Meanwhile the English army was daily coming closer and closer to the capital, and Mr. Judson was taken out of prison and sent down to the Burmese camp, to act as translator in the negotiations which were going on between the two forces.  The victorious British general, Sir Archibald Campbell, ordered the Burmese to pay a heavy war indemnity, and to cede a large part of their territory to the English; and he also stipulated that all foreign prisoners who wished should be handed over to him.  Consequently the Judsons found themselves once more free, after a year and seven months’ imprisonment, and were made the honoured guests of the English general.

But the relief came too late, for Mrs. Judson’s constitution was completely undermined by the privations she had endured.  She and her husband settled in Amherst, a new town in British Burman territory, and hopefully looked forward to carrying on a useful work there.  They had not been many months in the place before Mrs. Judson had a bad attack of fever, at a time when her husband was away helping the English general.  She seemed temporarily to get better, but she had no strength left to resist the disease, and gradually sank.  “The teacher is long in coming, and the new missionaries are long in coming,” she murmured in a moment of relief from her delirium.  “I must die alone, and leave my little one; but as it is the will of God I acquiesce in His will.  I am not afraid of death; but I am afraid I shall not be able to bear these pains.  Tell the teacher the disease was most violent, and I could not write; tell him how I suffered and died; tell him all that you see; and take care of the house and things until he returns.”  For most of the time she lay unconscious, and on October 24, 1827, after about sixteen days of illness, and at the age of thirty-seven, she passed away before her husband could return.  Soon afterwards her baby followed her.

And so went home one of the noblest women who have laboured in the mission field.  Her brave spirit, her undaunted trust in God and in the power of prayer upheld her, when the courage of the bravest men would have failed.  Not a little of the remarkable success of the work of God in Burmah is due to the indomitable perseverance and the wise devotion to God and to her husband of Ann Judson; and wherever the Gospel is preached, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

Was her life thrown away?  Were the labours and sufferings she had bodily undergone wasted?  Not so.  The story of her life has been and still is a precious heritage for the whole Church militant, a lesson which ever appeals to Christians to rouse themselves from self-seeking and apathetic lives, and consecrate their talents to the Master’s use.  Though she was taken up higher, the work in Burmah did not stop, and before many years had passed, hundreds and thousands of the people among whom she had laboured were professing to serve the true God; so true is it that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”