Though as a student and a man of culture, Perry was familiar with the drift of events in China, and was interested in Japan, yet it was not until the year 1850, that his thoughts were turned seriously to the unopened country in the eastern seas. The receipt of news about the Preble affair crystallized his thoughts into a definitely formed purpose. He began to look at the problem, of winning Japan into the comity of nations, with a practical eye, from a naval and personal view-point.

Highly approving of Commander Glynn’s course, he believed that kindness and firmness, backed by a force in the Bay of Yedo sufficient to impress the authorities would, by tact, patience and care, result in a bloodless victory. He now gathered together literary material bearing on the subject and pondered upon the question how to translate Ali Baba’s watch-word into Japanese. There seemed, however, little likelihood that the government would be willing to send thither an imposing squadron. He did not therefore seek the command of the East India squadron, and the initial proposition to do the work with which his name is connected, came to him and not from him.

Commander James Glynn, on his return, early in 1851, went to Washington earnestly wishing to be sent on a diplomatic mission to Japan with a fresh naval force. To this gallant and able young officer, belongs a considerable share of the credit of working the President and Secretary of State up to the point of action. The expedition, as it came to be organized, however, grew to the proportions of a fleet, and Glynn found himself excluded by his rank, the command of the expedition being very properly claimed by an officer of higher rank in the army. The applicant for the honor of commander of the Japan expedition, then in embryo, was Commodore J. H. Aulick, who had been in the navy since 1809, and was master’s mate of the Enterprise in her combat with the Boxer, in the war of 1812.

Dismissing from his mind, or at least postponing until a more propitious time his eastward possibilities, Perry, March 21, 1851, applied for the command of the Mediterranean squadron to succeed Commodore Morgan if the way was clear. During the summer and autumn, he was several times in Washington, and frequently in consultation with the Naval Committee. He was led to believe his desire would be granted and made personal and domestic arrangements accordingly. Yet the appointment hung fire for reasons that Perry did not then understand.

General Taylor, having been hustled into the Presidency, promptly succumbed to the unaccustomed turmoil of politics. He yielded to an enemy more dire and persistent than Santa Anna,—the office seeker, and found his grave. The urbane Millard Fillmore took his place, with Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. The suggestions of Commander Glynn for the opening of Japan had pleased both the President and Secretary, and pretty soon, one of those multiplying pretexts and opportunities for going near the “Capital of the Tycoon” occurred. It was the picking up at sea of another lot of waifs by Captain Jennings, of the barque Auckland who took them to San Francisco. On the 9th of May, 1857, Commodore Aulick proposed to the Secretary of State a plan for the opening of Japan, and on the same day, Mr. Webster addressed an official note to Hon. William Graham, Secretary of the Navy, in which these words occur:

“Commodore Aulick has suggested to me, and I cheerfully concur in the opinion, that this incident may afford a favorable opportunity for opening commercial relations with the empire of Japan; or, at least, of placing our intercourse with that Island upon a more easy footing.”

The nail already inserted in the wood by Glynn was thus driven further in by Aulick’s proposition and Mr. Webster’s hearty indorsement. The next day a letter to the “Emperor” was prepared and, on the 30th of May, Commodore Aulick received his commission to negotiate and sign a treaty with Japan. He was to be accompanied by “an imposing naval force.” At least, so Mr. Webster’s letter suggested. Unfortunately, for Commodore Aulick, he left before the nail was driven in a sure place. He departed for the East with slight preparation, foresight, or mastery of details, and long before the “imposing” naval force was gathered, or even begun. Even had Aulick remained in command, he would probably never have received any large accession to his force. Had he attempted the work of negotiation with but two or three vessels, he would most probably have failed. The preparation and sailing of the fleet to follow him was delayed. Promises were never kept, and he was recalled. Why was this? Commodore Aulick, on his return, demanded a court martial in order that he himself might know the reasons, but his wishes were not heeded. History has heretofore been silent on the point.

There are some who think that Perry is at fault here; that he grasped at honors prepared for others, reaping where he had not sowed.

