After so many months of cruising, Captain Perry was very glad to be again in his own country.
He spent the next two years quietly at home with his family. He built a snug little cottage in Narragansett, on the old Perry estate. This was the same farm that had been purchased by the young Quaker, Edmund Perry, so many years before. Here the family spent the summers.
Captain Perry was always fond of life in the country. He took many long rides on horseback. Besides his horses, he had many other pets on the farm. He and his three little sons spent a great deal of time taking care of them.
The winters were passed in the house at Newport.
CAPTAIN PERRY'S RESIDENCE AT NEWPORT.
These were the happiest years of Oliver Perry's life, and he could not help but be sorry, when, on March 31, 1819, he received a summons to go to Washington.
Upon arriving there, the Secretary of the Navy told him of an expedition that the government wished him to undertake.
He was to go to Venezuela, on the northern coast of South America. This was a new republic which had formerly been a colony of Spain. Its people were still fighting for their independence, just as the people of the United States had fought against the king of England.
Small, fast-sailing war vessels, called privateers, had been fitted out by this republic. These vessels were designed to capture Spanish merchant ships, and were allowed to keep all the money that was obtained from the prizes.