330 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS General We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours, with very great respect and esteem. O. H. Perry." The other was to the Secretary of the Navy : " Sir, it has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under mv command, after a sharp conflict. I have the honor to be, sir, very respect- fully, your obedient servant. O. H. Perry." In consonance with this simple eloquence, the mark of a master-mind, was his chivalrous care of his wounded and conduct toward his prisoners. The victory having been gained, and the lake thus cleared of the foe. Perry was enabled to act in concert with General Harrison in driving the British from Michigan, and when his fleet was of no avail to follow them in their rapid flight, he joined that officer's land expedition, and was present, acting as his aid, at the battle of the Thames. "The appearance of the brave commodore," writes Har- rison in his official report, "cheered and animated every heart." Perry also gained the gratitude of the Moravians, in whose district the contest took place, by his care in relieving the inevitable evils of war. He met everywhere on his homeward route with complimentary toasts and resolutions, gathering volume as he reached his native State, where he was received at Newport with militar)' and civic honors. The city of New York paid him a grateful attention in a request communicated by De Witt Clinton, then mayor, to sit for his portrait for the civic gallery. The portrait was painted by Jarvis, representing him in the act of boarding the Niagara, and is preserved in the City Hall. He was created an honorary member of the Cincinnati ; Congress voted him a medal and money ; he was dined and feasted, and " blazed the comet of the season." Perry's next service was in August, 1814, in command of the Java, 44, a frig- ate recently built at Baltimore. He was, however, not able to get to sea, in con- sequence of the blockade by the enemy. On the conclusion of peace he sailed in this vessel to join Commodore Shaw's squadron in the Mediterranean. In 1819 he sailed as commodore in command of the John Adams, for the West Indies, bound for the State of Venezuela, to carry on an armed negotiation for the pro- tection of American commerce from aggressions in that quarter. Arriving at the, mouth of the Orinoco, he shifted his flag to the Nonsuch, and ascended the river to the capital, Angostura, where he remained twenty days transacting his business, in the height of the yellow-fever season. His vessel had hardly left the river, on her way to Trinidad, when he was attacked. For nearly a week he suf- fered the progress of the terrible disease on board the small schooner, under a tropical sun, when he reached the station whither he had sent his flagship, the Adams. But he reached port only to die at sea, within a mile of the anchorage, on August 23, 18 19, when he had just completed his thirty-fourth year. Such and so early was the fate of the gallant Perry. His remains were interred from the John Adams at Port Spain, with every attention by the English gov- ernor. Subsequently they were brought home in a national vessel by order of
