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If either of these conditions applies, please contact a FP administrator before proceeding. This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. Title: Matthew Calbraith Perry: A Typical American Naval Officer. Author: William Elliot Griffis Sep. MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY. CUPPLES AND HURD. The Hyde Park Press. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Among the earliest memories of a childhood spent near the now vanished Philadelphia Navy Yard, are the return home of the marines and sailors from the Mexican war, the launch of the noble steam frigate Susquehanna , the salutes from the storeship Princeton , and the exhibit of the art treasures brought home by the United States Expedition to Japan—all associated with the life of Commodore M.
Years afterwards, on the shores of that bay made historic by his diplomacy, I heard the name of Perry spoken with reverence and enthusiasm. The younger men of Japan, with faces flushed with new ideas of the Meiji era, called him the moral liberator of their nation. Many and eager were the questions asked concerning his career, and especially his personal history. Yet little could be told, for in American literature and popular imagination, the name of the hero of Lake Erie seemed to overshadow the fame of the younger, and, as I think, greater brother.
The dramatic incidents of war impress the popular mind far more profoundly than do the victories of peace. Even American writers confound the two brothers, treating them as the same person, making one the son of the other, or otherwise doing fantastic violence to history. Numerous biographies have been written, and memorials in art, of marble, bronze and canvas, on coin and currency, of Oliver Hazard Perry, have been multiplied. No biography of Matthew Calbraith Perry has, until this writing, appeared.
It was to satisfy an earnest desire of the Japanese to know more of the man, who so profoundly influenced their national history, that this biography was at first undertaken. As the career and character of my subject unfolded, I discovered that Matthew Perry was no creature of routine, but a typical American naval officer whose final triumph crowned a long and brilliant career.