The reason for the recall of Commodore Aulick and the appointment of Perry in his place were neither made public at the time, nor have they thus far been understood by the public, or even by acquaintances of Perry who ignorantly misjudge him. A number of persons, some of them naval officers, have even supposed that Perry was responsible for the bad treatment of Commodore Aulick, and that he sacrificed a fellow-officer to gratify his own ambition. The writer was long under the impression that Perry’s own urgency in seeking the position secured for himself the appointment, and that the government favored Perry at the expense of his comrade. With the view of sounding the truth at the bottom of the well, the writer made search in both Aulick’s and Secretary Graham’s official and confidential letters.

The unexpected result was the thorough vindication of Perry from the shadow of suspicion. The facts reveal that harsh treatment may sometimes hastily and needlessly be accorded to a gallant officer, and illustrate the dangers besetting our commanders, when non-naval people with a weakness for tittle-tattle live on board a man-of-war. The arrows of gossip and slander, whether on sea or land, are sufficiently poisonous. They nearly took the life, and ruined the reputation of Commodore Aulick; but of their shooting, Perry was as innocent as an unborn child. The simple facts in the case are that Commodore Aulick was recalled from China long before Perry had any idea of assuming the Japan mission, and that his relations with his old comrade in Mexico were always of the pleasantest nature. We must look from the captains to their superior.

On the 1st of May 1851, Commodore Aulick received orders to proceed in the new steamer frigate Susquehanna to Rio [de] Janeiro, taking out the Brazilian minister Macedo as the guest of the United States. He sailed from Norfolk June 8th, and by way of Madeira, arrived at his destination July 22. The Susquehanna was a steam frigate of noble spaciousness built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1847. Her launch amid a glory of sunshine, bunting, happy faces, and the symbolic breaking of a bottle of water from the river of her own name, the writer remembers as one of the bright events of his childhood. She carried sixteen guns, and was of two thousand four hundred and fifty tons burthen, but though of excellent model her machinery was constantly getting out of order. From Rio [de] Janeiro Aulick proceeded around the Cape of Good Hope on diplomatic business with the Sultan of Zanzibar. This having been finished, Aulick sailed to China and on arriving at Hong Kong, began to organize a squadron and make his personal preparations for a visit to Japan. He secured as his interpreter, D. Bethune McCartee, Esq., M. D. an accomplished American missionary at Ningpo. He also investigated, as per orders, with the aid of the missionaries of the Reformed [Dutch] Church in America at Amoy, Rev. Messrs. Doty and Talmage, (brother of T. De Witt Talmage of Brooklyn) the coolie traffic. The Saratoga was sent after the mutineers of the Robert Bowne, and visited the Riu Kiu islands. While engaged in cruising between Macao and Manilla, though smitten down with disease, the old hero was astounded at receiving a curt order from the Secretary of the Navy dated November 18th, 1851. It directed him to hand over his command to Captain Franklin Buchanan, but not to leave the China seas until his successor should arrive. At the same time, he was informed that grave imputations had been cast upon his conduct. Prompt and full explanation of these was called for. The charges were, that he had violated express orders in taking a person (his son) on board a national vessel as passenger without authority, and that he had given out at Rio [de] Janeiro that the Chevalier de Macedo was being carried at his (Aulick’s) private expense.

Meanwhile, the Anglo-Chinese newspapers got hold of the patent fact, and the ready inference was drawn that Commodore Aulick had been recalled for mis-conduct. This annoyed the old veteran to exasperation. Worn out by forty-four years in his country’s service, with both disgrace and an early but lingering death staring him in the face, with the prospect of being obliged to go home in a merchant vessel and without medical attendance, he dictated (being unable to hold a pen) a letter dated February 7, 1853 protesting against this harsh treatment caused by “ex-parte statements of certain diplomats in Rio [de] Janeiro, whose names, up to this time, have never been officially made known to me.” For months in precarious health, Aulick waited for his unnamed relief, and at last, heard that it was his as yet old friend Perry. By the advice of his physician, Dr. Peter Parker and surgeon S. S. Du Barry, he started homeward at the first favorable opportunity, by the English mail steamer, passing the Mississippi on her way out.

