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[Illustration: COMMODORE MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY.]
MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY
A Typical American Naval Officer
by
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS
Author of “The Mikado’s Empire”, “Corea the Hermit Nation”
and “Japanese Fairy World”
Boston
Cupples and Hurd
94 Boylston Street
1887
Copyright, 1887,
By Cupples and Hurd.
All Rights Reserved
The Hyde Park Press.
IN REVERENT MEMORY
OF MY FATHER
JOHN L. GRIFFIS
AND OF MY GRANDFATHER
JOHN GRIFFIS
WHO AS
MERCHANT NAVIGATORS AND COMMANDERS OF SHIPS AND MEN
at the ends of the earth
CARRIED THE FLAG AND EXTENDED THE TRADE
OF THE YOUNG REPUBLIC
THIS BIOGRAPHY OF HER GREATEST SAILOR-DIPLOMATIST
IS INSCRIBED
BY THE AUTHOR
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
OUR EARLY NAVY.
Chapter Page
I. THE CHILD CALBRAITH.—A REAL BOY 1
II. BOYHOOD’S ENVIRONMENT.—UNDER THE FLAG OF FIFTEEN
STARS 10
III. A MIDSHIPMAN’S TRAINING UNDER COMMODORE RODGERS 19
IV. MEN, SHIPS, AND GUNS IN 1812 28
V. SERVICE IN THE WAR OF 1812.—THE FLAG KEPT FLYING
ON ALL SEAS 38
AFRICA. SLAVERS AND PIRATES.
VI. FIRST VOYAGE TO THE DARK CONTINENT.—LIEUTENANT
PERRY GOES TO GUINEA 50
VII. PERRY LOCATES THE SITE OF MONROVIA.—THE AFRICAN
SLAVE TRADE 58
VIII. FIGHTING PIRATES IN THE SPANISH MAIN 65
EUROPE AND DIPLOMACY.
OUR FLAG IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
IX. THE AMERICAN LINE-OF-BATTLE SHIP.—AMONG TURKS AND
GREEKS 72
X. THE CONCORD IN THE SEAS OF RUSSIA AND EGYPT.—CZAR
AND KHEDIVE 81
XI. A DIPLOMATIC VOYAGE IN THE FRIGATE
BRANDYWINE.—ANDREW JACKSON’S STALWART
POLICY.—PERRY REHEARSES FOR JAPAN.—NAPLES PAYS
UP 91
SHORE DUTY. TEN YEARS OF SCIENCE AND PROGRESS.
XII. THE FOUNDER OF THE BROOKLYN NAVAL
LYCEUM.—MASTER-COMMANDANT PERRY 99
XIII. THE FATHER OF THE AMERICAN STEAM NAVY.—THE
ENGINEER’S STATUS FIXED.—THE LINE AND THE STAFF 110
XIV. PERRY DISCOVERS THE RAM.—THE TRIREME’S PROW
RESTORED.—THE “LINE-OF-BATTLE” CHANGED TO “BOWS
ON” 120
XV. LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINATION.—LENSES OR REFLECTORS? 129
XVI. REVOLUTIONS IN NAVAL ARCHITECTURE.—THE NEW MIDDLE
TERM BETWEEN COURAGE AND CANNON.—CALORIC 138
XVII. THE SCHOOL OF GUN PRACTICE AT SANDY
HOOK.—BOMB-GUNS AND THE COMING SHELLS 146
XVIII. THE TWIN STEAMERS MISSOURI AND
MISSISSIPPI.—IRON-CLADS AND ARMOR 156
COMMODORE OF A SQUADRON. AFRICAN WATERS.
EXTIRPATING “THE SUM OF ALL VILLIANIES.”
XIX. THE BROAD PENNANT.—OUR ONLY FOREIGN COLONY.—POWDER
AND BALL AT BERRIBEE 167
XX. SCIENCE AND RELIGION.—A WAR OF INK BOTTLES.—PERRY
AS A MISSIONARY AND CIVILIZER 183
THE MEXICAN WAR.
XXI. THE MEXICAN WAR 197
XXII. COMMODORE PERRY COMMANDS THE SQUADRON 216
XXIII. THE NAVAL BATTERY BREACHES THE WALLS OF VERA CRUZ 226
XXIV. THE NAVAL BRIGADE.—CAPTURE OF TABASCO 241
XXV. FIGHTING THE YELLOW FEVER.—PEACE 251
XXVI. RESULTS OF THE WAR.—GOLD AND THE PACIFIC COAST 261
JAPAN.
