Matthew Perry was born when our flag bearing the stars and stripes was so new on the seas as to be regarded with curiosity. It had then but fifteen stars in its cluster. Civilized states disregarded its neutrality, and uncivilized people insulted it with impunity. The Tripolitan war first compelled barbarians to respect the emblem. France, one of the most powerful and unscrupulous of belligerents, had not yet learned to honor its right of neutrality. Great Britain, to the insults of spoliation, added the robbery of impressment. Matthew Perry entered the United States navy with a burning desire to make this flag respected in every sea. He lived to command the largest fleet which, in his lifetime ever gathered under its folds, and to bear it to the uttermost parts of the earth in the first steam frigate of the United States which ever circumnavigated the globe. CHAPTER III. A MIDSHIPMAN’S TRAINING UNDER COMMODORE RODGERS. THE schooner _Revenge_, commanded by his brother Oliver, to which Matthew Perry was ordered for his first cruise, had been purchased in 1807. She mounted twelve guns, had a crew of ninety men, and was attached to the squadron under Commodore John Rodgers, which numbered four frigates, five sloops, and some smaller vessels. His duty was to guard our coasts from the Chesapeake to Passamaquoddy Bay, to prevent impressment of American sailors by British cruisers. The _Revenge_ was to cruise between Montauk Point and Nantucket Shoals. Boy as he was, Matthew Perry seems not to have relished the idea of serving in a coasting schooner. Having an opportunity to make a voyage to the East Indies, the idea of visiting Asia fascinated his imagination. It seemed to offer a fine field for obtaining nautical knowledge. Bombay was at this time the seat of British naval excellence in ship building, and an eighty-gun vessel, built of teak or India oak, was launched every three years. A petition for furlough was not, however, granted and the voyage to Asia was postponed nearly half a century. Under such a commander, and with his brother Oliver, the boy Matthew was initiated into active service. The _Revenge_ kept look-out during summer and winter, and in April went southward to Washington and the Carolinas. As there was as yet nothing to do but to be vigilant and to prepare for the war which was—unless Great Britain changed her impressment policy—sure to come, daily attention was given to drill. The sailors were especially taught to keep cool and bide their time to fire. All the Perrys, father and sons, were diligent students of ordnance and gunnery. They were masters of both theory and practice. Among the list of subscribers to Toussard’s Artillerist, written at the request of Washington, and published in 1809, is the name of Oliver H. Perry.