In London, Commodore Aulick called upon and was the guest of Chevalier de Macedo, who learned with surprise of the trouble into which he had fallen with his government. A long letter now in the navy archives, from the Brazilian, thoroughly exonerated Aulick. Arriving in New York June 1st, 1863, and reporting to Secretary Dobbin, Commodore Aulick requested that, if his letter of explanation of February 17, 1853, were not deemed satisfactory, a court of inquiry, or court martial, be ordered for his trial. After careful examination, the secretary wrote, August 2, 1853, clearing Aulick of all blame, accompanying his letter with waiting orders. In the letter of the gratified officer in response dated August 4, 1853, we have the last word in this painful episode in naval history, in which the brave veteran was nearly sacrificed by the stray gossip of a civilian apparently more eager to curry Brazilian favor than to do eternal or even American justice.

One can easily see why, in addition to the rooted instinct of a lifetime, Perry, in the light of Aulick’s misfortune, declined to allow miscellaneous correspondence with the newspapers, and sternly refused to admit on the Japan expedition a single person not under naval discipline.

The chronological order of facts as revealed by the study of the documents is this: On the 17th of November 1851, Secretary Graham dictated the order of recall to Commodore Aulick. On the next day, he wrote the following:—

Unusual press of business and the writing of his report for the impending session of Congress caused the receipt by Perry on his arrival in Washington, of a note, dated November 26, the substance of which was that the Secretary was so busy that he could not consider the business for which Perry was called from home, until after Congress had met. He need not, therefore, wait in Washington but was at liberty to go home and wait instructions. This was the first thorn of the rose on the way to the Thornrose castle, in the Pacific.

Somewhat vexed, as Perry must have been, at being forced on a seeming fool’s errand, he possessed his soul in patience, and, at home expressed his mind on paper as follows:—

The secretary’s clerk wrote January 14, 1852, “Commodore Perry will proceed to Washington and report to the Secretary of the Navy without delay.” The head of the Department added in autograph, “Report in person at the Department.” This time the trip to the Capital was made with something definite in view.

On the 6th of March, he received orders from the Department detaching him from the superintendence of United States Mail Steamers and transferring the command to Commodore Reany. He had, since January 9, 1849, been in active connection with steamship owners, manufacturers and inventors, and been engaged in testing the newest inventions and improvements in steam navigation. The transfer was duly made on the 8th, and on the 23d, we find Perry again in Washington holding long conversation with the Secretary of the Navy, Hon. W. A. Graham, on the outfit and personnel of the proposed Japan expedition. On the 24th, he received formal orders to command the East India squadron.

One of the first officers detailed to assist the Commodore was Lieut. Silas Bent who had been with Glynn on the Preble at Nagasaki. He was ordered to report on board the Mississippi. Perry’s “Fidus Achates,” Captain Henry A. Adams, and his special friends, Captains Franklin Buchanan, Sidney Smith Lee, were invited and gladly accepted. His exceeding care in the selection of the personnel^[24] of the expedition is shown in a letter from the “Moorings” dated February 2, 1852, to Captain Franklin Buchanan. He expected them to embark by the first of April, and sent his ships ahead laden with coal for the war steamers to the Cape of Good Hope, and Mauritius. He congratulates his old friend on a new arrival in his household, “You certainly bid fair to have a great many grandchildren in the course of time. I already have eight.”

“In selecting your officers, pray be careful in choosing them of a subordinate and gentlemanlike character. We shall be obliged to govern in some measure, as McKeever says, by moral suasion. McIntosh, I see by the papers, has changed with Commander Pearson and leaves the Congress, and is now on his way home in the Falmouth. We shall now learn how the philanthropic principle of moral suasion answers.”

The reference is to the state of things consequent upon the abolition of flogging. Perry was to gather and lead to peaceful victory, the first American fleet governed without the lash.

The charts used in the Japan expedition came mostly from Holland, and cost our government thirty thousand dollars. Perry does not seem to have been aware that Captain Mercator Cooper of Sag Harbor, Long Island, had brought home fairly good Japanese charts of the Bay of Yedo, more accurate probably than any which he was able to purchase. Captain Beechey of the B. M. S. Blossom, had surveyed carefully the seas around Riu Kiu. The large coast-line map of Japan, in four sheets, made on modern scientific principles by a wealthy Japanese who had expended his fortune and suffered imprisonment for his work, which was published posthumously, was not then accessible.

