Perry lived only six years longer, dying while still a young man, in the saddest possible manner. In June, 1819, he was given command of a squadron designed to protect American trade in South American waters, and while ascending the Orinoco, contracted the yellow fever, and died a few days later. He was buried at Trinidad, but some years afterwards, a ship-of-war brought him home, and he sleeps at Newport, Rhode Island, near the spot where he was born. So ends the story of that group of naval commanders, who dealt so surprising and terrific a blow at the tradition of English supremacy on the ocean. * * * * * The brother of the victor of Lake Erie, Matthew Calbraith Perry, must also be mentioned here, for his was a unique achievement--the peaceful conquest of a great Eastern empire. Born in 1794, and educated in the best traditions of the navy, he was selected to command the expedition which, in 1853, was ordered to visit Japan, that strange nation of the Orient which, up to that time, had kept her ports closed to foreign commerce. Perry's conduct of this delicate mission was notable in the extreme, and its result was the signing of a treaty between Japan and the United States which has long been regarded as one of the greatest diplomatic triumphs of the age. * * * * * In the spring of 1861, a captain of the United States navy was living at Norfolk, Va., his home, the home of his wife's family, and the home of his closest friends. Excitement ran high, for it was as yet an open question whether or not the great state of Virginia would join her sisters farther south and renounce her allegiance to the Union. It was a time of searching of hearts, and this man of sixty years was brought face to face with the bitterest moment of his life. He must choose between his country and his state; between his flag and the love and respect of his relatives and friends. In the end, the flag won. It was the flag he had taken his boyish oath to honor; on more than one occasion, he had seen the haughtiest colors on the ocean bow with respect before it; he had seen men, writhing in the agony of death, expend their last breath to defend it. It had wrapped itself about his heart, and meant more to him than home or friends or kindred. So the flag won. On the seventeenth day of April, 1861, Virginia seceded from the Union. The day following, our gray-haired captain, expressing the opinion that secession was not the will of the majority of the people, but that the state had been dragooned out of the Union by a coterie of politicians, was told that he could no longer live in Norfolk. "Very well," he answered, "I can live somewhere else."