Matthew Calbraith Perry: A Typical American Naval Officer. William Elliot Griffis
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.
| [3] | Roosevelt’s “Naval History of the War of 1812.” |
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST VOYAGE TO THE DARK CONTINENT.
An act of Congress passed March 3, 1819, favored the schemes of the American Colonization Society. A man-of-war was ordered to convoy the first company of black colonists to Africa, in the ship Elizabeth, to display the American flag on the African coast, and to assist in sweeping the seas of slavers. The vessel chosen was the Cyane, an English-built vessel, named after the nymph who amused Proserpine when carried off by Pluto. One of the pair captured by Captain Stewart of the U. S. S. Constitution, in his memorable moonlight battle of February 20, 1815, the Cyane mounted thirty-four guns, and carried one hundred and eighty-five men. Rebuilt for the American navy, her complement was two hundred sailors and twenty-five marines. Captain Edward Trenchard, who commanded her, was a veteran of the Tripolitan and second British war. From the Mahometan pirates, when a mere lad, he had assisted to capture the great bronze gun that now adorns the interior gateway of the Washington Navy Yard.
Athirst for enterprise and adventure, Perry applied for sea service and appointment on the Cyane. It was not so much the idea of seeing the “Dark Continent,” as of seeing “Guinea” which charmed him. “Africa” then was a less definite conception than to us of this age of Livingstone, Stanley, and the free Congo State. “Guinea” was more local, while yet fascinating. From it had come, and after it was named, England’s largest gold coin, which had given way but a year or two before to the legal “sovereign,” though sentimentally remaining in use. British ships were once very active in the Guinea traffic in human flesh, some of them having been transferred to the German slave-trade to carry the Hessian mercenaries to America. Curiosities from the land of the speckled champions of our poultry yards, were in Perry’s youth as popular as are those from Japan in our day. On the other hand, the dreaded “Guinea worm,” or miniature fiery serpent, and the deadly miasma, made the coast so feared, that the phrase “Go to Guinea,” became a popular malediction. All these lent their fascination to a young officer who loved to overcome difficulties, and “the danger’s self, to lure alone.” He was assigned to the Cyane as first lieutenant. As executive officer he was busy during the whole autumn in getting her ready, and most of the letters from aboard the Cyane, to the Department, are in his handwriting, though signed by the commanding officer.
For the initial experiment in colonization, the ship Elizabeth, of three hundred tons, was selected. Thirty families, numbering eighty-nine persons, were to go as passengers and colonists. A farewell meeting, with religious exercises, was held in New York, and the party was secretly taken on board January 3. This was done to avoid the tremendous crowd that would have gathered to see people willing to “go to Guinea.”
The time of year was not favorable for an auspicious start, for no sooner were the colored people aboard, than the river froze and the vessel was ice-bound. As fast locked as if in Polar seas, the Elizabeth remained till February 6, when she was cut out by contract and floated off. In the heavy weather, convoy and consort lost sight of each other. Cased in ice, the Cyane pulled her anchor-chains three days, then spent from the 10th to the 15th in searching for the Elizabeth, which meanwhile had spread sail and was well on toward the promised land. All this was greatly to the wrath of Captain Trenchard.
The Cape de Verdes came into view March 9, after a squally passage, and on the 27th, anchor was cast in Sierra Leone roads. The Elizabeth having arrived two days before had gone on to Sherbro.
A cordial reception was given the American war vessel by the British naval officers and the governor. Memories of the Revolution were recalled by the Americans. It may be suspected that they cheerfully hung their colors at half-mast on account of the death of George III. His reign of sixty years was over.
To assist the colony, a part of the crew of the Cyane, most of them practical mechanics, with tools and four months provisions, under Lieutenant John S. Townsend, was despatched to Sherbro. Immediate work was found for the Cyane in helping to repress a mutiny on an American merchant vessel. This done, a coasting cruise for slavers followed in which four prizes were made. The floating slave-pens were sent home, and their officers held for trial. Other sails were seen and chased, and life on the new station promised to be tolerable. Except when getting fresh water the ship was almost constantly at sea, and all were well and in good spirits.
Perry enjoyed richly the wonders both of the sea and the land flowing with milk of the cocoa-nut. Branches of coffee-berries were brought on ship, the forerunner of that great crop of Liberian coffee which has since won world-wide fame. The delicious flavor of the camwood blossoms permeated the cabin.
Among the natives on shore each tribe seemed to have a designating mark on the face or breast—cut, burned or dyed—by which the lineage of individuals was easily recognized. The visits of the kings, or chiefs, to the ships, were either for trade or beggary.