The reason for this sporadic burial of our men must be laid at the doors of bigotry. In some parts of Christendom, even among enlightened nations, where political churches are established, there lingers a heathenish relic of superstitious sectarianism under the garb of the Christian religion, in what is called “consecrated ground.” By this pretext of holiness, the sectaries logically carry into the grave the feuds and hatreds born of the very wickedness from which by their creeds and ritual they expect to be saved. This feeling is in southern Europe and the papal colonies, so intensified that it is next to impossible for a man denying the Roman faith to obtain burial in a cemetery governed by adherents of the Pope. Even the semi-civilized Portuguese refused to give interment to American officers in what they denominate “consecrated ground.” This gave Perry an opportunity to establish a burial place for the American dead of every creed. In the words of the bluff sailor, after referring to the fact that “Catholics” do not like “Protestants” in their grounds, he says, “With us the same spirit of intolerance shall not prevail, and in our United States Cemetery the remains of Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant will be laid in peace together.” Accordingly, the cemetery for the dead of the _Preble_ was prepared at Porto Grande. A plot of land having been purchased, was given in fee by the authorities. It was duly graded, and a stone wall seven feet high erected to enclose it, and thus protect it from the wash of rains and the trespasses of vagrant animals. Timber for headboards was furnished from the ship, and the amount of two hundred dollars for expenses incurred was subscribed by the officers and men. The governor of the island of Santa Iago was ordered by the general government to give a legal title to a cemetery for “persons not Catholics.” The burial ground plotted out by the Commodore adjoined the other village cemetery at the same place called “The Cocoanuts.” The three new walls enclosing it were respectively one hundred by one hundred by ninety-four feet. The width of the wall masonry was three “palms” or twenty-seven inches, and the foundation was to be three-fourths of a yard deep. In this true God’s acre, more truly consecrated by the christening of Christian charity than the bigot’s benison, Perry was glad to permit also the burial of some British sailors. In a letter of thanks from Commodore W. Jones, of her Britannic Majesty’s squadron, the latter writes of the cemetery at Porto Grande, “In which you kindly permitted the interment of such British seamen as would have had their remains excluded from the (Roman) Catholic cemeteries at those places.”