I am hardly human, in my want of sympathy for the men who expiated their crimes against liberty and the rights of men, at the Cerro de Las Campanas; but let them see the widows and orphans, the ruined towns, depopulated districts, poverty, misery and woe, which they brought upon this lovely land, as I have seen them, and then sympathise with dead royalty and its supporters if they can. I have as much sympathy for human misery as any man living, but it is with the innocent victims of this crime against all that is holy,—the starving, poor and helpless,—that I sympathize; not with those who staked their all on the dice,—trusting to gain the wages of crime, be worshiped for their success, and feared for their power,—lost, and paid the penalty. I would have doubted the justice of God, had Maximilian lived, and the thousands of brave men whom he sent to death through his black flag decree slept unavenged in their bloody graves. I have stood on the Cerro de Las Campanas, and I know that God is just!
"The mills of the Gods grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small."
They never ground a grist finer than that which Napoleon III. sent to their mill, marked "Empire of Mexico."
THE END OF THE EMPIRE.
