OUR EARLY NAVY.
ChapterPage
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]
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APPENDICES.
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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]
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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]

PREFACE.

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.