Intelligent Japanese have been eager to know, and more than one has asked the writer: “How did Perry get his knowledge of our country and people?” We answer that he made diligent study of books and men. He had asked for permission to purchase all necessary books at a reasonable price. Von Siebold’s colossal work was a mine of information from which European book-makers were beginning to quarry, as they had long done from Engelbert Kaempfer, but the importer’s price of Von Siebold’s Archiv was $503. The interest excited in England by the expedition caused the publication in London of a cheap reprint of Kaempfer.

By setting in motion the machinery of the librarians and book-collectors in New York and London, Perry was able to secure a library on the subject. He speedily and thoroughly mastered their contents.

So far from Japan being a terra incognita in literature, it had been even then more written about than Turkey. Few far Eastern Asiatic nations have reason to be proud of so voluminous and polyglot a European library concerning themselves as the Japanese. On the subject about which information was as defective as it was most needed, was the political situation of modern Japan and the true relation of the “Tycoon” to the Mikado.

Earnestly desirous of impressing the Japanese with American resources and inventions, the Commodore on March 27th, 1851, had notified the Department of his intention to obtain specimens of every sort of mechanical products, arms and machinery, with statistical and other volumes illustrating the advance of the useful arts. In addition to this, he notified manufacturers of his wish to obtain samples of every description. Armed with letters from his friends, the Appletons of New York, he visited Albany, Boston, New Bedford and Providence to obtain what he desired, and to inquire into personal details and statistics of the American whalers engaged in Japanese and Chinese waters. An unexpectedly great interest was arising from all quarters concerning Japan and the expedition thither. All with whom he had interviews were enthusiastic and liberal in aiding him. At New Bedford he learned that American capital to the amount of seventeen millions was invested in the whaling industry in the seas of Japan and China. Thousands of our sailors manned the ships thus employed.

This was before the days of petroleum and the electric light. It explained also why American shipwrecked sailors were so often found in Japan. There were reciprocal additions to the populations on both sides of the Pacific. While the Kuro Shiwo, or Black Current, was sweeping Japanese junks out to sea and lining the west coast of North America with wrecks and waifs, the rocky shores of the Sunrise Kingdom were liberally strewn with castaways, to whom the American flag was the sign of home.

The cause of this remarkable development of American enterprise in distant seas lay in the liberal policy of Russia toward our people. Our first treaty of 1824 declared the navigation and fisheries of the Pacific free to both nations. The second convention of 1838, signed by James Buchanan and Count Nesselrode, guaranteed to citizens of the United States freedom to enter all ports, places and rivers on the Alaskan coast under Russian protection. Already the northern Pacific was virtually an American possession.

There was great eagerness on the part of scientific men and learned societies to be represented in the proposed expedition. Much pressure was brought to bear upon the Commodore to organize a corps of experts in the sciences, or to allow favored individual civilians to enter the fleet. Perry firmly declined all such offers.

He proposed to duplicate none of his predecessor’s blunders, nor to imperil his personal reputation or the success of a costly expedition by the presence of landsmen of any sort on board. He sent his son to China at his own private expense. The expedition was saved the previous tribulations of Aulick, or the later afflictions of De Long in the Jeannette.

As illustrating the variety of subordinate matters to be looked into, he was instructed to inquire concerning the product of sulphur, and about weights and measures. The Norris Brothers of Philadelphia furnished the little locomotive and rails to be laid down in Japan. These, with a thousand other details were carefully studied by the Commodore.

Indeed it may be truly said that Perry’s thorough grasp of details before he left the United States made him already master of the situation. He knew just what to do, and how to do it. The Japanese did not. He appreciated the advantage of having sailor, engineer, diplomatist and captain in one man, and that man himself. Not so with Rodgers in Corea, in 1871.

If Perry, after his appointment as special envoy of the United States to Japan, had trusted entirely to his official superiors, he would probably never have obtained his fleet or won a treaty. Four months after receiving his appointment, the Whig convention met in Baltimore, June the 16th. When it adjourned, on June 22nd, the ticket nominated was “Scott and Graham.” Thenceforth, Secretary Graham took little or no practical interest in Japan or Perry. The Commodore’s first and hardest task was to conquer lethargy at home. One instance of his foresight is seen in his care for a sure supply of coal, without which side-wheel steamers, almost the only ones then in the navy, were worse than useless. He directed Messrs. Howland and Aspinwall to send out two coal ships, one to the Cape of Good Hope and the other to Mauritius. These floating depots were afterwards of the greatest service to the advance and following steamers, Mississippi, Powhatan and Alleghany.

