In the year 1797, war between France and the United States seemed inevitable, and “Hail Columbia” was sung all over the land. The Navy Department of the United States was created May 21, 1798. Captain Perry, having offered his services to the government, was appointed by President Adams, a post-captain in the navy June 9, 1798, and ordered to build and command the frigate General Greene at Warren, R. I. The keels of six sloops and six seventy-four gun ships were also laid. In May, 1799, the General Greene was ready for sea.

With his son Oliver as midshipman, Captain Perry sailed for the West Indies to convoy American merchantmen. He left his wife and family at Tower Hill, a courtly village with a history and fine society. Matthew was five years old. He had been taught to read by his mother, and now attended the school-house, an edifice, which, now a century old, has degenerated to a corn-crib.

Mrs. Perry lived in “the court end” of the town, and, after school, would tell her little sons of their father and brothers at sea. This element was ever in sight with its ships, its mystery, and its beckoning distances. From Tower Hill may be seen Newport, Conanticut Island, Block Island, Point Judith, and a stretch of inland country diversified by lakes, and what the Coreans call “Ten thousand flashings of blue waves.”

After two brilliant cruises in the Spanish Main, and a visit to Louisiana, where the American flag was first displayed by a national ship, Captain Perry returned to Newport in May, 1800. Negotiations with France terminated peacefully, and the first act of President Jefferson was to cut down the navy to a merely nominal existence. Out of forty-two captains only nine were retained in service, and Captain Perry again found himself in private life.

The first and logical result of reducing the nation’s police force on the seas, was the outbreak of piracy. Our expanding commerce found itself unprotected, and the Algerian corsairs captured our vessels and threw their crews into slavery. In the war with the Barbary powers, our navy gained its first reputation abroad in the classic waters of the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile at Newport the boy, Matthew Calbraith, continued his education under school-teachers, and his still more valuable training in character under his mother. The family lived near “the Point,” and during the long voyages of the father, the training of the sons and daughters fell almost wholly on the mother.

It was a good gift of Providence to our nation, this orphan Irish bride so amply fitted to be the mother of heroes. Of a long line of officers in the navy of the United States, most of those bearing the name of Perry, and several of the name of Rodgers, call Sarah Alexander their ancestress. One of the forefathers of the bride, who was of the Craigie-Wallace family, was Sir Richard Wallace of Riccarton, Scotland. He was the elder brother of Malcom Wallace of Ellerslie, the father of Sir William Wallace. Her grandfather was James Wallace, an officer in the Scottish army, who signed the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but resigned his commission some years later. With other gentlemen from Ayrshire, he took refuge from religious persecution in North Ireland. Though earnest Protestants, they became involved in the Irish rebellion in Cromwell’s time and were driven to resistance of the English invaders.

As a young girl Sarah Alexander had not only listened to oft-repeated accounts of the battles and valor of her ancestors but was familiar with the historic sites in the neighborhood of her childhood’s home. She believed her own people the bravest in the world. Well educated, and surrounded with the atmosphere of liberal culture, of high ideas, of the sacredness of duty and the beauty of religion, she had been morally well equipped for the responsibilities of motherhood and mature life. Add to this, the self-reliance naturally inbred by dwelling as an orphan girl among five young men, her cousins; and last and most important, the priceless advantage of a superb physique, and one sees beforehand to what inheritance her sons were to come. One old lady, who remembers her well, enthusiastically declared that “she was wonderfully calculated to form the manners of children.” Another who knew her in later life writes of her as “a Spartan mother,” “a grand old lady.” Another says “Intelligent, lady-like, well educated;” another that “she was all that is said of her in Mackenzie’s Life of O. H. Perry.” Those nearest to her remember her handsome brown eyes, dark hair, rich complexion, fine white teeth, and stately figure.

The deeds of the Perry men are matters of history. The province of the women was at home, but it was the mothers, of the Hazard and the Alexander blood who prepared the men for their careers by moulding in them the principles from which noble actions spring.

Discipline, sweetened with love, was the system of the mother of the Perry boys, and the foundation of their education. First of all, they must obey. The principles of Christianity, of honor, and of chivalry were instilled in their minds from birth. Noblesse oblige was their motto. It was at home, under their mother’s eye that Oliver learned how to win victory at Lake Erie, and Matthew a treaty with Japan. She fired the minds of her boys with the ineradicable passion of patriotism, the love of duty, and the conquest of self. At the same time, she trained them to the severest virtue, purest motives, faithfulness in details, a love for literature, and a reverence for sacred things. The habit which Matthew C. Perry had of reading his Bible through once during every cruise, his scrupulous regard for the Lord’s day, the American Sunday, his taste for literature, and his love for the English classics were formed at his mother’s knee.

The vigor of her mind and force of her character were illustrated in other ways. While personally attractive with womanly graces, gentle and persuasive in her manners, she believed that self-preservation is the first law of nature. Training her sons to kindness and consideration of others, and warning them to avoid quarrels, she yet demanded of them that they should neither provoke nor receive an insult, nor ever act the coward. How well her methods were understood by her neighbors, is shown by an incident which occurred shortly after news of the victory at Lake Erie reached Rhode Island. An old farmer stoutly insisted that it was Mrs. Perry who had “licked the British.”

