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"Look, you'll open Japan. It doesn't matter what you have to do!" President Millard Filmore said to Commodore Matthew Perry.
The President's tone was unmistakable. That was an order, not a suggestion.
"Sir--" the Commodore tried to say, but Fillmore pretended not to hear.
"If you need to talk, you'll talk. If you need to shoot, you'll shoot. I have no interest in knowing how you'll do it. All it matters to me are the words 'mission accomplished.'"
Perry sighed. He rubbed his eyes and tried one more time, "Sir, please, I beg you, put me in command of the Mediterranean Squadron! Japan doesn't want to open. All missions are doomed to fail. I don't want to have a failure in my history."
The President walked towards the Commodore. They were in arms distance. Filmore looked at Perry and stated, "You'll go. Not only because I'm commanding and ordering you to go, but because it's your destiny. As Americans, we have to expand our culture, our religiosity, our greatness. Asia is better with America there. We are freeing the people. We are making everyone more prosperous, more educated and, most important, we are doing God's work. Will you say no to God?"
Perry lowered his head, ashamed. He couldn't look the President in the eye at that moment.
Filmore smiled inside. He understood he had broken the Commodore.
When Perry raised his head, he only said one thing, "I'll gladly do God's work. I'll open Japan to America, to God. It's my, our destiny."
President Millard Filmore shook Commodore Matthew Perry's hand. He dismissed him, saying that he knew the Commodore would succeed where everyone else had failed because the President knew that Perry believed in the manifest destiny, while others don't.
Not long after the talk, Perry was in Norfolk, Virginia, embarking at the paddle-wheeled frigate known as USS Mississippi. He chose the frigate to be his flagship for many reasons. The main one was that Perry himself supervised its construction.
Please, God, help me do your job. I believe in You. I believe in my destiny. I believe in America. Please, God, don't make me a failure; don't make me fail while doing a mission in Thy name. Amen, thought Commodore Matthew Perry while America disappeared from the horizon.
THE END
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The Perry Expedition (: 黒船来航, kurofune raikō, "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition to the Tokugawa Shogunate, involving two separate voyages by warships of the United States Navy, which took place during 1853–54. The goals of this expedition included exploration, surveying, and the establishment of diplomatic relations and negotiation of trade agreements with various nations of the region; opening contact with the government of Japan was considered a top priority of the expedition and was one of the key reasons for its inception.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition
