MEDAL PRESENTED BY THE MERCHANTS OF BOSTON.
James Buchanan was inaugurated President, and Lewis Cass became Secretary of State, March 4th 1857. General James Watson Webb was eager to have the mission to China filled by his friend Commodore Perry. He was long held back by Perry’s modesty and refusal to give assent to his friend’s warm importunity. After permission had been given, General Webb hastened to Washington, but was one day too late. Less than twenty-four hours before, the Hon. Wm. B. Reed had received the appointment as envoy to Peking. Perry’s fame as a diplomatist was to be inseparably linked to Japan only.
General Webb, in speaking to the writer in 1878 in New York, said that the regret of General Cass in not having known of Perry’s willingness to go, and that it was too late, seemed very sincere. Perry had allowed his friends to make the proposition, inasmuch as great events were about to take place in China and he was eager to advance American interests in the East. Further, he expected if he were appointed, to have the personal services of Dr. S. Wells Williams his old interpreter and friend whose character, knowledge and abilities, we know, constituted the real power behind the American Legation in China from 1858 to 1876.
On the 28th of December 1857, Perry reported that his work on the book would end with the year, and his office in Washington be closed. On the 30th, he was detached from special duty to await orders. It was intimated to him at the Department that he was to have command of the squadron in the Mediterranean—the American naval officers’ paradise, when away from home. To this duty Perry looked forward with delight. Thornton A. Jenkins was to be his chief of staff. He spent the pleasant winter in New York enjoying social life.[[43]] Early in January, 1858, he made a report on the cause of the loss of the Central America, with suggestions for changes in the laws which should secure greater safety of life and property on the ocean. These studies, which have since borne good fruit, were with other matter published in a pamphlet of seven pages, January 15th, 1858. His last official services were performed as a member of the Naval Retiring Board.
The time was now drawing near when this man of tireless activity, who was ever solicitous about the life and safety of others, was to part with his own life. The inroads upon a superb constitution, made by constant work on arduous and trying service, at many stations, in two wars, in three or four diplomatic missions, and in protracted study so soon after return from Japan, were becoming more and more manifest. In the raw weather of February 1858, the Commodore caught a severe cold which from the first gave indications of being serious. The old torment of rheumatism developed itself, and yet not until the hour of his death was he believed to be in mortal danger. It became manifest, however, that the disease, contracted thirty-five years before, in his energy and anxiety to save life and property, had undermined his constitution. Symptoms of rheumatic gout appeared. One token of organic change was a strong indisposition to ascend elevations of any sort. For four weeks he felt more or less out of health. A change of physicians did not better his case. On the 4th of March at midnight, the disease, leaving the region of the stomach, began to assault the citadel, and at 2 a. m. at his home in Thirty-second street, New York City, he died of rheumatism of the heart.
His nephew, by marriage to the daughter of Commodore Oliver H. Perry, the Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton, who was with him in his sickness says, “His last wish expressed to me was to be buried by his father and mother and brother in the old burial ground, to mingle his dust with his native soil. He even choose his grave there.”
At his death, Matthew Calbraith Perry was third on the list of captains, having served at sea twenty-five years and three months, and on other duties nineteen years. Since entering the navy in 1808, he had been unemployed less than five years, and had completed a term of service within one year of a half century.
As a member of numerous civic and scientific associations, as well as President of the Montezuma Society, the loss of Matthew Perry was that of a citizen of broad tastes, sympathies, labors and influences. The great city offered profuse tokens of regard and manifestations of sorrow. The flags of the shipping in the harbor, and on the public buildings and hotels, were flying at half-mast during three days. It was arranged that on Saturday, in the grave-yard of St. Mark’s church at Second avenue and Tenth street, the hero should be buried with appropriate honors.
The military pageant which preceded the hearse consisted of five hundred men of the Seventh Regiment, two hundred officers of the First Division of the New York State Militia, followed by a body of United States Marines. The pall-bearers included the Governor of the State, General Winfield Scott, Commodores Sloat, Breese, McCluney and Bigelow, and seven others, eminent and honored in the various fields of achievement; but the most touching sight was the simplest. The sailors who had served under Commodore Perry in the Japan Expedition and the Mexican war, had volunteered on this occasion to do honor to their old commander. They were the most interesting among the mourners. Although engaged in various pursuits, in different places, they all managed to appear in the regular working uniform of the United States Navy. This they had procured at their own expense. They paraded under the command of Alonzo Guturoz and Philip Downey. All bore evidence of having seen hard service. They attracted much attention as they paraded through the streets, and the simple music of their fifes and drums seemed more appropriate and more impressive, than even that of the regimental band.
The route lay through Fifth Avenue, Fourteenth street, and Second Avenue to Saint Mark’s Church.