There was much in the social atmosphere and historical associations of Newport at the opening of this century to nourish the ambition and fire the imagination of impressible lads like the Perry boys. Here still lived the French veteran, Count Rochambeau of revolutionary fame. Out in the bay, fringed with fortifications of Indian, Dutch, Colonial and British origin and replete with memories of stirring deeds, lay the hulk of the famous ship in which Captain Cook had observed the transit of Venus and circumnavigated the globe. Here, possibly, the Norsemen had come to dwell centuries before, and fascinating though uncertain tradition pointed to the then naked masonry of the round tower as evidence of it. The African slave-trade was very active at this time, and brought much wealth to Newport and the old manors served by black slaves fresh from heathenism. Among other noted negroes was Phillis Wheatly the famous poetess, then in her renown, who had been brought to Boston in 1781 in a slave-ship. What was afterwards left to Portuguese cut-throats and Soudan Arabs was, until within the memory of old men now living, prosecuted by Yankee merchants and New England deacons whose ship’s cargoes consisted chiefly of rum and manacles. At this iniquity, Matthew Perry was one day to deal a stunning blow.

Here, too, had tarried Berkeley, not then a bishop, however, whose prophecy, “Westward the star of empire takes its way” was to be fulfilled by Matthew Perry across new oceans, even to Japan. Once a year the gaily decked packet-boat set out from Newport to Providence to carry the governor from one capital to the other. This was a red-letter day to little Calbraith, in whose memory it remained bright and clear to the day of his death. When he was about ten years old, Mr. Matthew Calbraith now thirty years old and a successful merchant, came from Philadelphia to visit the Perrys. He was delighted with his little namesake, and prophesied that he would make the name of Perry more honorable yet.

The affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake in June 1807 thrilled every member of the family. Matthew begged that he might, at once, enter the navy. This, however, was not yet possible to the boy of twelve years, so he remained at school.

What Providence meant to teach, when an American man-of-war with her decks littered up and otherwise unfit for action was surprised by a hostile ship, was not lost upon our navy. The humiliating but salutary lesson was learned for all time. Neatness, vigilance and constant preparation for the possibilities of action are now the characteristics of our naval households. So far as we know, no other ship of our country has since been “leopardized.”

Even out of their bitter experience, the American sailors took encouragement. The heavy broadsides of a fifty-gun frigate against a silent ship had done surprisingly little damage. British traditions suffered worse than the timbers of the Chesapeake, or the hearts of her sailors. The moral effect was against the offenders, and in favor of the Americans. The mists of rumor and exaggeration were blown away, and henceforth our captains and crews awaited with stern joy their first onset with insolent oppressors. If ever the species bully had developed an abominable variety, it was the average British navy captain of the first decade of this century.

Providence was severing the strings which bound the infant nation to her European nurse. If the mere crossing of the Atlantic by the Anglo Saxon or Germanic race has been equivalent to five hundred years of progress, we may, at this day, be thankful for the treacherous broadsides of the Leopard.

Having a well-grounded faith in the future of his country, and in the speedy renown of her navy, Captain Perry wished all his sons to be naval officers. He had confidence in American ships and cannon, and believed that, handled by native Americans, they were a match for any in the world. His sons Oliver and Raymond already wore the uniform. Early in 1808, he wrote to the Department concerning an appointment for Matthew. His patience was not long tried. Under date of April 23, 1808, he received word from the secretary, Paul Smith, that nothing stood in the way. The receipt of the warrant as midshipman was eagerly awaited by the lad. On the 18th of January 1809, the paper arrived. He was ordered March 16th to the naval station at New York, where he performed for several weeks such routine duty as a lad of his age could do. He then went aboard the schooner Revenge, his first home afloat.

In those days, there being no naval academy, the young midshipmen entered as mere boys, learning the rudiments of seamanship by actual practice on ships at sea. Thus began our typical American naval officer’s long and brilliant career of nearly half a century.

Matthew Perry was born when our flag bearing the stars and stripes was so new on the seas as to be regarded with curiosity. It had then but fifteen stars in its cluster. Civilized states disregarded its neutrality, and uncivilized people insulted it with impunity. The Tripolitan war first compelled barbarians to respect the emblem. France, one of the most powerful and unscrupulous of belligerents, had not yet learned to honor its right of neutrality. Great Britain, to the insults of spoliation, added the robbery of impressment. Matthew Perry entered the United States navy with a burning desire to make this flag respected in every sea. He lived to command the largest fleet which, in his lifetime ever gathered under its folds, and to bear it to the uttermost parts of the earth in the first steam frigate of the United States which ever circumnavigated the globe.

The schooner Revenge, commanded by his brother Oliver, to which Matthew Perry was ordered for his first cruise, had been purchased in 1807. She mounted twelve guns, had a crew of ninety men, and was attached to the squadron under Commodore John Rodgers, which numbered four frigates, five sloops, and some smaller vessels. His duty was to guard our coasts from the Chesapeake to Passamaquoddy Bay, to prevent impressment of American sailors by British cruisers. The Revenge was to cruise between Montauk Point and Nantucket Shoals.

Boy as he was, Matthew Perry seems not to have relished the idea of serving in a coasting schooner. Having an opportunity to make a voyage to the East Indies, the idea of visiting Asia fascinated his imagination. It seemed to offer a fine field for obtaining nautical knowledge. Bombay was at this time the seat of British naval excellence in ship building, and an eighty-gun vessel, built of teak or India oak, was launched every three years. A petition for furlough was not, however, granted and the voyage to Asia was postponed nearly half a century.

Under such a commander, and with his brother Oliver, the boy Matthew was initiated into active service. The Revenge kept look-out during summer and winter, and in April went southward to Washington and the Carolinas.

As there was as yet nothing to do but to be vigilant and to prepare for the war which was—unless Great Britain changed her impressment policy—sure to come, daily attention was given to drill. The sailors were especially taught to keep cool and bide their time to fire. All the Perrys, father and sons, were diligent students of ordnance and gunnery. They were masters of both theory and practice. Among the list of subscribers to Toussard’s Artillerist, written at the request of Washington, and published in 1809, is the name of Oliver H. Perry.

