The expression of thanks to the navy for its services was only to an extent that may be called niggardly. Perry had sometimes to apply the art of exegesis to find the desired passage containing praise. After the brilliant Tuspan affair, he discovered a fragment of a paragraph, in a dispatch alluding to other matters, which was evidently intended to mean thanks. Instead of reading it on the quarter-deck, he mentioned it informally to his officers, lest the men should be discouraged by such faint praise. In response to the compliments of the city authorities of New York and Washington, Perry made due acknowledgment. The truth seems to be that Matthew Perry was not personally in favor with the authorities at Washington. He had won his position and honors by sheer merit, and had compelled praise which else had been withheld. In this matter, he was not alone, for even Scott gained his brilliant victories without the personal sympathies or good wishes of the Administration. It was as much as the Commodore of the great fleet could do to get sufficient clerical aid to assist him in his vast correspondence and other pen-work, so great was the fear at Washington, that the public funds would be squandered. Perry persistently demanded more light draft steamers drawing not over seven and a half feet and armed with but one heavy gun, for river work. Mexico is a country without one navigable river, and only the most buoyant vessels could cross the bars. He pled his needs so earnestly that the Secretary of the Navy, John T. Mason, took him to task. It is probable that the very brilliancy of the victories of both our army and navy in Mexico, blinded, not only the general public, but the administration to the arduous nature of the service, and to the greatness of the difficulties overcome. The campaign of the army was spoken of as a “picnic,” and that of the navy as a “yachting excursion.” Certain it is that the administration seemed more anxious to make political capital out of the war, than either to appreciate the labors of its servants or the injustice done to the Mexicans.