Just before my first arrival in Mexico, public attention had been particularly directed to this quiet spot, from its having been chosen as the place for depositing the ashes of the last President of Mexico, at whose burial no holy water had been wasted and no candles had been burned, and for the repose of whose soul no masses had ever been said, or other religious rites performed, and yet he slept as quietly as those who had gone to their burial with the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral.
No priest had shrived his soul, his lips had not been touched with the anointing oil, nor was incense burned at his funeral; yet he died in peace, declaring in his last hours that he had made his confession to God, and trusted in him for the pardon of his sins, and refused all the proffered aid of priests in facilitating his journey to heaven.
Thus died, and here was privately buried, the first and last Protestant President of Mexico, the only really good man that ever occupied that exalted station, and probably the only native Mexican who ever had the moral courage to denounce the religion of his fathers upon his dying bed.
THE AMERICAN CEMETERY.
Adjoining the English cemetery on the south side is the American burying-ground, which has been established since the war, where have been collected the remains of 750 Americans, that died or were killed at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An appropriation of $500 a year would make this more attractive than the English cemetery, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress since that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There is a pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign countries, draw close together these two branches of the Anglo-Saxon