A lively episode in international politics occurred in July, 1852, which Perry was called upon to settle. New England was convulsed over the seizure of American fishing vessels by British cruisers. Congress being still in session, the opposition were not slow to denounce the Administration.

Mr. Fillmore invited Mr. John P. Kennedy of “Swallow Barn” literary fame to succeed Mr. Graham as Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Kennedy took his seat in the cabinet July 24th. The excitement over the fishery question was then at fever heat. Mutterings of war were already heard in the newspapers. Employment for the Mexican veterans seemed promising.

The cabinet decided that the new secretary should give the law, and that Perry should execute it. Mr. Kennedy, who wisely saw Perry first, proceeded to draft the letter. On the night of July 28th his studies resulted in a brilliant state paper, which occupies seven folio pages in the Book of Confidential Letters, and he then retired to rest. Naturally his maiden effort in diplomacy tried his nerves. His broken sleep was disturbed with dreams of codfish and the shades of Lord Aberdeen till morning.

Once more summoning to his aid his old sea-racer the Mississippi, Captain McCluney, Perry left New York July 31st, 1852, stopping at Eastport, Maine, to get fresh information. There was much irritation felt by British residents at the alleged depredations of American fishermen, who, instead of buying their ice, bait, fuel and other supplies, were sometimes tempted to make raids on the shores of the islands. One excited person wrote to the admiral of the fleet:

“For God’s sake send a man-of-war here, for the Americans are masters of the place—one hundred sail are now lying in the harbor. They have stolen my fire-wood and burnt it on the beach.” They had also set fire to the woods and committed other spoliations. Collisions with the British cruisers were imminent, and acts easily leading to war were feared by the cabinet.

Perry proceeded to Halifax. He traversed the coast of Cape Breton Island, around Magdalen, and along the north shore of Prince Edward’s Island, visiting the resorts of the Yankee fishermen, and passing large fleets of our vessels. He found by experience, and was satisfied, that there had been repeated infractions of treaty, for which seven seizures had been made by British cruisers then in command of Admiral Seymour. The question, at this issue, concerning the rights of Americans fishing in Canadian waters, was one of geographical science rather than of diplomacy. It rested upon the answer given to this, “What are bays?” The last convention between the two countries had been made in 1818, when the United States renounced her right to fish within three miles of any of the coasts, bays and harbors of Canada. Only after a number of American vessels had been seized and prosecuted in the court at Halifax, was this treaty made. Including those captured for violating the convention of 1818, the number was sixty in all. The British said to Perry that the Americans had no right to take fish within three marine miles of the shore of a British province, or within three miles of a line drawn from headland to headland across bays. Canadians in American bottoms were especially expert in evading this law.

Perry found the American fishermen were intelligent and understood the treaty, but he thought that the Canadian government was too severe upon them. About 2500 vessels and 27,500 men from our ports took part in the hazardous occupation, “thus furnishing,” said the Commodore, “a nursery for seamen, of inestimable advantage to the maritime interests of the nation.” Added to the force employed in whaling in the North Atlantic, there were thirty thousand men, mostly native Americans, whose business was with salt-water fish and mammals. At one point he saw a fleet of five hundred sail of mackerel fishers.

This diplomatic voyage revealed both the dangers and pathos of the sailor-fisherman’s life. No class of men engaged in any industry are subjected to such sufferings, privations and perils. Their own name for the fishing grounds is “The Graveyard.”

The commercial and naval success of this country is largely the result of the enterprise and seamanship shown in the whaling fisheries. These nurseries of the American navy had enabled the United States in two wars to achieve on the seas so many triumphs over Great Britain. By the same agencies, Perry hoped to see his country become the greatest commercial rival of Great Britain. This could be done by looking to the quality of the common sailor, and maintaining the standard of 1812. For such reasons, if for no others, the fisheries should be encouraged.