XXVII. AMERICAN ATTEMPTS TO OPEN TRADE 270
XXVIII. ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION TO JAPAN 281
XXIX. PREPARATIONS FOR JAPAN.—AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 294
XXX. THE FIRE-VESSELS OF THE WESTERN BARBARIANS 314
XXXI. PANIC IN YEDO.—RECEPTION OF THE PRESIDENT’S LETTER 329
XXXII. JAPANESE PREPARATIONS FOR TREATY-MAKING 343
XXXIII. THE PROFESSOR AND THE SAILOR MAKE A TREATY 359
XXXIV. LAST LABORS 375
THE MAN AND HIS WORK.
XXXV. MATTHEW PERRY AS A MAN 395
XXXVI. WORKS THAT FOLLOW 409
========
APPENDICES.
Chapter Page
I. AUTHORITIES 427
II. ORIGIN OF THE PERRY NAME AND FAMILY 429
III. THE NAME CALBRAITH 430
IV. THE FAMILY OF M. C. PERRY 431
V. OFFICIAL DETAIL OF M. C. PERRY 433
VI. THE NAVAL APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM 435
VII. DUELLING 440
VIII. MEMORIALS IN ART OF M. C. PERRY 443
========
INDEX 447
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
COMMODORE MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY
THE UNITED STATES STEAM FRIGATE “MISSISSIPPI”
PERRY AT THE AGE OF FIFTY-FOUR
CONVEYANCE AT FUNCHAL
COMMODORE PERRY ENTERING THE TREATY-HOUSE
SIGNATURES AND PEN-SEALS OF THE JAPANESE TREATY
COMMISSIONERS
SILVER SALVER IN POSSESSION OF COMMODORE PERRY’S
DAUGHTER, MRS. AUGUST BELMONT
MEDAL PRESENTED BY THE MERCHANTS OF BOSTON
COMMODORE PERRY’S AUTOGRAPH
P R E F A C E.
AMONG the earliest memories of a childhood spent near the now vanished
Philadelphia Navy Yard, are the return home of the marines and sailors
from the Mexican war, the launch of the noble steam frigate
_Susquehanna_, the salutes from the storeship _Princeton_, and the
exhibit of the art treasures brought home by the United States
Expedition to Japan—all associated with the life of Commodore M. C.
Perry. Years afterwards, on the shores of that bay made historic by his
diplomacy, I heard the name of Perry spoken with reverence and
enthusiasm. The younger men of Japan, with faces flushed with new ideas
of the Meiji era, called him the moral liberator of their nation. Many
and eager were the questions asked concerning his career, and especially
his personal history.
Yet little could be told, for in American literature and popular
imagination, the name of the hero of Lake Erie seemed to overshadow the
fame of the younger, and, as I think, greater brother. The dramatic
incidents of war impress the popular mind far more profoundly than do
the victories of peace. Even American writers confound the two brothers,
treating them as the same person, making one the son of the other, or
otherwise doing fantastic violence to history. Numerous biographies have
been written, and memorials in art, of marble, bronze and canvas, on
coin and currency, of Oliver Hazard Perry, have been multiplied. No
biography of Matthew Calbraith Perry has, until this writing, appeared.
In Japan, popular curiosity fed itself on flamboyant broadside
chromo-pictures, “blood-pit” novels, and travesties of history, in which
Perry was represented either as a murderous swash-buckler or a
consumptive-looking and over-decorated European general. It was to
satisfy an earnest desire of the Japanese to know more of the man, who
so profoundly influenced their national history, that this biography was
at first undertaken.
I began the work by a study of the scenes of Perry’s triumphs in Japan,
and of his early life in Rhode Island; by interviews in navy yard,
hospital and receiving-ship, with the old sailors who had served under
him in various crusades; by correspondence and conversation with his
children, personal friends, fellow-officers, critics, enemies, and
eye-witnesses of his labors and works. I followed up this out-door
peripatetic study by long and patient research in the archives of the
United States Navy Department in Washington, with collateral reading of
American, European, Mexican and Japanese books, manuscripts and
translations bearing on the subject; and, most valued of all, documents
from the Mikado’s Department of State in Tōkiō.
As the career and character of my subject unfolded, I discovered that
Matthew Perry was no creature of routine, but a typical American naval
officer whose final triumph crowned a long and brilliant career. He had
won success in Japanese waters not by a series of happy accidents, but
because all his previous life had been a preparation to win it.
In this narrative, much condensed from the original draft, no attempt
has been made to do either justice or injustice to Perry’s
fellow-officers, or to write a history of his times, or of the United
States Navy. Many worthy names have been necessarily omitted. For the
important facts recorded, reliance has been placed on the written word
of documentary evidence. Fortunately, Perry was a master of the pen and
of his native language. As he wrote almost all of his own letters and
official reports, his papers, both public and private, are not only
voluminous and valuable but bear witness to his scrupulous regard for
personal mastery of details, as well as for style and grammar, fact and
truth.
