kept their hands off from other people’s property and regarded the relation of mine and thine; but when hard pressed by the Turks, patriotism degenerated into communism. They were apt to forage among our richly-laden vessels. Greek defeat meant piracy, and at this time the cause of the patriots, though a noble one, was desperate indeed. Five years of fighting had passed, yet recognition by European nations was withheld. The first fruits of the necessity, which knows no law, was plunder.
On the 29th of May, an American merchantman from Boston was robbed by a Greek privateer, and this act became a precedent for similar outrages.
While at Patras, the chief commercial town of Greece, Perry had the scripture prophecy of “seven women taking hold of one man” fulfilled before his eyes. The Biblical number of Turkish widows, whose husbands had been killed at Corinth, were brought on board the North Carolina and exposed for sale by Greeks, who were anxious to make a bargain. The officers paid their ransom, and giving them liberty sent them to Smyrna under charge of Perry.
While there, an event occurred which had a disastrous physical influence upon Matthew Perry all his life, and which remotely caused his death. A great fire broke out on shore which threatened to wrap the whole city in conflagration. The efficient executive of the flag-ship, ordered a large detail to land in the boats and act as firemen. The men, eager for excitement on land, worked with alacrity; but among the most zealous and hard working of all was their lieutenant. In danger and exposure, alternately heated and drenched, Perry was almost exhausted when he regained the ship. The result was an attack of rheumatism, from the recurring assaults of which he was never afterwards entirely free. Hitherto this species of internal torture had been to him an abstraction; henceforth, it was personal and concrete. Shut up like a fire in his bones, its occasional eruptions were the cause of that seeming irritableness which was foreign to his nature.
Among other visitors at Smyrna, were some Turkish ladies, who, veiled and guarded by eunuchs, came on board “ships of the new world.” No such privilege had ever been accorded them before, and these exiles of the harem, looked with eager curiosity at every-thing and everybody on the ship, though they spoke not a word. Nothing of themselves was visible except their eyes, and these—to the old commodore—“not very distinctly,” though possibly to the young officers they shone as brightly as meteors. This visit of our squadron had a stimulating effect on American commerce, though our men-of-war convoyed vessels of various Christian nations.
The Greek pirates extending the field of their operations, had now begun their depredations in open boats. Dissensions among the patriots were already doing as much harm to the sinking cause as Turkish arms.
Captain Nicholson of our navy, visiting Athens and Corinth, found the Acropolis in the hands of a faction, and the country poor and uncultivated. Corinth was but a mere name. Its streets were overgrown, its houses were roofless and empty, and the skeletons of its brave defenders lay white and unburied. The Greek fleet of one-hundred sail was unable to do much against the Turkish vessels, numbering fifteen more and usually heavier. The best successes of the patriots were by the use of fire-ships.
In spite of the low state of the Hellenic cause, Americans manifested strict neutrality, and the Greek authorities in the ports entered were duly saluted, an example which the French admiral and Austrian commodore followed.
The fleet cruised westwardly, arriving at Gibraltar, October 12, where Perry found awaiting him his appointment to the grade of acting Master Commandant.
The opening of the year 1827, found the cause of the Greeks sunk to the lowest ebb of hopelessness. Even the crews of the men-of-war, unable to get wage or food, put to sea for plunder. Friend and foe, American, as well as Turk, suffered alike.
While war and misery reigned in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, commerce with the north African nations was rapidly obliterating the memories of piracy and reprisal, which had once made Berber scimeter and Yankee cutlass cross. Peace and friendship were assiduously cultivated, and our officers were received with marked kindness and attention.
Our three little wars with the Moslems of the Mediterranean, from 1794 to 1797, from 1801 to 1804, and in 1815, seem at this day incredible and dream-like. In view of the Bey of Tunis, on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln sending a special envoy to express sympathy, and presenting his portrait to the State Department, and at the Centennial Exposition joining with us; and of Algeria being now the play ground of travelers, one must acknowledge that a mighty change has passed over the spirit of the Berbers since this century opened.
Sickness broke out on the big ship North Carolina, and at one time four lieutenants and one-hundred and twenty-five men were down with small-pox and catarrh. The wretchedness of the weather at first allowed little abatement of the trouble, but under acting Master Commandant Perry’s vigorous and persistent hygienic measures, including abundant fumigation, the scourge was checked. His methods were very obnoxious to some of the officers and crew, but were indispensable to secure a clean bill of health. The commodore wrote from Malta, February 14th, 1827, that the condition of the ship’s people had greatly improved.
The balmy spring breezes brought recuperation. The ship, clean and in splendid condition, was ready to sail homewards. The boatswain’s call, so welcome and always heard with a thrill of delight—“All hands up anchor for home,”—was sounded on the 31st of May. The North Carolina, leaving behind her classic waters, moved towards “the free hearts’ hope and home.”
The old weather-beaten hulk that now lies in the Wallabout is the same old North Carolina. What a change from glory to dry rot! It came to pass that the American line-of-battle ships, while the most showy, were also the most unsatisfactory class of ships in our navy. They all ended their days as store ships or as firewood. “The naval mind of the United States could not work well in old world harness.”
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