On the 12th of October, 1810, Midshipman M. C. Perry was ordered from the Revenge (which was wrecked off Watch Hill, R. I., January 8, 1811) to the frigate President. This brought him on the flag-ship, the finest of the heavy frigates of 1797, and directly under the eye of Commodore Rodgers. On the 16th of October she went on a short cruise of ten days and returned to her port for the winter, where Raymond Perry joined him. News of the whereabouts of the British ships Shannon and Guerriere was regularly received, and the crew kept alert and ready for work with the press-gang. This was the beginning of three years service by the two Perry brothers on this famous ship.

From March 19, 1811, until July 25, 1813, Matthew kept a diary in which he made observations relating chiefly to the weather and matters of technical interest, with occasional items of historical value. The boyish ambition for ample proportions in the book is offset by the accuracy studied in the entries, and the excessive modesty of all statements relating to himself, even to his wound received by the bursting of a gun. It contains frequent reference to personages whose congenial home was the quarter-deck, the lustre of whose names still glitters in history like the fresh sand which they sprinkled on their letters—now entombed in the naval archives at Washington.

From the first, the bluff disciplinarian, Commodore Rodgers, took a kindly interest in his midshipman. He was especially exacting of his juniors whom he liked, or in whom he saw promise. His dignity, discipline and spirit, were models constantly imitated by his pupils.

One day, while on duty on that part of the deck which roofed the commodore’s cabin, Matthew Perry paced up and down his beat with, what seemed to the occupant below, an unnecessarily noisy stride. Irate at being disturbed while writing, the commodore rushed out on deck, demanded the spy glass and bade Perry to put himself in his superior’s place in the cabin, and sit there to learn how the iniquity of his heels sounded. Then with ponderous tread, exaggerated stride, and mock dignity, the commodore of the whole fleet gave a dramatic object-lesson. It profited the lad no less than it amused the spectators.

Soon after this, Perry was made commodore’s aide.

The diary shows that constant exercise at the “great guns and small arms” was practiced. Rodgers knew that his men were to meet the heroes of Trafalgar, and he believed that American gunnery would quickly settle questions over which diplomacy had become impotent.

The President, leaving New London for New York, set sail April 22 for Annapolis, casting anchor opposite Fort Severn, May 2. Here the vessel lay for ten days. As everything was quiet along the coast, Commodore Rodgers went to his home at Havre de Grace, seventy miles distant, to visit his family. The purser and chaplain took a trip to Washington, and on board all was as quiet as a city church aisle in summer.

Late at night, May 6, there came dispatches from the Navy Department. Two men had been taken from the merchant brig, Spitfire, within eighteen miles of New York. One of the young men impressed, John Deguys, was known to the captain to be a native of Maine. The Guerriere, Captain Dacres, was, as usual, suspected.

The news created great excitement, for the constant search of American ships and the impressment of such men, as the arrogant English captains chose to call British “subjects,” had roused our sailors’ ire. They burned to change this disgraceful state of things and to avenge the Chesapeake affair. The officers of the Guerriere, painting the name of their frigate on her topsails, in large white letters, had been conspicuous for their bravado in insulting American merchant captains.

This was the age of British boasting on the sea, of huge canvas and enormous flags. For during nigh two score years, the British sailors, “lords of the main,” had ruled the waves, rarely losing a ship, and never a squadron, in their numerous battles. Uninterrupted success had bred many bullies. The trade of New York had been injured by these annoying searches and delays. The orders to Commodore Rodgers were to proceed at once to stop the outrageous proceedings. The vexed question of impressment had, since 1790, caused an incredible amount of negotiation. It was now to pass out of the hands of secretaries into the control of our naval captains, with power to solve the problem.

To get the dispatches to the commodore was the duty in hand. Neither steamer nor telegraph could then help to perform it; but hearts and hands were true, and Matthew Perry was ready to show the stuff of which he was made. Captain Ludlow at once entrusted the delicate matter to the commodore’s aide.

Matthew Perry set out before daylight in the commodore’s gig. The pull of seventy miles was made against a head wind. Taking his seat at the helm, he cheered on his men, but it was a long and hard day’s work. It was nearly dark when the lights of the village danced in the distance. At this moment one of the men dropped his oar, and sank back with the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils. In his over-strain he had burst a blood vessel.

Rodgers at once took the boat, and with the wind in his favor hoisted sail. At 3 p. m., May 7, as Captain Ludlow was dining on the sloop Argus, near the President, the gig was descried five miles distant bearing the broad pennant. Perry, in his journal, modestly omits, as is customary with him, all reference to this exploit of bringing back the commodore. But under the entry of May 10, he writes: “At 10 hoisted out the launch, carried out a kedge and warped the ship out of the roads.”

The President put to sea with her name boldly blazoned on her three topsails like the Guerriere’s. All on board were ready and eager for an opportunity to wipe out this last disgrace. Perry writes, on the 13th: “At 3 spoke the brig . . . . from Trinidad—informed us that the day before she was boarded by an English sloop-of-war.” “At 7 the Argus hove to alongside of us. Captain Lawrence came on board—at 8 Captain L. left the ship.” Next day “at 3 exercised great guns”; “at half-past 8 passed New Point Comfort. At 10 opened the magazine and took out thirty-two twenty-four pound and twenty-four forty-two pound cartridges.”

At 1 o’clock in the afternoon of the 17th, a strange sail was noticed—the ensign and pennant were raised, the ship was cleared for action and the crew beat to quarters. The signals of the strange ship were not answered. The two ships were at this time but a few leagues south of Sandy Hook.

The stranger ship was none other than the British sloop-of-war Little Belt, carrying twenty-two guns. As what took place really precipitated the war of 1812, we give the record from Perry’s diary without alteration.