Unable to thank all who have so kindly aided me, I must especially
mention with gratitude the Hon. Wm. E. Chandler and W. C. Whitney,
Secretaries of the United States Navy Department, Prof. J. R. Soley,
chief clerk T. W. Hogg and clerk J. Cassin, for facilities in consulting
the rich archives of the United States Navy; Admiral D. D. Porter and
Rear-Admirals John Almy, D. Ammen, C. R. P. Rodgers, T. A. Jenkins, J.
H. Upshur, and Captain Arthur Yates; the retired officers, pay director
J. G. Harris, Lieut. T. S. Bassett and Lieut. Silas Bent formerly of the
United States Navy, for light on many points and for reminiscences;
Messrs. P. S. P. Conner, John H. Redfield, Joseph Jenks, R. B. Forbes,
Chas. H. Haswell, Joshua Follansbee, and the Hon. John A. Bingham, for
special information; the daughters of Captains H. C. Adams, and Franklin
Buchanan, for the use of letters and for personalia; Rev. E. Warren
Clark, Miss Orpah Rose, Miss E. B. Carpenter and others in Rhode Island,
for anecdotes of Perry’s early life; the Hon. Gideon Nye of Canton; the
Rev G. F. Verbeck of Tōkiō; many Japanese friends, especially Mr. Inazo
Ota, for documents and notes; and last, but not least, the daughters of
Commodore M. C. Perry, Mrs. August Belmont, Mrs. R. S. Rodgers, and
especially Mrs. George Tiffany, who loaned letters and scrap-books, and,
with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Smith of Hartford, furnished much important
personal information. Among the vanished hands and the voices that are
now still, that have aided me, are those of Rear-Admirals Joshua R.
Sands, George H. Preble, and J. B. F. Sands, Dr. S. Wells Williams, Gen.
Horace Capron, and others. A list of Japanese books consulted, and of
Perry’s autograph writings and publications, will be found in the
Appendix; references are in footnotes.
The work now committed to type was written at Schenectady, N. Y., in the
interstices of duties imperative to a laborious profession; and with it
are linked many pleasant memories of the kindly neighbors and fellow
Christians there; as well as of hospitality in Washington. In its
completion and publication in Boston, new friends have taken a
gratifying interest, among whom I gratefully name Mr. S. T. Snow, and M.
F. Dickinson, Esq.
In setting in the framework of true history this figure of a
fellow-American great in war and in peace, the intention has been not to
glorify the profession of arms, to commend war, to show any lack of
respect to my English ancestors or their descendants, to criticise any
sect or nation, to ventilate any private theories; but, to tell a true
story that deserves the telling, to show the attractiveness of manly
worth and noble traits wherever found, and to cement the ties of
friendship between Japan and the United States. One may help to build up
character by pointing to a good model. To the lads of my own country,
but especially to Japanese young men, I commend the study of Matthew
Perry’s career. The principles, in which he was trained at home by his
mother and father, of the religion which anchored him by faith in the
eternal realties, and of the Book which he believed and read constantly,
lie at the root of what is best in the progress of a nation. No Japanese
will make a mistake who follows Perry as he followed the guidance of
these principles; while the United States will be Japan’s best exemplar
and faithful friend only so far as she illustrates them in her national
policy.
W. E. G.
SHAWMUT CHURCH PARSONAGE,
_Boston, July 1st, 1887_.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHILD CALBRAITH.
WHEN in the year 1854, all Christendom was thrilled by the news of the
opening of Japan to intercourse with the world, the name of Commodore
Matthew Perry was on the lips of nations. In Europe it was acknowledged
that the triumph had been achieved by no ordinary naval officer.
Consummate mastery of details combined with marked diplomatic talents
stamped Matthew Calbraith Perry as a man whose previous history was
worth knowing. That history we propose to outline.
The life of our subject is interesting for the following among many
excellent reasons:—
1. While yet a lad, he was active as a naval officer in the war of 1812.
2. He chose the location of the first free black settlement in Liberia.
3. He was, to the end of his life, one of the leading educators of the
United States Navy.
4. He was the father of our steam navy.
5. He first demonstrated the efficiency of the ram as a weapon of
offense in naval warfare.
6. He founded the naval-apprenticeship system.
7. He was an active instrument in assisting to extirpate the foreign
slave-trade on the west coast of Africa.
