On the 28th of December 1857, Perry reported that his work on the book would end with the year, and his office in Washington be closed. On the 30th, he was detached from special duty to await orders. It was intimated to him at the Department that he was to have command of the squadron in the Mediterranean—the American naval officers’ paradise, when away from home. To this duty Perry looked forward with delight. Thornton A. Jenkins was to be his chief of staff. He spent the pleasant winter in New York enjoying social life.[43] Early in January, 1858, he made a report on the cause of the loss of the _Central America_, with suggestions for changes in the laws which should secure greater safety of life and property on the ocean. These studies, which have since borne good fruit, were with other matter published in a pamphlet of seven pages, January 15th, 1858. His last official services were performed as a member of the Naval Retiring Board. The time was now drawing near when this man of tireless activity, who was ever solicitous about the life and safety of others, was to part with his own life. The inroads upon a superb constitution, made by constant work on arduous and trying service, at many stations, in two wars, in three or four diplomatic missions, and in protracted study so soon after return from Japan, were becoming more and more manifest. In the raw weather of February 1858, the Commodore caught a severe cold which from the first gave indications of being serious. The old torment of rheumatism developed itself, and yet not until the hour of his death was he believed to be in mortal danger. It became manifest, however, that the disease, contracted thirty-five years before, in his energy and anxiety to save life and property, had undermined his constitution. Symptoms of rheumatic gout appeared. One token of organic change was a strong indisposition to ascend elevations of any sort. For four weeks he felt more or less out of health. A change of physicians did not better his case. On the 4th of March at midnight, the disease, leaving the region of the stomach, began to assault the citadel, and at 2 A. M. at his home in Thirty-second street, New York City, he died of rheumatism of the heart. His nephew, by marriage to the daughter of Commodore Oliver H. Perry, the Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton, who was with him in his sickness says, “His last wish expressed to me was to be buried by his father and mother and brother in the old burial ground, to mingle his dust with his native soil. He even choose his grave there.” At his death, Matthew Calbraith Perry was third on the list of captains, having served at sea twenty-five years and three months, and on other duties nineteen years. Since entering the navy in 1808, he had been unemployed less than five years, and had completed a term of service within one year of a half century.