“At 7 p. m. the chase took in her studding-sails, distant about eight miles. At ten or twelve minutes past 7 she rounded to on the starboard-tack. At half-past 7 shortened sail. At half-past 8 rounded to on her weather beam, within half a cable’s length of her; hailed and asked ‘what ship is that’? to which she replied, ‘what ship is that’? and on the commodore’s asking the second time ‘what ship is that’? received a shot from her which was immediately returned from our gun-deck, but was scarcely fired before she fired three other guns accompanied with musquetry. We then commenced a general fire which lasted about fifteen minutes, when the order was given to cease firing, our adversary being silent and apparently in much distress. At 9 hauled on a wind on the starboard-tack, the strange ship having dropped astern so far that the commodore did not choose to follow, supposing that he had sufficiently chastised her for her insolence in firing into an American frigate. Kept our battle-lanthorns burning. After having examined the damage, found that the ship had her foremast and mainmast wounded and some rigging shot away—one boy only wounded—before daylight the masts were fished, moulded and painted, and everything taut.

“At 5 a. m. discovered the strange sail and bore down for her. At 8 came alongside and sent a boat aboard her. She was lying in a very shattered situation; no sail bent except her maintopsail; her rigging all shot away; three or four shots through her masts; several between wind and water; her gaft shot away, etc. At 9 the boat returned; she proved to be the British ship-of-war Little Belt, Captain Bingham; permitted her to proceed on her course, hoisted the boat up and hauled by the wind on the larboard tack; ends clear and pleasant.”

In this battle the young midshipman first heard a hostile shot and received his initial “baptism of fire.” The accounts of this affair given by the two commanders, Rodgers and Bingham, cannot be reconciled. Captain Bingham, acquitted of blame, was promoted February 7, 1812, to post-rank in the British navy. The event widened the breach between the two nations, and was the foreshadowing of coming events not long to be postponed. Probably Rodgers’ chief regret was that the punished vessel had not been the Guerriere.

The rest of the year, 1811, was spent by our sailors in constant readiness and unremitting discipline in order to secure the highest state of naval efficiency. Exercise at the carronades and long guns was a daily task. The coming war on the ocean was to be a contest in gunnery, and to be won by tactical skill, long guns, and superiority in artillery practice. Nothing was left to chance on the American ships. Congress had neglected the navy since the Tripolitan war, and with embargoes, non-intercourse acts, and a puerile gun-boat system, practically attempted to paralyze this arm of defence. Commodore Rodgers’ squadron was an exception to the general system, and his was the sole squadron serviceable when the declaration of hostilities came.

Rodgers hoped by speedy victories to demonstrate the power of the American heavy frigate to blow to atoms “the gun-boat system,” and change British insolence into respect. Lack of opportunity caused him personal disappointment; but his faith and creed were fully justified by the naval campaign of 1812.

Commodore John Rodgers was a man of the time, a typical naval officer of the period. He was minutely careful about the food and habits of his men, and made the President as homelike as a ship could be. He was not precisely a man of science, as was the case with his son in the monitor Weehawken, for this was the pre-scientific age of naval warfare. Indeed, it can scarcely be said with truth that he had either patience with or appreciation of Robert Fulton, the Pennsylvanian whose inventions were destined to revolutionize the methods of naval warfare. This mechanical genius who anticipated steam frigates, iron armor, torpedoes and rams, rather amused than interested Rodgers. To the commodore, who expected no miracles, he seemed to possess “Continuity but not ingenuity.” Fulton had not yet perfected his apparatus, though he had in 1804 blown up a Danish frigate off Copenhagen, and in 1810 had published in New York his “Torpedo War and Submarine Explosion.” This book is full of illustrations so clear, that to look at them now provokes the wonder that his schemes found so little encouragement. Five thousand dollars were appropriated by Congress March 30, 1810, for submarine torpedo experiments. Discouragement evidently followed: for our government in 1811, following the example of France and England rejected his plans for a submarine torpedo boat.

“The Battle of the Kegs” was too often referred to in connection with Fulton’s projects. This threw a humorous but not luminous glow over the whole matter. It gave to a serious scientific subject very much the same air as that which Irving has succeeded in casting over the early history of New York.

Having glanced at the typical American commander, let us now see what kind of sailors handled the ships and guns of 1812. In an old order book of Commodore Rodgers’, we find one to midshipman M. C. Perry, dated “President off Sandy Hook 26th May 1813,” directing him to proceed to New York and enter for the ship six petty officers and fifty seamen and boys. From this we may guess the quality of the crews of American men-of-war.

“You are desired to be particular in entering none but American citizens, and indeed, native-born citizens in preference.” He is especially directed to ship good healthy men able to perform duty, active and robust, while only those of good character and appearance are to be accepted for the warrant and petty officers. As Matthew Perry was but seventeen years of age, the order shows the confidence his commander placed in his judgement. In Perry’s diary the simple entry under May 28 is “At 12 p. m. the pilot boat left the ship with Mr. Hunt and Midp. M. C. Perry as a recruiting officer for the ship.”

It is the favorite idea of Englishmen who have formed their opinions from James the popular historian of the British navy, that the victories of American ships over their own in 1812 were owing to the British deserters among the Yankees. James, with amazing credulity, believes that there were two hundred Englishmen on the Constitution, that two-thirds of the sailors in the navy of the United States were bred on the soil and educated in the ships of Great Britain, and to these our navy owed at least one half of its effectiveness.

It is much nearer the truth to state that nine-tenths of the American crews were native-born, and but about one-twentieth of British nationality, the rest being a mixture. Three-fourths of the natives were from the northern states; half of the remaining quarter from Virginia, and nearly all of respectable parentage.

Of the officers, the midshipmen were lads of from eleven to fifteen years of age. There were in commission during the war about 500 naval officers, 34,960 sailors and petty officers, and 2,725 marines. The government possessed six navy yards.