Perry came to adjust amicably the respective rights of both British and American seamen. He warned his countrymen against encroaching upon the limits prescribed by the convention of 1818, but at the same time he would protect American vessels from visitation or interference at points left in doubt. His mission had a happy consummation. The wholesome effect of the Mississippi’s visit paved the way for the reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States, negotiated at Washington soon after by Sir Ambrose Shea, and signed June 5th, 1854. The entrance of Mr. Kennedy in the cabinet was thus made both successful and brilliant by Commodore Perry. The “hiatus secretary” bridged the gulf of war with the firm arch of peace. The reciprocity treaty lasted twelve years, when the irrepressible root of bitterness again sprouted. Despite diplomacy, correspondence, treaties, and Joint High Commissions, still, at this writing, in 1887, it vexes the peace of two nations. The axe is not yet laid at the root of the trouble.

John P. Kennedy, another of the able literary men who have filled the chair of secretary of the navy, was an ardent advocate of exploration and peaceful diplomacy. He was heartily in favor of the Japan expedition. Perry trusted in him so fully that, at last, tired of innumerable delays, having made profound study of the problem and elaborated details of preparation, he determined on his return from Newfoundland, September 15th, to sail in a few weeks in the Mississippi, relying upon the Secretary’s word that other vessels would be hurried forward with despatch.

Repairing to Washington, the Commodore had long and earnest interviews with the Secretaries of the State and Navy. Things were now beginning to assume an air of readiness, yet his instructions, from the State department, had not yet been prepared. Mr. Webster at this time was only nominally holding office in the vain hope of recovery to health after a fall from his horse. Perry, seeing his condition, and fearing further delays, asked of Mr. Webster, through General James Watson Webb, permission to write his own instructions.

We must tell the story in General Webb’s own words as found in The New York Courier and Inquirer, and as we heard them reiterated by him in a personal interview shortly before his death:—

“In the last of those interviews when we were desired by Perry to urge certain matters which he thought should be embraced in his instructions, Mr. Webster, with that wisdom and foresight and knowledge, for which he was so eminently the superior of ordinary men, remarked as follows:

‘The success of this expedition depends solely upon whether it is in the hands of the right man. It originated with him, and he of all others knows best how it is to be successfully carried into effect. And if this be so, he is the proper person to draft his instructions. Let him go to work, therefore, and prepare instructions for himself, let them be very brief, and if they do not contain some very exceptionable matter, he may rest assured they will not be changed. It is so important that if the expedition sail it should be successful, and to ensure success its commander should not be trammeled with superfluous or minute instructions.’ We reported accordingly, and thereupon Commodore Perry, as we can vouch, for we were present, prepared the original draft of his instructions under which he sailed for Japan.”

Mr. Webster’s successor and intimate personal friend, Edward Everett, simply carried out the wishes of his predecessor and made no alteration in the instructions to Perry. He, however, indited a new letter to the “Emperor,” which is only an expansion of the Websterian original. Everett’s “effort” differed from Daniel Webster’s letter, very much as the orator’s elaboration on a certain battle-field differed from Lincoln’s simple speech. At Gettysburg the one had the lamp, the other had immortality in it.

The Japan document was superbly engrossed and enclosed in a gold box which cost one thousand dollars.

The Princeton, a new screw sloop-of-war had been promised to him many months before, but the autumn was well advanced before her hull, empty of machinery and towed to New York, was visible. Captain Sydney Smith Lee was to command her. In the Mississippi, Perry towed her to Baltimore. Then began another of those exasperating stages of suspense and delay to which naval men are called, and to endure which seems to be the special cross of the profession. Waiting until November, as eagerly as a blockader waits for an expected prize from port, he wrote to his old comrade, Joshua R. Sands:—

Commander Sands was eventually unable to go with Perry to Japan; but afterwards, in his eighty-ninth year the Rear-Admiral, then the oldest living officer of the navy, in a long letter to the writer gleefully calls attention to Perry’s trust in young American landsmen. The Princeton was finally extricated, and with the Mississippi moved down the Chesapeake. Before leaving Annapolis, a grand farewell reception was held on the flag-ship’s spacious deck. The President, Mr. Fillmore, Secretary Kennedy, and a brilliant throng of people bade the Commodore and officers farewell.

