Matthew Calbraith Perry: A Typical American Naval Officer. William Elliot Griffis

towards “the free hearts’ hope and home.”

      The old weather-beaten hulk that now lies in the Wallabout is the same old North Carolina. What a change from glory to dry rot! It came to pass that the American line-of-battle ships, while the most showy, were also the most unsatisfactory class of ships in our navy. They all ended their days as store ships or as firewood. “The naval mind of the United States could not work well in old world harness.”