In addition to the officer’s knowledge of the scientific principle of gunnery, and the thorough familiarity of the gun-crews with their duties, each ship’s company when away from its cannon was a disciplined battalion. The manual of small arms comprehended every possible stroke of offence and defence. Pikes, cutlasses and axes were the weapons relied on, though a few rifles, in the hands of sharp shooters perched in the crows-nests and in the tops, and a brace of pistols at each man’s belt had their places. The Yankee cutlass had already crossed with the Moorish scimiter at Tripoli, in more than one victory, and “our sailors felt a just confidence in its merits.”^[2] The pike was the boarding weapon, the sailor’s bayonet, with which he charged the enemy on his own decks, or repelled his attacks, and was not the least of small arms. The war of 1812, with men speaking the same language, was practically a civil war in which the sword was again to be taken up against equals in every respect. Hence the need of constant practice in handling tools. The uninterrupted drill bore its fruit in due season.

One potent secret of American excellence of naval service, which raised our standard of war ships and guns even higher than the highest in Europe, was the rule of promotion for merit. This nerved every sailor and petty officer to do nothing less than his best at all times. In this respect, the navy of the western world contrasted effectively with that of Great Britain, where commissions were bought and sold in open market.

The Yankee captain taught his men to take pride in their guns as if they were human. Of many an American sailor in 1812 it could be said:

The American men-of-war went to sea with sights on their guns that enabled a cannonneer to fire with nearly the accuracy of a rifle. In their occasional use of sheet-lead cartridges, which required less sponging and worming after firing than those of flannel and of paper, they anticipated the copper shells of recent American invention.

The broadsides of that day may seem to us ridiculous in weight, as compared to those of our time. A projectile from an iron-clad now exceeds the entire mass of metal thrown by the largest of the old line-of-battle ships. The heaviest broadside in the United States in 1812—that thrown by the United States carrying fifty-four guns—was but 846 pounds. Nevertheless the American ships had usually heavier and better guns and of longer range than the British. The power of a line-of-battle ship had been condensed into the space of a frigate. This was the American idea, to increase the weight of metal thrown in broadside without altering the ship’s rating.

With their guns every man and boy on board was constantly familiar by daily practice, and the name and purpose of each rope, crook, pulley, and cleet on the carriages were fully known to all. It must be remembered that horizontal shell-firing was unknown sixty years ago. Bombs could be thrown only from mortars as in a land siege, but never from cannon in naval duels, though short howitzers were occasionally employed in Europe to fire bombs. “Bomb-guns, firing hollow shot,” on ships, were not invented until 1824. The seeming advantage to the old time sailor, in his exemption from exploding shells, was in reality and from a humane point of view, a disadvantage; since in navals annals short sharp engagements were less common. A vast waste of ammunition causing “prolonged mutilation and slaughter” was rather the rule. It was the coolness of the American cannonneer, his economy in firing his gun only when he was reasonably sure of hitting, his ability to hold the linstock from the touch-hole till the word was given to fire, that made the duels of 1812 short and decisive.

As a feeble substitute for bomb-shells, the Americans were driven to the use of all sorts of hardware and blacksmith’s scraps as projectiles. This kind of shot was called “langrel” or “langrage,” and the metal magazine of a cruiser in 1812 would be sure to cause merriment if looked into in our decade. In old and in recent times, each combatant aimed to destroy the propelling power of the other. As the main design now is to strike the boiler and disable the machinery, so then the first object was to cut up the sails and rigging, so as to reduce the ship to a hulk. For the purpose, our blacksmiths and inventors were called on to furnish all sorts of ripping and tearing missiles and every species of dismantling shot. Their anvils turned off “star shot,” “chain shot,” “sausages,” “double headers,” “porcupines” and “hedge-hogs.” The “star shot” made of four wrought iron bolts hammered to a ring folded like a frame of umbrella rods. On firing, this camp stool arrangement expanded its rays to the detriment of the enemy’s cordage and canvas. The “sausage” consisted of four or six links, each twelve inches long and when rammed home resemble a disjointed fishing pole or artist’s sketching chair packed up. When belched forth it was converted into a swinging line of iron six feet long which made havoc among the ropes. The “double header” resemble a dumb bell. The “chain shot,” “porcupine” and “hedge-hog” explain themselves by their names. Such projectiles, with a small blacksmith’s shop of bolts and spikes, were to the weight of half a ton, taken out of the side of the Shannon after her fight with the Chesapeake and sold at auction in Halifax where most of them were converted into horse-shoes and other innocent articles. In preparing for the battle of Lake Erie, all the scraps of iron saved at the forges were sewn in leather bags. This flying cutlery helped largely to disable the enemy and bring about the victory. In battle, the carronades charged with this “langrage” were tilted high and pointed at the rigging, while the solid shot of the regular broadsides hulled the enemy with decisive effect. This kind of projectile, though it had been in use in Europe since 1720, was denounced by the British as inhuman and uncivilized. As the history of war again and again proves, what is first denounced as barbarous is finally adopted as fair against an enemy.

The British neglected artillery practice and knew little of nice gunnery. Their carronades and long deck guns were less securely fastened, and were often over charged. By their recoil they were often kicked over and rendered useless during a fight. A terrible picture in words is given by Victor Hugo in his “93” of a carronade let loose in a storm on the deck of a French ship. British discipline too, had fallen behind the standard of Nelson’s day. A nearly uninterrupted series of victories had so spoiled with conceit the average English naval man that he felt it unnecessary if not impossible to learn from an enemy. In the autobiography of Henry Taylor, the author of “Philip Van Artevelde,” who in his youth was midshipman on a British frigate in 1812, he tells us that during a whole year he was not once in the rigging. Very little attention was paid to scientific gunnery, and target practice was rare. In some ships, not a ball was shot from a gun in three years. Dependence was placed on the number of cannon rather than on their quality, equipment or service. They counted rather than weighed their shot. Most of the British frigates were over-gunned.

