February 15, 1825. Adoniram meets baby Maria. When little Maria was 20 days old, she met her imprisoned father for the first time. “Nancy appeared at the prison gate with the baby in her arms…. Adoniram’s feelings were a mixture of love, frustration and sadness…. Their first baby had been buried at sea. The second, Roger, lay beneath the battlefield at Rangoon. The prospect for little Maria looked no brighter.” (Anderson, p. 331.) After Nancy left with the baby, Adoniram, with his feet chained at the ankles, composed a poem which began:
Sleep, darling infant, sleep,/Hushed on thy mother’s breast;
Let no rude sound of clanking chains/ Disturb thy balmy rest.