8. His methods helped to remove duelling, the grog ration and flogging
out of the American navy.
9. He commanded, in 1847, the largest squadron which, up to that date,
had ever assembled under the American flag, in the Gulf of Mexico. The
naval battery manned by his pupils in gunnery decided the fate of Vera
Cruz, and his fleet’s presence enabled Scott’s army to reach the
Capital.
10. His final triumph was the opening of Japan to the world,—one of the
three single events in American History,—the Declaration of
Independence, and the Arbitration of the Alabama claims being the other
two,—which have had the greatest influence upon the world at large.
Sturdy ancestry, parental and especially a mother’s training, good
education, long experience, and persistent self-culture enabled Matthew
Perry to earn that “brain-victory” over the Japanese of which none are
more proud than themselves.
Let us look at his antecedents.[1] Three at least among the early
immigrants to Massachusetts bore the name of Perry. Englishmen of
England’s heroic age, they were of Puritan and Quaker stock. Their
descendants have spread over various parts of the United States.
He, with whom our narrative concerns itself, Edmund or Edward Perry, the
ancestor, in the sixth degree both of the “Japan,” and the “Lake Erie”
Perry, was born in Devonshire in 1630. He was a Friend of decidedly
militant turn of mind. He preached the doctrines of peace, with the
spirit of war, to the Protector’s troops. Oliver, not wishing this, made
it convenient to Edmund Perry to leave England.
By settling at Sandwich in 1653, then the headquarters of the Friends in
America, he took early and vigorous part in “the Quaker invasion of
Massachusetts.” On first day of first month, 1676, he wrote a Railing
against the Court of Plymouth, for which he was heavily fined. He
married Mary the daughter of Edmund Freeman, the vice-governor of the
colony. His son Samuel, born in 1654, emigrated to Rhode Island, and
bought the Perry farm, near South Kingston, which still remains in
possession of the family. The later Perrys married in the Raymond and
Hazard families.
Christopher Raymond Perry, the fifth descendant in the male line of
Edward Perry, and the son of Freeman Perry, was born December 4th, 1761.
His mother was Mercy Hazard, the daughter of Oliver Hazard and Elizabeth
Raymond. He became the father of five American naval officers, of whom
Oliver Hazard and Matthew Calbraith are best known. The war of the
Revolution broke out when he was but in his 15th year. The militant
traits of his ancestor were stronger in him than the pacific tenets of
his sect. He enlisted in the Kingston Reds. The service not being
exciting, he volunteered in Captain Reed’s Yankee privateer. His second
cruise was made in the _Mifflin_, Captain G. W. Babcock.
Like the other ships of the colonies in the Revolution, the _Mifflin_
was a one-decked, uncoppered “bunch of pine boards,” in which patriotism
and valor could ill compete with British frigates of seasoned oak.
Captured by the cruisers of King George, the crew was sent to the prison
ship _Jersey_. This hulk lay moored where the afternoon shadows of the
great bridge-cables are now cast upon the East River. For three months,
the boy endured the horrors of imprisonment in this floating coffin. It
was with not much besides bones, however, that he escaped.
As soon as health permitted, he enlisted on board the U. S. man-of-war
_Trumbull_, commanded by Captain James Nicholson, armed with thirty guns
and manned by two-hundred men. On the 2d of June 1780, she fell in with
the British letter-of-marque _Watt_, a ship heavier and larger and with
more men and guns than the _Trumbull_. The conflict was the severest
naval duel of the war. It was in the old days of unscientific
cannonading; before carronades had revealed their power to smash at
short range, or shell-guns to tear ships to pieces, or rifles to
penetrate armor. With smooth-bores of twelve and six pound calibre, a
battle might last hours or even days, before either ship was sunk, fired
or surrendered. The prolonged mutilation of human flesh had little to do
with the settlement of the question. The _Trumbull_ and the _Watt_ lay
broadside with each other and but one hundred yards apart, exchanging
continual volleys. The _Trumbull_ was crippled, but her antagonist
withdrew, not attempting capture.
By the accidents of war and the overwhelming force of the enemy, our
little navy was nearly annihilated by the year 1780. Slight as may seem
the value of its services, its presence on the seas helped mightily to
finally secure victory. The regular cruisers and the privateers captured
British vessels laden with supplies and ammunition of war. Washington’s
army owed much of its efficiency to this source, for no fewer than
eight-hundred British prizes were brought to port. So keenly did Great
Britain feel the privateers’ sting that about the year 1780, she struck
a blow designed to annihilate them. Her agents were instructed not to
exchange prisoners taken on privateers. This order influenced C. R.