The carronade, invented in 1779, had become immediately popular, and by 1781 four hundred and twenty-nine British war vessels were equipped with from six to ten carronades. These were above their regular complement and not included in the rate or enumeration. Hence a “thirty-eight,” a “forty-two,” or a “seventy-four” gun-ship might have many more muzzles than her professed complement. The fearful effect of short range upon the timber of ships enabled the British to convert their enemy’s walls into missiles, and make splinters their ally in the work of death and mutilation. Farragut’s “splinter nettings” were then unknown nor dreamed of. Hence the terrific proverbial force of the British broadsides in the Nile and at Trafalgar. After such demonstration of power, such manifest superiority over foemen worthy of their steel, it seemed absurd in British eyes to make special preparation, or abandon old routine in order to meet the Yankees in their “pine board” and “fir built” frigates. What they had done with the French they expected to with the Americans, and more easily. They did not know the virtues of the American long guns nor the rapidity, coolness, and unerring accuracy of the American artillerists. They were now to learn new lessons in the art of war. They were to fight with sailors who took aim.

At the outbreak of hostilities our naval force in ships consisted of one hundred and seventy gun-boats afloat, three second class frigates under repair, three old brigs rotten and worthless, with five brigs and sloops, three first-class and two second-class frigates which were seaworthy. After the embargo of April 14th most of the fast sailers in the American merchant service were converted into privateers.

The British naval force all told consisted of over a thousand sail and her sailors were flushed with the remembrances of Aboukir and Trafalgar. Before hostilities and at the date of the declaration of war, there were off our coast the Africa, one sixty-four gun-ship; the Shannon, Guerriere, Belvidera, and Eolus, second class frigates; besides several smaller vessels.

The war with Great Britain, our “second war for independence” was declared when the treasury was empty and the cabinet divided. Some pamphleteers stigmatized it as “Mr. Madison’s war.” So great was the cowardly fear of British invincibility on the seas, and so shameful and unjust were the suspicions against our navy that many counsellors at Washington urged that the national vessels should keep within tide-water and act only as harbor batteries. To the earnest personal remonstrance of Captains Bainbridge and Stewart we owe it that our vessels got to sea to win a glory imperishable.

Borrowing a point from the English who, in older days, usually chose their time to declare war when the richly-laden Dutch galleons were on their homeward voyage from the Indies, President Madison and Congress, hoping to fill the depleted treasury, passed the act declarative of war about the time the Jamaica plate fleet of eighty-five vessels was to arrive off our coast. This sailed from Negril Bay on the 20th of May and war against Great Britain was declared on the 12th of June, at least one week too late.

In these days of submarine cables, the European armies in South Africa or Cochin China receive orders from London or Paris on the day of their issue. To us, the tardiness of transmission in Perry’s youth, seems incredible. Although war was declared on the 12th of June, official information did not reach the army officers until June 20th, and the naval commanders until the 21st. In Perry’s diary of June 20th 1812, this entry is made: “At 10 a. m. news arrived that war would be declared the following day against G. B. Made the signal for all officers and boats. Unmoored ship and fired a salute.”

At 3.30 p. m. next day, within sixty minutes of the arrival of the news, the squadron, consisting of the President, United States, Congress, Argus, and Hornet, about one-third of the whole sea-worthy naval force of the nation, moved out into the ocean.

The British man-of-war, Belvidera, was cruising off Nantucket shore awaiting the French privateer, Marengo, hourly expected from New London. Captain Byron had heard of the likelihood of war from a New York pilot, and his crew was ready for emergencies. At eight o’clock next morning, the look-out on the President when off Nantucket Shoal, caught sight of a strange frigate. Every stitch of canvas was put on the masts and stays, and a race, which was kept up all day, was begun. The President, being just out, was heavily loaded, and, until afternoon, the Belvidera by lightening ship kept well ahead. When it became evident to Captain Byron, the British commander, that he must fight, he ordered the deck cleared, ran out four stern guns, two of which were eighteen pounders and on the main deck. He hoisted his colors at half past twelve. His cartridges were picked, but his fusing was not laid on. This was to avoid a President and Little Belt experience. By half past four, the President’s bow-chaser, or “Long Tom,” was within six hundred yards distance, and the time for firing the first gun of the war had come. The long years of patient waiting and self-control, under insults, were over. The question of the freedom of the seas was to be settled by artillery.

Commodore Rodgers desiring the personal honor of firing the first hostile shot afloat, took his station at the starboard forecastle gun. Perry, a boy of seventeen, stood beside ready, eager, and cool. Waiting till the right moment, the commodore applied the match. The ball struck the Belvidera in the stern coat and passed through, lodging in the ward-room. The corresponding gun on the main deck was then discharged, and the ball was seen to strike the muzzle of one of the enemy’s stern-chasers. The third shot killed two men and wounded five on the Belvidera. With such superb gunnery, the war of 1812 opened. A few more such shots, and the prize would have been in hand.

It was not so to be. Nothing is more certain than the unexpected. A slip came between sight and taste, changing the whole situation.