The Mississippi and the Princeton then steamed down the bay together, when the discovery was made of the entire unfitness of the screw steamer to make the voyage. Her machinery failed utterly, and at Norfolk, the Powhatan, which had just arrived from the West Indies, was substituted in her place. The precedent of building only the best steamers, on the best models, and of the best materials, set by Perry in the Mississippi and Missouri, had not been followed, and disappointment was the result. The Princeton never did get to sea. She was a miserable failure in every respect, and was finally sent to Philadelphia to end her days as a receiving-ship.

On the evening before the day the Commodore left to go on board his ship then lying at Hampton Roads, a banquet was tendered him by a club of gentlemen who then occupied a house on G street, west of the War Department, now much modernized and used as the office of the Signal corps.

There were present at this banquet, as invited guests, Commodore M. C. Perry, Lieutenant John Contee, and a few other officers of the Commodore’s staff, Edward Everett, Hon. John P. Kennedy—“Horseshoe Robinson,” the “hiatus Secretary” of the navy—Col. W. W. Seaton, the Hon. Alexander H. H. Stuart, Mr. Badger, senator from North Carolina, John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Jefferson Davis, the Honorables Beverly Tucker, Phillip T. Ellicot, Theodore Kane, Johnson, Addison, and Horace Capron afterwards general of cavalry, and Commissioner of Agriculture at Washington, and in the service of the Mikado’s government from 1871 to 1874, making in all a party of about twenty-four. The dinner was served by Wormley, the famous colored caterer.

General Capron says in a letter dated September 13th, 1883:

Perry’s written instructions were to fulfil the unexecuted orders given to Commodore Aulick, to assist as far as possible the American minister in China in prosecuting the claims of Americans upon the government of Pekin, to explore the coasts, make pictures and obtain all possible hydrographic and other information concerning the countries to be visited. No letters were to be written from the ships of the squadron to the newspapers, and all journals kept by officers or men were to be the property of the navy Department. The Secretary, in his final letter, said:—

From its origin, the nature of the mission was “essentially executive,” and therefore pacific, as the President had no power to declare war. Yet the show of force was relied on as more likely, than anything else, to weigh with the Japanese. Perry believed in the policy of Commodore Patterson at Naples in 1832, where the pockets of recalcitrant debtors were influenced through sight and the imagination.

The British felt a keen and jealous interest in the expedition. The Times, which usually reflects the average Briton’s opinion as faithfully as a burnished mirror the charms of a Japanese damsel, said:—“It was to be doubted whether the Emperor of Japan would receive Commodore Perry with most indignation or most contempt.” Japanese treachery was feared, and while one editorial oracle most seriously declared that “the Americans must not leave their wooden walls,” Punch insisted that “Perry must open the Japanese ports, even if he has to open his own.” Sydney Smith had said, “I am for bombarding all the exclusive Asiatics, who shut up the earth and will not let me walk civilly through it, doing no harm and paying for all I want.” The ideal of a wooer of the Japanese Thornrose, according to another, was that no blustering bully or roaring Commodore would succeed. “Our embassador should be one who, with the winning manner of a Jesuit, unites the simplicity of soul and straightforwardness of a Stoic.”

Providence timed the sailing of the American Expedition and the advent of the ruler of New Japan so that they should occur well nigh simultaneously. The first circumnavigation of the globe by a steam war vessel of the United States began when Matthew Perry left Norfolk, November 24th, 1852 three weeks after the birth in Kiōto of Mutsŭhito, the 123d, and now reigning Mikado of “Everlasting Great Japan.”

Perry had remained long enough to learn the result of the national election, and the choice of his old friend Franklin Pierce to the Presidency. Tired of delay, he sailed with the Mississippi alone. At Funchal the Commodore made official calls in the fashionable conveyance of the place, a sled drawn by oxen, and laid in supplies of beef and coal. The incidents on the way out, and of the stops made at Madeira, St. Helena, Cape Town, Mauritius, Ceylon and Singapore, have been described by himself, in his official narrative, and by his critic J. W. Spalding,^[25] a clerk on the flag-ship. Anchor was cast off Hong Kong on the 6th of April, where the Plymouth, Saratoga, and Supply, were met. The next day was devoted to the burning of powder in salutes, and to the exchange of courtesies. Shanghai was reached May 4th. Here, Bayard Taylor, the “landscape painter in words,” joined the expedition as master’s mate. The Commodore’s flag was transferred to the Susquehanna on the 17th.