Perry’s career. He had enlisted for the third time, daring now to beard
the lion in his den. Cruising in the Irish sea, he was captured and
carried as a prisoner to Newry, County Down, Ireland.
Here, though there was no prospect of release till the war was over, he
received very different treatment from that on the _Jersey_. Allowed to
go out on parole, he met a lad named Baillie Wallace, and his cousin,
Sarah Alexander. Of her we shall hear later.
After eighteen months imprisonment, Perry made his escape. As seaman on
a British vessel, he reached St. Thomas in the West Indies. Thence
sailing to Charleston, he found the war over and peace declared.
Remembering the pretty face which had lighted up his captivity, Perry,
the next year, made a voyage as mate of a merchant vessel to Ireland.
Providence favored his wishes, for on the return voyage Mr. Calbraith,
an old friend of the Alexanders and Wallaces, embarked as a passenger to
Philadelphia. With him, to Perry’s delight, went Miss Sarah Alexander on
a visit to her uncle, a friend of Dr. Benjamin Rush. Matthew Calbraith,
a little boy and the especial pet of Miss Alexander, came also.
An ocean voyage a century ago was not measured by days—a sail in a
hotel between morning worship at Queenstown and a sermon in New York on
the following Sunday night—but consumed weeks. The lovers had ample
time. Perry had the suitor’s three elements of success,—propinquity,
opportunity and importunity. Before they arrived in this country, they
were betrothed.
On landing in Philadelphia, the first news received by Miss Alexander at
the mouth of Dr. Benjamin Rush was of the death of both uncle and aunt.
Her relatives had committed her to the care of Dr. Rush and at his house
the young couple were married in October 1784.
The bride, though but sixteen years, was rich in beauty, character and
spirit. The groom was twenty-three, “A warm-hearted high-spirited man,
very handsome, with dashing manners, and very polite. He treated people
with distinction but would be quick to resent an insult.” The young
couple for their wedding journey traveled to South Kingston, R. I. There
they enjoyed an enthusiastic reception.
The race-traits of the sturdy British yeomanry and of the Scotch-Irish
people were now to blend in forming the parentage of Oliver and Matthew
Perry, names known to all Americans.
Away from her childhood’s home in a strange land, the message from the
45th Psalm—the Song of Loves—now came home to the young wife with a
force that soon conquered homesickness, and with a meaning that deepened
with passing years.
“Hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear, forget also
thine own people and thy father’s house.”
“Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children whom thou mayest make
princes in all the earth.”
Captain C. R. Perry entered the commercial marine and for thirteen years
made voyages as mate, master or supercargo to Europe, South America and
the East Indies. Even then, our flag floated in all seas. It had been
raised in China, and seen at Nagasaki in Japan. In 1789 and ’90, the U.
S. S. _Columbus_ and _Washington_ circumnavigated the globe, the first
American war vessels to do so. The cities of Providence and Newport
secured a large portion of the trade with Cathay.
The future hero of Lake Erie was ten years old, and two other children,
a son and a daughter, played in the sea-captain’s home at Newport, when
America’s greatest sailor-diplomat was born on the 10th day of April
1794. After her former young friend, at this time a promising young
merchant in Philadelphia, the mother named her third son Matthew
Calbraith Perry. The boy was destined to outlive his parents and all his
brothers.
Matthew Perry was an eager, active, and robust child full of life and
energy. His early youth was spent in Newport, at courtly Tower Hill, and
on the farm at South Kingston. From the first, his mother and his kin
called him “Calbraith.” This was his name in the family even to adult
life. Few anecdotes of his boyhood are remembered, but one is
characteristic.
When only three years old, the ruddy-faced child was in Kingston. Like a
Japanese, he could not say _l_, as in “lash.” He walked about with a
whip in his hand which he called his “rass.” There was a tan yard near
by and the bark was ground by a superannuated horse. One of his older
brothers called him an “old bark horse.” This displeased the child. He
reddened with anger, and his temper exploded in one of those naughty
words, which in a baby’s mouth often surprise parents. They wonder where
the uncanny things have been picked up; but our baby-boy added, “If I
knew more, I would say it.” For this outburst of energy, he suffered
maternal arrest. Placed in irons, or apron strings, he was tied up until
repentant.
That was Matthew Perry—never doing less than his best. Action was
limited only by ability—“If I knew more, I would say it.” The Japanese
proverb says “The heart of a child of three years remains until he is
sixty.” The western poet writes it, “The child is father of the man.” If
he had known more, even in Yedo bay in 1854, he would have done even
better than his own best; which, like the boast of the Arctic hero, was
that he “beat the record.”
-----
[1] See Appendix.—Origin of the Perry Name and Family.