The vigor of her mind and force of her character were illustrated in other ways. While personally attractive with womanly graces, gentle and persuasive in her manners, she believed that self-preservation is the first law of nature. Training her sons to kindness and consideration of others, and warning them to avoid quarrels, she yet demanded of them that they should neither provoke nor receive an insult, nor ever act the coward. How well her methods were understood by her neighbors, is shown by an incident which occurred shortly after news of the victory at Lake Erie reached Rhode Island. An old farmer stoutly insisted that it was Mrs. Perry who had “licked the British.” There was much in the social atmosphere and historical associations of Newport at the opening of this century to nourish the ambition and fire the imagination of impressible lads like the Perry boys. Here still lived the French veteran, Count Rochambeau of revolutionary fame. Out in the bay, fringed with fortifications of Indian, Dutch, Colonial and British origin and replete with memories of stirring deeds, lay the hulk of the famous ship in which Captain Cook had observed the transit of Venus and circumnavigated the globe. Here, possibly, the Norsemen had come to dwell centuries before, and fascinating though uncertain tradition pointed to the then naked masonry of the round tower as evidence of it. The African slave-trade was very active at this time, and brought much wealth to Newport and the old manors served by black slaves fresh from heathenism. Among other noted negroes was Phillis Wheatly the famous poetess, then in her renown, who had been brought to Boston in 1781 in a slave-ship. What was afterwards left to Portuguese cut-throats and Soudan Arabs was, until within the memory of old men now living, prosecuted by Yankee merchants and New England deacons whose ship’s cargoes consisted chiefly of rum and manacles. At this iniquity, Matthew Perry was one day to deal a stunning blow. Here, too, had tarried Berkeley, not then a bishop, however, whose prophecy, “Westward the star of empire takes its way” was to be fulfilled by Matthew Perry across new oceans, even to Japan. Once a year the gaily decked packet-boat set out from Newport to Providence to carry the governor from one capital to the other. This was a red-letter day to little Calbraith, in whose memory it remained bright and clear to the day of his death. When he was about ten years old, Mr. Matthew Calbraith now thirty years old and a successful merchant, came from Philadelphia to visit the Perrys. He was delighted with his little namesake, and prophesied that he would make the name of Perry more honorable yet. The affair of the _Leopard_ and _Chesapeake_ in June 1807 thrilled every member of the family. Matthew begged that he might, at once, enter the navy. This, however, was not yet possible to the boy of twelve years, so he remained at school.