Commodore Rodgers with his younger officers stood on the forecastle deck with glasses leveled to see the effect of the shot from the next gun on the deck beneath them. It was in charge of Lieutenant Gamble. On the match being applied, it burst. The Commodore was thrown into the air and his leg broken by the fall. Matthew Perry was wounded, several of the sailors were killed, and the forecastle deck was damaged badly. Sixteen men were injured by this accident. The firing on the American ship ceased for some minutes, until the ruins were cleared away, and the dead and wounded were removed. Meanwhile the stern guns of the Belvidera were playing vigorously, and, during the whole action, this busy end of the British vessel was alive with smoke and flame. No fewer than three hundred shot were fired, killing or wounding six of the President’s crew though hurting the ship but slightly, notwithstanding that, for two and a half hours, she lay in a position favorable for raking. Having no pivot guns, but hoping to cripple his enemy by a full broadside, Commodore Rodgers, when the President had forged ahead, veered ship and gave the enemy his full starboard fire. Failing of this purpose, he delivered another broadside at five o’clock, which was as useless as the other. He then ordered the sails set and continued the chase. To offset this advantage in his enemy, the British captain, equal to the situation, ordered the pumps to be manned, stores, anchors and boats to be heaved overboard to rid the ship of every superfluous pound of matter. Fourteen tons of water were started and, lightened of much metal and wood, the British ship gained visibly on her opponent. This continued until six, when the wind, being very light, Rodgers, in the hope of disabling his antagonist, “yawed” again and fired two broadsides. These, to the chagrin of the gallant commodore, fell short or took slight effect. At seven o’clock, the Belvidera was beyond range and, near midnight, the chase was given up.

The escaping vessel got safely to Halifax carrying thither the news that war had been declared and the Yankee cruisers were loose on the main. Instead of the electric cable which flashes the news in seconds, the schooner Mackerel took dispatches, arriving at Portsmouth July 25th.

Following the trail left in the “pathless ocean” by the crumbs that fell from the British table,—fruit rinds, orange skins and cocoa-nut shells, the American frigate followed the game until within twenty-four hours of the British channel. It was now time to be off. The West India prize was lost.

Turning prow to Maderia, Funchal was passed July 27th. Sail was then made for the Azores. Few ships were seen, but fogs were frequent. Baffled in his desire to meet an enemy having teeth to bite, Rodgers would have still kept his course, but for a fire in the rear. An enemy, feared more than British guns, had captured the ship.

It was the scurvy. It broke out so alarmingly that he was obliged to hurry home at full speed. Passing Nantasket roads August 31st decks were cleared for action. A strange ship was in sight. It was the Constitution which a few days before had met and sunk their old enemy the Guerriere, two of whose prizes the President had recaptured.

In this, his first foreign cruise in a man-of-war, full as it was of exciting incidents, Perry had taken part in one battle, and the capture of seven British Merchant vessels. Driven home ingloriously by the chronic enemy of the naval household, he learned well a new lesson. He gained an experience, by which not only himself but all his crew down to the humblest sailor under his command, profited during the half century of his service. In those ante-canning days, more lives were lost in the navy by this one disease than by all other causes, sickness, battle, tempest or shipwreck. “From scurvy” might well have been a prayer of deliverance in the nautical litany.

Perry was one of the first among American officers to search into the underlying causes of the malady. He was ever a rigid disciplinarian in diet, albeit a generous provider. To the ignorant he seemed almost fanatical in his “anti-scorbutic” notions, though he was rather pleased than otherwise at the nick-name savoring of the green-grocer’s stall which Jack Tar with grateful facetiousness lavished on him.

Across sea, the American frigates were described by the English newspapers as “disguised seventy-fours;” and, forthwith, English writers on naval warfare began explaining how the incredible thing happened that British frigates had lowered their flag to apparent equals. These explanations have been diligently kept up and copied for the past seventy-five years. As late as the international rifle match of 1877 the words of the naval writer, James, learned by heart by Britons in their youth, came to the front in the staple of English editorials written to clear up the mystery of American excellence with the rifle,—“The young peasant or back-woodsman carries a rifle barrel from the moment he can lift one to his shoulder.”

On the eighteenth of October, Rodgers left Boston with the President, Constitution, United States and Argus. Perry, unable to be idle, while the ships lay in Boston harbor, had opened a recruiting office in the city enlisting sailors for the President. Each vessel of the squadron was in perfect order. On the 10th, without knowing it, they passed near five British men-of-war. They chased a thirty-eight gun ship but lost her, but, on the 18th off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland captured the British packet Swallow, having on board eighty-one boxes of gold and silver to the value of $200,000. On the 30th they chased the Galatea and lost her. During the whole of November, they met with few vessels.

Nine prizes of little value were taken. They cruised eastward to Longitude 22 degrees west and southward to 17 degrees north latitude. They re-entered Boston on the last month of the year, 1812. It is no fault of Rodgers that he did not meet an armed ship at sea, and win glory like that gained by Hull, Bainbridge and Decatur. For Perry, fortune was yet reserving her favor and Providence a noble work.

Leaving Boston, April 30, the President crossed the Atlantic to the Azores, and thence moved up toward North Cape. In these icy seas, Rodgers hoped to intercept a fleet of thirty merchant vessels sailing from Archangel, July 15. Escaping after being chased eighty-four hours by a British frigate and a seventy-four, Rodgers returned from his Arctic adventures, and after a five months’ cruise cast anchor at Newport, September 27. Twelve vessels, with two hundred and seventy-one prisoners, had been taken; and the ships he disposed of by cartel, ransom, sinking, or despatch to France or the United States as prizes. No less than twenty British men-of-war, sailing in couples for safety, scoured the seas for half a year, searching in vain for the saucy Yankee.

Three years of service, under his own eye, had so impressed Commodore Rodgers with his midshipman, that, on the 3d of February, 1813, he wrote to the Department asking that Perry be promoted. This was granted February 27, and, at eighteen, Matthew Perry became an acting lieutenant. “Heroes are made early.”

