d orphans the battle had made; and in thanksgiving for
the preservation of those who had survived the conflict unhurt. He then
returned to the shore to meet the vast concourse of people awaiting his
arrival. The dead and the disabled men, the dismounted guns and the
broken and tattered ships, told the story of the battle and the price
of the victory with more eloquence than the most brilliant imagination
could compass. These visible evidences of the strife for the mastery
indicated the valor and the woe, incident to the ordeal which had been
passed, with an energy and pathos which overpowered the most obdurate
will; and the multitude greeted Harrison and Perry with tears and
smiles,--rain in sunshine with a heartiness that language is too poor
and barren to describe. The living had earned their title to everlasting
gratitude, and the dead had fallen as the brave desire to fall, at the
post of duty and on the field of victory.

Perry now procured the parole and release of Barclay, and after
arranging for his absence started eastward on his journey home; but his
progress was everywhere obstructed by evidences of the gratitude of
his countymen for his great action. On Monday, the 15th of November,
attended by the faithful crew that rowed him to the Niagara, he arrived
in Newport, by way of the south-ferry. Here, he was received upon his
arrival in a manner alike worthy of his neighbors and friends and of
himself.

August 23d, 1819, at the age of thirty-four, he died of yellow fever,
at Port Spain in the Island of Trinidad. His remains were brought to
Newport in a government ship, and were interred December 4th. 1826. They
were conducted to their final resting place by a funeral cortege such as
up to that time had never been equalled and since that time has here
never been surpassed.

This is but a glance at the man, and the event to which we are here
to-day to rear this tribute of our gratitude. There are other names and
other figures that come up to view in the memory and gather around the
name of Perry, of men who were efficient auxiliaries in the conflict,
shared the dangers, and participated in the glory of the battle of Lake
Erie, and who are inseparably connected with that event.

Turner, Taylor, Champlin, Almy, Breese, Brownell, and the acting fleet
surgeon Parsons were from Rhode Island; Forest, Brook, Stevens,
Hambleton, Yarnell and others not less distinguished, were from other
states; and the gallant command