PERRY, MATTHEW CALBRAITIT, 1795-1858; b. South Kingston, R. I.; son of Chris topher R, and brother of Oliver Hazard ; entered the navy 1809 ; lieut. 1813. In 1819, while cruising in the Cone, he settled the question of the location of the first occupation of Libe ria. In 1821-24, in command of the schooner Shark, he captured several pirates near the West India islands. In 1833 after a 3-years' cruise in the Mediterranean he became the superintendent of a school for gun practice in the Brooklyn navy-yard and superintended the application of steam to war vessels. In 1837 he was made capt., and in 1838 went abroad to visit the doek-yards, and inspect the danger signals on the coasts. In 1839 4 t be was commandant at the Brooklyn navy-yard, afterward of the African squadron and the gulf squadron, and gallantly co-operated with the land forces at the battle of Vera Cruz. In 1852-54 lie went on an expedition to Japan. He was one of the first public men in this country who looked for the peaceful opening of Japan, and long li.dbre he was appointed to commanti the fleet, March, 1852, lie had carefully studied the land, the people, and the problem from every side. He arrived off thrum in the bay
of Yedo July 7, 1853, and after leaving letters for the tycoon, sailed away July17, and returned in Feb., 1854. On March 8 the formal articles of convention between the Unitnd States and Japan were exchanged, at Yokohama, on the spot now occupied by the Union Christian church. Pe•ty's one mistake was in not treating with the true soy ereign, the mikado, from Ozaka, instead of with his lieutenant, flu; tycoon. Commodore Perry was a cultivated scholar, and the Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squad ron to the China Seas and Japan, though nominally edited by Dr. Francis L. Hawks, is in the main an exact reprint of Perry's diary and autograph narrative. He died in New York. A superb bronze statue of commodore 31. O. Perry, with four bas-reliefs in bronze illustrating scenes in his public life, by J. Q. A. Ward, stands in Truro park, Newport, R. I., erected by his son-in-law, August Belmont, of New York.