Archibald Campbell had sent a message to the governor of Rangoon: “If the Burmans shed a drop of white blood, we will lay the whole country in ruins and give no quarter.”