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

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.

      As the career and character of my subject unfolded, I discovered that Matthew Perry was no creature of routine, but a typical American naval officer whose final triumph crowned a long and brilliant career. He had won success in Japanese waters not by a series of happy accidents, but because all his previous life had been a preparation to win it.

      In this narrative, much condensed from the original draft, no attempt has been made to do either justice or injustice to Perry’s fellow-officers, or to write a history of his times, or of the United States Navy. Many worthy names have been necessarily omitted. For the important facts recorded, reliance has been placed on the written word of documentary evidence. Fortunately, Perry was a master of the pen and of his native language. As he wrote almost all of his own letters and official reports, his papers, both public and private, are not only voluminous and valuable but bear witness to his scrupulous regard for personal mastery of details, as well as for style and grammar, fact and truth.

      Unable to thank all who have so kindly aided me, I must especially mention with gratitude the Hon. Wm. E. Chandler and W. C. Whitney, Secretaries of the United States Navy Department, Prof. J. R. Soley, chief clerk T. W. Hogg and clerk J. Cassin, for facilities in consulting the rich archives of the United States Navy; Admiral D. D. Porter and Rear-Admirals John Almy, D. Ammen, C. R. P. Rodgers, T. A. Jenkins, J. H. Upshur, and Captain Arthur Yates; the retired officers, pay director J. G. Harris, Lieut. T. S. Bassett and Lieut. Silas Bent formerly of the United States Navy, for light on many points and for reminiscences; Messrs. P.S. P. Conner, John H. Redfield, Joseph Jenks, R. B. Forbes, Chas. H. Haswell, Joshua Follansbee, and the Hon. John A. Bingham, for special information; the daughters of Captains H. C. Adams, and Franklin Buchanan, for the use of letters and for personalia; Rev. E. Warren Clark, Miss Orpah Rose, Miss E. B. Carpenter and others in Rhode Island, for anecdotes of Perry’s early life; the Hon. Gideon Nye of Canton; the Rev G. F. Verbeck of Tōkiō; many Japanese friends, especially Mr. Inazo Ota, for documents and notes; and last, but not least, the daughters of Commodore M. C. Perry, Mrs. August Belmont, Mrs. R. S. Rodgers, and especially Mrs. George Tiffany, who loaned letters and scrap-books, and, with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Smith of Hartford, furnished much important personal information. Among the vanished hands and the voices that are now still, that have aided me, are those of Rear-Admirals Joshua R. Sands, George H. Preble, and J. B. F. Sands, Dr. S. Wells Williams, Gen. Horace Capron, and others. A list of Japanese books consulted, and of Perry’s autograph writings and publications, will be found in the Appendix; references are in footnotes.

      The work now committed to type was written at Schenectady, N. Y., in the interstices of duties imperative to a laborious profession; and with it are linked many pleasant memories of the kindly neighbors and fellow Christians there; as well as of hospitality in Washington. In its completion and publication in Boston, new friends have taken a gratifying interest, among whom I gratefully name Mr. S. T. Snow, and M. F. Dickinson, Esq.

      In setting in the framework of true history this figure of a fellow-American great in war and in peace, the intention has been not to glorify the profession of arms, to commend war, to show any lack of respect to my English ancestors or their descendants, to criticise any sect or nation, to ventilate any private theories; but, to tell a true story that deserves the telling, to show the attractiveness of manly worth and noble traits wherever found, and to cement the ties of friendship between Japan and the United States. One may help to build up character by pointing to a good model. To the lads of my own country, but especially to Japanese young men, I commend the study of Matthew Perry’s career. The principles, in which he was trained at home by his mother and father, of the religion which anchored him by faith in the eternal realties, and of the Book which he believed and read constantly, lie at the root of what is best in the progress of a nation. No Japanese will make a mistake who follows Perry as he followed the guidance of these principles; while the United States will be Japan’s best exemplar and faithful friend only so far as she illustrates them in her national policy.

      W. E. G.

      Shawmut Church Parsonage,

      Boston, July 1st, 1887.

CHAPTER I.

       THE CHILD CALBRAITH.

       Table of Contents

      When in the year 1854, all Christendom was thrilled by the news of the opening of Japan to intercourse with the world, the name of Commodore Matthew Perry was on the lips of nations. In Europe it was acknowledged that the triumph had been achieved by no ordinary naval officer. Consummate mastery of details combined with marked diplomatic talents stamped Matthew Calbraith Perry as a man whose previous history was worth knowing. That history we propose to outline.

      The life of our subject is interesting for the following among many excellent reasons:—

      1. While yet a lad, he was active as a naval officer in the war of 1812.

      2. He chose the location of the first free black settlement in Liberia.

      3. He was, to the end of his life, one of the leading educators of the United States Navy.

      4. He was the father of our steam navy.

      5. He first demonstrated the efficiency of the ram as a weapon of offense in naval warfare.

      6. He founded the naval-apprenticeship system.

      7. He was an active instrument in assisting to extirpate the foreign slave-trade on the west coast of Africa.

      8. His methods helped to remove duelling, the grog ration and flogging out of the American navy.

      9. He commanded, in 1847, the largest squadron which, up to that date, had ever assembled under the American flag, in the Gulf of Mexico. The naval battery manned by his pupils in gunnery decided the fate of Vera Cruz, and his fleet’s presence enabled Scott’s army to reach the Capital.

      10. His final triumph was the opening of Japan to the world—one of the three single events in American History—the Declaration of Independence, and the Arbitration of the Alabama claims being the other two—which have had the greatest influence upon the world at large.

      Sturdy ancestry, parental and especially a mother’s