CHAPTER XXXV.

MATTHEW PERRY AS A MAN.

THE active life of Matthew Perry spanned the greater part of our national history “before the war.” He lived to see the United States grow from four to thirty-two millions of people, and the stars in her flag from fifteen to thirty-one. He sailed in many seas, visited all the nations of Christendom, saw most of the races of the earth, and all flags except that of the stars and bars. He saw the rise and fall of many types of naval architecture. He was familiar with the problems of armor and ordnance, resistance and penetration, and had studied those questions in the science of war, which are not yet settled. He had made himself conversant with the arts auxiliary to his profession, and was one of the foremost naval men of his generation. His personal importance was far beyond his rank. He died fully abreast of his age, and looked far beyond it. Had he lived until the opening of “the war,” he would have been fully prepared, by alertness of mind, for the needs of the hour, and would doubtless have held high rank. He was called to rest from his labors before feeling the benumbing effects of old age. As it was, his influence was clearly traceable in the navy, and younger officers carried out his ideas into practice, when opportunity came. Had the United States, at the opening of the rebellion possessed a respectable modern navy, such as Perry labored for, the great southern ports could have been at once sealed; and that foreign aid, without which the Confederacy could not have lived six months, would have been made null. Indeed, with a first-class navy, the slave-holder’s conspiracy could never have been hatched. As it was, the navy kept off foreign intervention.

Despite the long and brilliant succession of services rendered his country, Matthew Perry never received either rank or reward beyond those of an ordinary captain.

The rank of admiral was provided for in the Act of Congress of November 15th, 1776, and the title of admiral was conceded to Paul Jones in the correspondence of the State Department. Yet although the original law, creating the American navy, allowed the rank of captains in three grades of commodore, vice-admiral and admiral, there was no legal title higher than captain in the United States navy until 1862; until Farragut hoisted his flag at the main peak of the _Hartford_ August 13th, 1862, as senior rear-admiral; becoming, July 25th, 1866, admiral. In compliment to his services Charles Stewart was commissioned senior flag-officer, and at the time of Perry’s death, Stewart was senior to himself. Yet if the title of admiral, prior to Farragut, belongs to any American officer by virtue of largeness of fleets commanded, by responsibility of position, or by results achieved, surely we may speak as the Japanese did of “Admiral Perry.”

With most of his subordinate officers, Perry’s relations were of the pleasantest nature compatible with his own high sense of duty and discipline. If he erred, it was usually in the right direction. Professor Henry Coppée, who was a young officer in the Mexican war, writes, from memory, in 1882:—

“He (Perry) was a blunt, yet dignified man, heavy and not graceful, something of a martinet; a duty man all over, held somewhat in awe by the junior officers, and having little to do with them; seriously courteous to others. The ship seemed to have a sense of importance because he was on board.”

The same gentleman relates that once, upon going on board the flag-ship, the midshipmen, with the intent of playing a practical joke, told him to go to Commodore Perry and talk with him. They expected to see the landsman gruffly repelled. The tables were turned, when the would-be jokers saw “the old man” kindly welcome the young officer and engage in genial conversation with him. “I remember,” adds Dr. Coppée, “years afterwards when I heard of what he accomplished in Japan, saying to myself, ‘Well, he is just the man of whom I should have expected it all.’”

He had both the qualities necessary for war and for peaceful victory. Though his conquests in war and in peace, in science and in diplomacy, were great, the victory over himself was first, greatest and most lasting. He always kept his word and spoke the truth.

“The Commodore was not a genial man socially. His strong characteristics were self-reliance, earnestness of purpose and untiring industry, which gave such impetus to his schemes as to attract and carry with them the support of others long after they had passed out of his own hands. It was the magnetic power of these qualities in the character of the man that enlisted the services of others in behalf of his purposes, and not any special amenities of manner or sympathies of temperament, that drew them lovingly toward him. And yet, under this austere exterior, which seemed intent only upon the performance of cold duty, as duty, he had a kind and gentle nature that in domestic life was an ornament to him. Never afraid of responsibility in matters of official duty, he was ever on the alert to seek employment when others hesitated. He was bluff, positive and stern on duty, and a terror to the ignorant and lazy, but the faithful ones who performed their duties with intelligence and zeal held him in the highest estimation, for they knew his kindness and consideration of them.”[44]

He was not inclined to allow nonsense and cruel practical jokes among the midshipmen, and could easily see when a verdant newcomer was being imposed upon, or an old officer’s personal feelings hurt by thoughtless youth. The father of a certain captain in the Mexican war, whose record was highly honorable, was reputed to have handled the razor for a livelihood. The young officers knowing or hearing of this, delighted occasionally to slip fragments of combs, old razors, etc., under his cabin door. Perry, angry at this, treated him with marked consideration.

