Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/331

CH. XXI.] from avarice or revenge, have led to equally deplorable consequences, in the most civilized portions of the world. But, whether this horrible event arose from private or political causes, its fatal effects to the unfortunate individual and his agonized relatives render it alike incapable of mitigation or distinction: it makes no difference to the parties whether a man be gathered up to his ancestors by the assassin's dagger, the pestilence of climate, a musket-ball or twenty-four pounder; — but to die in the public service, in whatever mode death may be encountered, claims something more than the solitary tribute of domestic regret.

Of those who have been employed in the business of "the Recognition of the New Republics of South America," how many have fallen victims to the duties which they had to fulfil! The journals that have been written by disinterested parties will show the labours and fatigues which they had to encounter, in the mere process of locomotion, to say nothing of