“Perry’s two vessels were without question not only successes, but far beyond the most sanguine hopes and expectations of friendly critics of the time. It is a remarkable fact that the Susquehanna (and some others of smaller size) built after the Mississippi and the Missouri had proved themselves successes, were not successes. With these latter, Commodore Perry had nothing to do, as to plans, designs or construction.”
No sketch of the early history of the steam navy of the United States could be justly made without honorable mention of Captain Robert F. Stockton. Nor was the paddle-wheel of the Mississippi to remain the emblem upon the engineer’s shoulder-strap. The propeller screw was soon to supersede the paddle-wheel as motor of the ship and emblem of the engineer’s profession. The screw is one of the many discoveries located, by uncritical readers, in China. The French claim its invention, and have erected at Boulogne a monument to Frederick Sauvage its reputed inventor. Ericsson demonstrated its value in 1836, by towing the Admiralty up the Thames at the rate of ten miles an hour; yet the British naval officers reported against its possibility of use on ships of war. Eight years afterward, the man-of-war, Rattler, was built as a propeller, and a successful one it was. Ericsson, after constructing the engines of the propeller steamer, Robert F. Stockton, was invited to Philadelphia, where he built the first screw steamer of the United States Navy, and of the world, planned as such. After the name of his native town, it was called by the Commodore, the Princeton.
At the end of ten years of shore service, devoted to the mastery of the science and art of war as illustrated in the applications of steam, chambered and rifled ordnance, hollow shot and explosive shells, iron armor and rams, the building and handling of new types of ships, Perry was beginning to see clearly, in outline at least, the typical American wooden man-of-war of the future. Such a ship, we may perhaps declare the Kearsarge to have been. In her build, motor and battery, she epitomized all the points of American naval architecture and ordnance, to which Perry’s faith and works led. Yet these very features were severely criticized by the English press, in the days before the British-built Alabama was sunk. These were, in construction, stoutness of frame, narrowness of beam, heaviness of scantling, all possible protection of machinery, lightness of draught, and a model calculated for a maximum of speed; in battery, the heaviest shell-guns mounted as pivots and firing the largest shells, accuracy of aim combined with rapidity of fire; in movement, the utmost skill with sail, steam and rudder, and celerity in obtaining the raking position. In such a ship and with such guns, were the right executive officer, and commander, when the first great naval duel fought with steam and shells took place on Sunday June 19, 1864, at sea, outside of Cherbourg. Historic and poetic justice to the memory of Matthew Perry was then done with glorious results, that will ever live in history. When the Alabama sank from the sight of the sun with her wandering stars and the bars of slavery after her into the ocean’s grave, the guns that sent her down were directed by James S. Thornton,[[12]] the efficient executive officer of the Kearsarge, and by his own boast and testimony, the favorite pupil of Commodore Matthew C. Perry.
| [11] | The Mississippi made six long cruises, two in the Gulf of Mexico, one in the Mediterranean, two to Japan, and one in the Gulf and Mississippi under Farragut. She twice circumnavigated the globe. Thoroughly repaired, she left Boston, May 23, 1861, for service in the Civil War. In passing Forts Jackson and Philip, April 24, 1862, and in the capture of New Orleans which gave the Confederacy its first blow in the vitals, the Mississippi took foremost part under command of Captain Melancthon Smith. Her guns sunk two steamers, and her prow sunk the ram Manassas. Passing safely the fire rafts, and the Challmette batteries, she was the first vessel to display the stars and stripes before the city. In the attack on Port Hudson, March 14, 1863, this old side-wheeler formed the rear guard of Farragut’s line. In the dark night and dense smoke, the pilot lost his way. The Mississippi grounded, and was for forty minutes under steady fire of the rifled cannon of the batteries, and was burned to prevent her use by the Confederates. |
| [12] | See his portrait, p. 926, Century Magazine, 1885. |
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BROAD PENNANT IN AFRICA.
The work to which Matthew Perry was assigned during the next three years grew out of the famous treaty made by Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton. Of this treaty we, in 1883 and 1884, on account of the transfer of so much of our financial talent across the Canadian border, heard nearly as much as our fathers before us in 1842. In addition to the rectification of the long-disputed boundary question, the eighth and ninth articles contained provisions for extirpating the African slave-trade. By the tenth article, the two governments agreed to the mutual extradition of suspected criminals. Out of the interpretation of this last, grew the famous “Underground Railway” of slavery days, besides the residence in Canada of men fleeing from conscription during the civil war, and of defaulting bank officers in later years. To the crimes making offenders liable to extradition, in the supplementary treaty made under President Cleveland’s administration, four others are added, including larceny to the amount of fifty dollars, and malicious destruction of property endangering life.
It is very probable that war was averted by the sound diplomacy of the Webster-Ashburton treaty. The two nations instead of crossing swords were enabled through creative statesmanship, to join hands for wholesome moral work, and especially to improve off the face of the ocean, “the sum of all villainies.” The discovery of America had given a vast impulse to this ancient and horrible traffic, and about forty millions of negroes had been seized for the markets of the western continent. About seventy thousand of these victims were brought to our country prior to the year 1808, and many thousands have been surreptitiously introduced since that epoch.
The United States was to send an eighty-gun squadron to Africa to suppress piracy and the slave-trade. The preparation for this real service to humanity and the world’s commerce was curiously interpreted in South America, as a menace to the states of that continent. In their first thrills of independence, these republics were naturally suspicious of their nearest strong neighbor.