He was far from being entirely deficient in humor, and often enjoyed fun at the right time. At home, amid his children and friends, he enjoyed making his children laugh. Being a fair player on the flute, he was an adept in those lively tunes which kept the children in gleeful mood. Even on the quarter-deck and in the cabin, he was merry enough _after_ his object had been attained. The usual tenor of his life was that of expectancy and alertness to attain a purpose. Hence, the tense set of his mind only occasionally relaxed to allow mirth. Captain Odell says, “He was not a very jolly or joking man, but pleasant and agreeable in his manners, and respected by all who had intercourse with him.” The moral element of character, which is usually associated with habitual seriousness in men who aspire to be founders, educators or leaders, was very marked in Matthew Perry.

The impressions of a young person or subordinate officer, will, of course, differ from those formed in later life, and from other points of view. We give a few of both kinds:—

“His many excellent qualities of heart and head were encased in a rough exterior. ‘I remember,’ says a daughter of Captain Adams, ‘when I was a little girl at Sharon Springs, being impressed by a singular directness of purpose in the man. I used to like to watch him go into the crowded drawing-room. He would stand at the door, survey the tangled scene, find his objective point, and march straight to it over and through the confusion of ladies, children and furniture, never stopping till he reached there. He was a man of great personal bravery, as were all the Perrys, of undoubted courage and gallantry, bluff in his manners, but most hearty and warm in feelings, and with that genuine kindness which impresses at the moment and leaves its mark on the memory. Children instinctively liked the big and bluff hero. As a friend he was most true and constant, and his friendship was always to be relied on.’”

“Such was the vein and character of the man, that the impression he made on my mind and affections was such as to make me desirous of following him to the cannon’s mouth, or wherever the fortunes of peace or war should appoint our steps.”[45]

“He was an intense navy man, always had the honor of the navy at heart, and lost no opportunity to impress this feeling upon the officers of his command.”[46]

“I have no unfavorable recollections of Commodore Perry. On the contrary, I think he was one of the greatest of our naval commanders. He had brains, courage, industry and rare powers of judging character, and I believe he would not have spared his own son had he been a delinquent. He seemed to have no favorites but those who did their duty.”[47]

“I consider that Commodore Matthew C. Perry was one of the finest officers we ever had in our navy—far superior to his brother Oliver. He had not much ideality about him, but he had a solid matter-of-fact way of doing things which pleased me mightily. He was one of the last links connecting the old navy with the new.”[48]

He seemed never idle for one moment of his life. When abroad, off duty he was remembering those at home. He brought back birds, monkeys, pets and curiosities for the children. He collected shells in great quantities, and was especially careful to get rare and characteristic specimens. With these, on his return home, he would enrich the museums at Newport, Brooklyn, New York and other places.

As he never knew when to stop work, there were, of course, some under his command who did not like him or his ways.

In the matter of _pecuniary responsibility_, Perry was excessively sensitive, with a hatred of debt bordering on the morbid. This feeling was partly because of his high ideal of what a naval officer ought to be, and partly because he feared to do injustice to the humblest creditor. He believed a naval officer, as a servant of the United States Government, ought to be as chivalrous, as honest, as just and lovely in character to a bootblack or a washerwoman as to a jewelled lady or a titled nobleman. His manly independence began when a boy, and never degenerated as he approached old age, despite the annoyances from the law-suits brought upon him by his devotion to duty regardless of personal consequences. He refused to accept the suggestion of assistance from any individual, believing it was the Government’s business to shield him.

