REVIEW OF THE 2,I£XICAN WAK. 225 besieged city. The roofs of buildings were on fire, the domes of churches reverbeiated With fearful explo- sions."
This splendid scene, and the consequences accompanying it, must have been viewed with high satisfaction, by " The foe to all happiness human."
An ofl&cer of the navy, in an account written a few days after, says : " The bombardment lasted three days and a half. The city was greatly injured, the shells and round shot striking all over the town. One part near a small battery was utterly destroyed ; and from the stench in the neighborhood, at is to be feared that the bodies of very many poor women and children, are buried in the ruins.
I was in the Governor's palace, a very fine building, occupying one side of the Plaza, and was looking into a very handsome room where it was evident a sliell had struck, when a Mexican gentleman came up and offered to show me over the house. I followed him, and directly we came to what had evidently been a superb room, but then almost entirely torn to pieces. He pointed to a place beside the door which was blown out—" there," said he, " sat a lady and her two children, they were killed by the shell which has wrought the injury you see."
Another officer says, that during the bombardment, " many of our officers at night crawled up close to the walls to hear, and represented the screeching, crying, and lament of the women and children, and wounded, as being dreadful."
A visitor, immediately after the surrender, tells us : "A shell struck the Charity Hospital where the sick inmates were lying, and killed twenty-three." Says Mr. Kendall, an eye-witness : " The city, or at. least the northern part of it, has been torn all to pieces—the destruction is dreadful. It is impossible to get at the loss of the Mexi- cans by the bombardment ; yet it is certain that loomen, children, and non-combatants, have suffered the most.