Commodore Perry Returns

 

The eight ships of the Far East Squadron in Perry's return to Japan

Perry now turned his attention to the small islands between Japan and China.  At the time, several of these were small kingdoms.  At each, Perry exacted a treaty similar to the one he would negotiate with Japan. The treaties provided sailors washed ashore would be well treated; that the king would sell supplies to American ships, in return Americans would buy from nobody else on the islands; and, that the kingdoms would serve as coal storage points for the American navy.  This last part encountered opposition.  The islanders had no wish to be responsible for coal that might be washed/blown away in a typhoon, pilfered by the natives, seized by pirates or other navies, etc., and then suffer the threatened consequences by the US Navy.

A Russian fleet had reached Japan only a few weeks after Perry in 1853.  The Russians left hurriedly without a treaty on hearing the Crimean War had started and guessed the French and British Far East Fleets would soon come chasing them.

In early 1854, Perry received word the French and British were preparing to send delegations to Japan to negotiate treaties. Now, in charge of a fleet of eight ships, Perry decided he would beat them to it and return before July 1854.  He had given the Japanese government a year because he knew the shogun would need a long time to summon daimyos (noblemen who each governed a province) and to adjust to coming out of isolation.  

Perry stopped at Formosa, now Taiwan, and found it occupied by indigenous headhunters and descendants of Chinese farmers.  He urged the US to annex the island as it would be useful in the future as a repair and coal station. 

Japanese drawing Perry's Ships and the harbor

Numerous Japanese artists were sent out in boats to draw the steamships in an attempt to learn some of the technology

On February 11, 1854, Perry’s ships arrived in Yokohama harbor, a move calculated, Perry later wrote, to demonstrate he did not bow to the power of the Japanese nobility.  Foreigners were always directed to Nagasaki as Perry was when he entered Uraga Bay near Yokohama harbor in July 1853.  Yokohama was close to Edo, the capital, and home of the shogun and emperor. 

USS Susquehanna in NY Harbor

To emphasize his power, Perry would only directly deal with the shogun’s or emperor’s highest representatives, leaving his officers to deal with any lesser noble bearing messages.  By the beginning of March, the Commodore had grown weary and angry with Japanese delay in starting negotiations. Perry made a flat out threat to summon a hundred ships in the next twenty days to bombard and lay waste the city and palace.  There were not a hundred ships in the entire US Navy but the Japanese did not know that. Negotiations started March 8, 1854. By March 31, 1854, “The Treaty of Peace and Amity” was signed.  

A color print of Perry landing 

The Americans agreed to use only the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate; and a consulate in Shimoda

Sailors would be treated well and foreigners would be allowed to live and travel in Japan

The Japanese government was to have a monopoly selling supplies to American ships.

A currency rate of exchange was to be set up facilitating trade between the two countries

Mutual peace between America and Japan

If Japan concluded a more favorable treaty with another foreign power, the US was to receive the same extra benefits

(now called a “most favored nation” clause)

Given the distances, a year and a half was allowed for the treaty to be ratified. 

Perry never returned to Japan after the treaty was signed.  Congress voted him a $20,000 grant for his services, commissioned him to write a full report of his service in the Far East, and promoted him to rear admiral on the retired list.  Perry devoted himself to what became three volumes of Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron in the China Seas and Japan finished at the end of 1857. Gout and years of very heavy drinking caught up with him and he died in New York City on March 4, 1858, survived by his wife and nine of their ten children.

While remembered today for the trip to Japan, Matthew Perry’s career was studded with outstanding military achievements.  His father had been a captain in the American Navy in the late 1700s.  His older brothers, including Oliver Hazard Perry, a hero of the War of 1812, were all captains.  Matthew Perry began his career in 1809 and liked to say while his brother was a hero of the War of 1812, Matthew had fired the first shot. An enthusiastic backer of modern technology and instruction, he supervised the construction of the first steam powered American warship, USS Mississippi, and was its first captain.  He helped modernize the curriculum for cadets at Annapolis.  In the Mexican American War, he saw combat personally leading 1,700 men in the successful assault on San Juan Bautista. In the interim he fought pirates in the Mediterranean and served in the squadron interdicting slave ships off the west coast of Africa. 

Obit of Perry in Harper's Weekly March 1858

British set out in 1854 for Japan