In reply to an allusion, by a friend, when harassed by the lawsuit, to the pecuniary assistance he might expect from a relative by marriage, he replied, “I would dig a hole in the earth and bury myself in it, before I would seek such assistance.”

He had a great horror of debt, of officers contracting debts without considering their inability to pay them. He often lectured and warned young officers about this important matter.

Under date of Nov. 16th, 1841, we find a long letter from him to Captain Gregory of the _North Carolina_ concerning midshipmen’s debts. He blames not so much “the boys” as Mr. D. (the purser), who indulged them, for “a practice utterly at variance with official rectitude and propriety, and alike ruinous to the prospects of the young officer.” He insists that the middies must be kept to their duties and studies, and their propensity to visit shore and engage in unsuitable expenses be restrained.

In ordinary social life, and in council, Perry appeared at some disadvantage. He often hesitated for the proper word, and could not express himself with more than the average readiness of men who are not trained conversers or public speakers. With the pen, however, he wrought his purpose with ease and power. His voluminous correspondence in the navy archives and in the cabinets of friends, show Matthew Perry a master of English style. A faulty sentence, a slip in grammar, a misspelling, is exceedingly rare in his manuscript. From boyhood he studied Addison and other masters of English prose. In his younger days especially, he exercised himself in reproducing with the pen what he had read in print. He thus early gained a perspicuous, flowing style, to which every page of his book on the Japan Expedition bears witness. Like Cæsar, he wrote his commentaries in the third person. Perry himself is the author of that classic in American exploration and diplomacy. Others furnished preface, introduction, index, and notes, but Matthew Perry wrote the narrative.[49]

He rarely wrote his name in full, his autograph in early life being Matthew C. Perry; and later, almost invariably, M. C. Perry. In this he affected the style neither of the fathers of the navy nor of the republic, who abbreviated the first name and added a colon.

It was the belief of Matthew Perry that the Bible contained the will of God to man, and furnished a manual of human duty. It was his fixed habit to peruse this word of God daily. On every long cruise he began the reading of the whole Bible in course.

Rear-Admiral Almy says: One pleasant Sunday afternoon in the month of April, 1845, and on the way home by way of the West Indies, I was officer of the deck of the frigate _Macedonian_, sailing along quietly in a smooth sea in the tropics, nearing the land and a port. The Commodore came upon deck, and towards me where I was standing, and remarked: “I have just finished the Bible. I have read it through from Genesis to Revelation. I make it a point to read it through every cruise. It is certainly a remarkable book, a most wonderful book.” As he uttered these words, the look-out aloft cried “Land O!” which diverted his attention, perhaps, or he would have continued with further remarks.

“Perry,” writes another rear-admiral, “was a man of most exemplary habits, though not perhaps a communicant of any church, and upright, and full of pride of country and profession, with no patience or consideration for officers who felt otherwise.”

Keenly enjoying the elements of worship in divine service, he was also a student of the Book of Common Prayer. His own private copy of this manual of devotion was well marked, showing his personal appreciation of its literary and spiritual merits. Often, in the absence of a chaplain, he read service himself. Of the burial service, he says it is “the English language in its noblest form.”

He enjoyed good preaching, but never liked the sermon to be too long. “The unskilled speaker,” says the Japanese proverb, “is long-winded.” The parson was encouraged not to tire his hearers, or to cultivate the gift of continuance to the wearing of the auditor’s flesh. In flagrant cases, the Commodore usually made it a point to clear his usually healthy throat so audibly that the hint was taken by the chaplain. In his endeavor to be fair to both speaker and hearers, Perry had little patience with either Jack Tar or Shoulder Straps who shirked the duty of punctuality, or shocked propriety by making exit precede benediction. When leave was taken, during sermon, with noise or confusion, the unlucky wight usually heard of it afterwards. While at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Perry had the old chapel refurnished, secured a volunteer choir, and a piano, and so gave his personal encouragement, that the room was on most occasions taxed beyond its capacity with willing worshippers. When in 1842, the ships fitted out at the yard were supplied with bibles at the cost of the government, Perry wrote of his gratification: “The mere cost of these books, fifty cents each, is nothing to the moral effect which such an order will have in advancing the character of the service.”