Four of the Perry brothers served their country in the navy in 1813; two in the Lawrence on Lake Erie, and two on the President at sea. An item of news that concerned them all, and brought them to her bedside, was their mother’s illness. This, fortunately, was not of long duration. At home, Matthew Perry found his commission as lieutenant, dated July 24. Of the forty-four promotions, made on that date, he ranked number fourteen. Requesting a change to another ship, he was ordered to the United States, under Commodore Decatur. Chased into the harbor of New London, by a British squadron, this frigate, with the Wasp and Macedonian, was kept in the Thames until the end of the war. Perry’s five months’ service on board of her was one of galling inaction. Left inactive in the affairs of war, the young lieutenant improved his time in affairs of the heart; and on Christmas eve, 1814, was married to Miss Jane Slidell, then but seventeen years of age. The Reverend, afterwards Bishop, Nathaniel Bowen, united the pair according to the ritual of the Episcopal church, at the house of the bride’s father, a wealthy New York merchant. Perry’s brothers-in-law, John Slidell, Alexander Slidell (MacKenzie), and their neighbor and playmate, Charles Wilkes, as well as himself, were afterwards heard from.

Soon after his marriage, Lieutenant Perry was invited by Commodore Decatur to join him on the President. In this ship, nearly rebuilt, with a crew of over four hundred picked sailors, most of them tall and robust native Americans, the “Bayard of the seas” expected to make a voyage to the East Indies. Unfortunately, seized with a severe fit of sickness, Perry was obliged to leave the ship, and in eager anticipation of speedy departure, Decatur appointed another lieutenant in his place. The bitter pill of disappointment proved, for Perry, good medicine. Owing to the vigor of the blockade, the President did not get away until January 15, 1815, and then only to be captured by superior force. In answer to an application for service, Matthew Perry was ordered to Warren, R. I., to recruit for the brig Chippewa.

Meanwhile, negotiations for ending the war had begun, starting from offers of mediation by Russia. With the allies occupying Paris, and Napoleon exiled to Elba, there was little chance of “peace with honor” for the United States. The war party in England were even inquiring for some Elba in which to banish Madison. “The British government was free to settle accounts with the upstart people whose ships had won more flags from her navy, in two years, than all her European rivals had done in a century.” One of the first moves was to dispatch Packenham, with Wellington’s veterans, to lay siege to New Orleans, with the idea of gaining nine points of the law. From Patterson and Jackson, they received what they least expected.

Before Perry’s work at Warren fairly began, the British ship Favorite, bearing the olive branch, arrived at New York, February 11, 1815. It was too late to save the bloody battle of New Orleans, or the capture of the Cyane and Levant. The treaty of Ghent had been signed December 3, 1813; but neither steam nor electricity were then at hand to forefend ninety days of war.

The navy, from the year 1815, was kept up on a war footing; and, for three years, the sum of two millions of dollars was appropriated to this arm of the service. Commodore Porter, eager to improve and expand our commerce, conceived the project of a voyage of exploration around the world. The plan embraced an extended visit to the islands of the Pacific, the north-west coast of America, Japan and China. The expedition was to consist of several vessels of war. The project of this first American expeditionary voyage fell stillborn, and was left to slumber until Matthew Perry and John Rodgers accomplished more than its purpose.

The seas now being safe to American commerce, our merchants at once took advantage of their opportunity. Mr. Slidell offered his son-in-law, then but twenty years of age, the command of a merchant vessel loaded for Holland. He applied for furlough. As war with Algiers threatened, permission was not granted, and Matthew and James Alexander Perry began service on board the Chippewa. This was the finest of three brigs in the flying squadron, which had been built to ravage British commerce in the Mediterranean. Serving, inactively, on the brig Chippewa, until December 20, 1815, Perry procured furlough, and in command of a merchant vessel, owned by his father, made a voyage to Holland. He was engaged in the commercial marine until 1817, when he re-entered the navy.

The Virginian Horatio, son of the freed slave, who to-day ploughs up the skull of some Yorick, Confederate or Federal, turns to his paternal Hamlet, of frosty pow, to ask: “What was dey fightin’ about?” A similar question asks the British Peterkin and the American lad, of this generation, concerning a phase of our history early in this century.

Besides being “our second war for national independence,” the struggle of 1812 was emphatically for “sailors’ rights.” At the beginning of hostilities there were on record in the State Department, at Washington, 6,527 cases of impressed American seamen. This was, doubtless, but a small part of the whole number, which probably reached 20,000; or enough to man our navy five times over. In 1811, 2,548 impressed American seamen were in British prisons, refusing to serve against their country, as the British Admirality reported to the House of Commons, February 1, 1815. In January, 1811, according to Lord Castlereagh’s speech of February 8, 1813, 3,300 men, claiming to be Americans, were serving in the British navy.^[3] The war settled some questions, but left the main one of the right of search, claimed by Great Britain, still open, and not to be removed from the field of dispute, until Mr. Seward’s diplomacy in the Trent affair compelled its relinquishment forever. Three years struggle with a powerful enemy, had done wonders in developing the resources of the United States and in consolidating the Federal union. The American nation, by this war, wholly severed the leading strings which bound her to the “mother country” and to Europe, and shook off the colonial spirit for all time.

Among the significant appropriations made by Congress during the war, was one for $500 to be spent in collecting, transmitting, preserving, and displaying the flags and standards captured from the enemy.

On the 4th of July, 1818, the flag of the United States of America, which, during the war of 1812, bore fifteen stripes and fifteen stars in its cluster, returned to its old form. The number of stripes, representing the original thirteen states, remained as the standard, not to be added to or subtracted from. In the blue field the stars could increase with the growth of the nation. In the American flag are happily blended the symbols of the old and the new, of history and prophecy, of conservatism and progress, of the stability of the unchanging past with the promise and potency of the future.