Perry manifested a reverence for the Lord’s Day which was sincere and profound. He habitually kept Sunday as a day of rest and worship, for himself and his men. Only under the dire pressure of necessity, would he allow labor or battle to take place on that day. In the presence of Africans, Mexicans and Japanese, of equals, or of races reckoned inferior to our own, Perry was never ashamed or afraid to exemplify his creed in this matter, or to deviate from the settled customs of his New England ancestry. Japan to-day now owns and honors the day kept sacred by the American commodore and squadron on their entrance in Yedo Bay.

With chaplains, the clerical members of the naval households, Perry’s relations were those of sympathy, cordiality and appreciation. About the opening of the century, chaplains were ranked as officers, and divine service was made part of the routine of ship life on Sundays. The average moral and intellectual grade of the men who drew pay, and were rated as “chaplains” in the United States Navy, was not very high until 1825, when a new epoch began under the Honorable Samuel L. Southard. This worthy Secretary of the Navy established the rule that none but accredited ministers of the gospel, in cordial relations with some ecclesiastical body, should be appointed naval chaplains. From this time onward, with rare exceptions, those holding sacred office on board American men-of-war have adorned and dignified their calling. Until the time of Perry’s death, there had been about eighty chaplains commissioned. With such men as Charles E. Stewart, Walter Colton, George Jones, Edmund C. Bittenger, Fitch W. Taylor, Orville Dewey, and Mason Noble,—whose literary fruits and fragrant memories still remain—Perry always entertained the highest respect, and often manifested personal regard. For those, however, in whom the clerical predominated over the human, and mercenary greed over unselfish love of duty, or who made pretensions to sacerdotal authority over intellectual freedom, or whose characters fell below their professions, the feelings of the bluff sailor were those of undisguised contempt.

We note the attitude of Perry toward the great enterprise founded on the commission given by Jesus Christ to His apostles to make disciples of all nations. Naval men, as a rule, do not heartily sympathize with Christian missionaries. The causes of this alienation or indifference are not far to seek, nor do they reflect much credit upon the naval profession. Apart from moral considerations, the man of the deck, bred in routine and precedent is not apt to take a wide view on any subject that lies beyond his moral horizon. Nor does his association with the men of his own race at the ports, in club or hong, tend to enlarge his view. Nor, on the other hand, does the naval man always meet the shining types of missionary character. Despite these facts, there are in the navy of the United States many noble spirits, gentlemen of culture and private morals, who are hearty friends of the American missionary. Helpful and sympathetic with all who adorn a noble and unselfish calling, they judge with charity those less brilliant in record or winsome in person. Perry’s attitude was ever that of kindly sympathy with the true missionary. With the very few who degraded their calling, or to those who expected any honor beyond that which their private character commanded, he was cool or even contemptuous. He had met and personally honored many men and women who, in Africa, Greece, the Turkish Empire, and China, make the American name so fragrant abroad. In the ripeness of his experience, he took genuine pleasure in penning these words: “Though a sailor from boyhood, yet I may be permitted to feel some interest in the work of enlightening heathenism, and imparting a knowledge of that revealed truth of God, which I fully believe advances man’s progress here, and gives him his only safe ground of hope for hereafter.[50] To Christianize a strange people, the first important step should be to gain their confidence and respect by means practically honest, and in every way consistent with the precepts of our holy religion.” Of the Japanese people, he wrote: “Despite prejudice, their past history and wrongs, they will in time listen with patience and respectful attention to the teachings of our missionaries,” for they are, as he considered, “in most respects, a refined and rational people.”

How grandly Perry’s prophecy has been fulfilled, all may see in Christian Japan of the year 1887.

[44] Silas Bent, U. S. N.

[45] Rear-Admiral Joshua R. Sands, U. S. N.

[46] Rear-Admiral John Almy, U. S. N.

[47] Engineer John Follansbee.

[48] D. D. Porter, Admiral U. S. Navy.

[49] Rev. Dr. Vinton’s Oration at Perry Statue, Newport, Oct. 2nd, 1868. Letters of Dr. Robert Tomes and John Hone, New York Times, October 1868.

[50] Paper read before the American Geographical Society, March 6th, 1856.