Sir Arthur Wellesley. He returned to France with a large fortune, and died in 1834.
See H. Compton, European Military Adventurers of Hindustan (1892).
PERRON (a French word meaning properly a “large stone,” Ital. petrone, from Lat. petra, Fr. pierre, stone), in architecture, a term applied to a raised platform reached by steps in front of the entrance to a building. The grand flight of external steps entering the mansions of the medieval nobility or high officials was considered in itself a mark of jurisdiction, as it is said that sentence was there pronounced against criminals, who were afterwards executed at the foot of the steps—as at the Giant’s Stairs of the Doge’s palace at Venice.
PERRONE, GIOVANNI (1794–1876), Italian theologian, was born at Chieri (Piedmont) in 1794. He studied theology at Turin and in his twenty-first year went to Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus. In 1816 he was sent as professor of theology to Orvieto, and in 1823 was appointed to a similar post in the Collegium Romanum. From Ferrara, where he was rector of the Jesuit College after 1830, he returned to his teaching work in Rome, being made head of his old college in 1850. He took a leading part in the discussions which led up to the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854), and in 1869 was prominent on the Ultramontane side in the Vatican Council. His numerous dogmatic works are characteristic of orthodox modern Roman theology. They include Praelectiones theologicae (9 vols., Rome, 1835 sqq.), Praelectiones theologicae in compendium redactae (4 vols., Rome, 1845), Il Hermesianismo (Rome, 1838), Il Protestantismo e la regola di fede (3 vols, 1853), De divinitate D. N. Jesu Christi (3 vols., Turin, 1870). He died on the 26th of August 1876.
PERROT, SIR JOHN (c. 1527–1592), lord deputy of Ireland, was the son of Mary Berkley, who afterwards married Thomas
Perrot, a Pembrokeshire gentleman. He was generally reputed
to be a son of Henry VIII., and was attached to the household
of William Paulet, 1st marquess of Winchester. He was in this
way brought to the notice of Henry VIII., who died, however,
before fulfilling his promises of advancement, but Perrot was
knighted at the coronation of Edward VI. During Mary’s
reign he suffered a short imprisonment on the charge of harbouring
his uncle, Robert Perrot, and other heretics. In spite of
his Protestantism he received the castle and lordship of Carew
in Pembrokeshire, and at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign
he was entrusted with the naval defence of South Wales. In
1570 Perrot reluctantly accepted the newly created post of lord
president of Munster. He landed at Waterford in February
of the next year, and energetically set about the reduction of
the province. In the course of two years he hunted down James
Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, whose submission he received in 1572.
Perrot resented the reinstatement of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th
earl of Desmond, and after vainly seeking his own recall left
Ireland without leave in July 1573, and presenting himself at
court was allowed to resign his office, in which he was succeeded
by Sir William Drury. He returned to his Welsh home, Where
he was fully occupied with his duties as vice-admiral of the
Welsh seas and a member of the council of the marches. Although
in 1578 he was accused by the deputy-admiral, Richard
Vaughan, of tyranny, subversion of justice and of dealings with
the pirates, he evidently retained the royal confidence, for he was
made commissioner for piracy in Pembrokeshire in 1578, and in
the next year was put in command of a squadron charged to
intercept Spanish ships on the Irish coast.
The recall of Arthur Grey, Lord Grey de Wilton, in 1582, left vacant the office of lord deputy of Ireland, and Perrot was appointed to it early in 1584. Sir John Norris became lord president of Munster and Sir Richard Bingham went to Connaught. Perrot’s chief instructions concerned the plantation of Munster, where the confiscated estates, some 600,000 acres in extent, of the earl of Desmond were to be given to English landlords at a nominal rent, provided that they brought with them English farmers and labourers. Before he had had time to embark on this enterprise he heard that the Highland clans of Maclean and MacDonnell were raiding Ulster at the invitation of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, the Scoto-Irish constable of Dunluce Castle. He marched into Ulster, but Sorley Boy escaped him, and crossed to Scotland, only to return later with reinforcements. The lord deputy was roundly abused by Elizabeth for undertaking “a rash, unadvised journey,” but Sorley Boy was reduced to submission in 1586. In 1585 Perrot succeeded in completing the “composition of Connaught,” a scheme for a contract between Elizabeth and the landholders of the province by which the queen should receive a small quitrent. During his career as lord deputy he had established peace, and had deserved well of Elizabeth. But a rash and violent temper, coupled with unsparing criticism, not to say abuse, of his associates, had made him numerous enemies. A hastily conceived plan for the conversion of the revenues of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, to provide funds for the erection of two colleges, led to a violent quarrel with Adam Loftus, archbishop of Armagh. Perrot had interfered in Bingham’s government of Connaught, and in May 1587 he actually struck Sir Nicholas Bagenal, the knight marshal, in the council chamber. Elizabeth decided to supersede him in January 1588, but it was only six months later that his successor, Sir William Fitzwilliam, arrived in Dublin. After his return to England his enemies continued to work for his ruin, and a forged letter purporting to be from him to Philip II. of Spain gave colour to an accusation of treasonable correspondence with the queen’s enemies, but when he was tried before a special commission in 1592 the charge of high treason was chiefly based on his alleged contemptuous remarks about Elizabeth. He was found guilty, but died in the Tower in September 1592. Elizabeth was said to have intended his pardon.
A life of Sir John Perrot from a MS. dating from the end of El1zabeth’s reign was printed in 1728. Sir James Perrot (1571–1637), writer and politician, was his illegitimate son.
PERRY, MATTHEW CALBRAITH (1794–1858), American
naval officer, was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, on the 10th of April 1794. He became a midshipman in 1809, and served successively in the schooner “Revenge” (then commanded by his brother, Oliver H. Perry) and the frigate “President.” In 1813 he became a lieutenant, and during the War of 1812 served in the frigate “United States” (which, when
abandoned by Perry, was blockaded in the harbour of New
London, Connecticut), the “President” and the “Chippewa.”
Soon after the war Perry was assigned to the Brooklyn (New
York) navy yard, where he served till 1819. He became a
commander in 1826, and during 1826–1830 was in the recruiting
service at Boston, where he took a leading part in organizing the
first naval apprentice system of the United States navy. He was
promoted in 1837 to the rank of captain (then the highest actual
rank in the United States navy), and in 1838–1840 commanded
the “Fulton II.,” the first American steam war vessel. He also
planned the “Missouri” and the “Mississippi,” the first steam
frigates of the United States navy, and was in command of the
Brooklyn navy yard from June 1841 until March 1843, when he
assumed command of a squadron sent to the African coast by
the United States, under the Webster-Ashburton treaty, to aid
in suppressing the slave trade. This command of a squadron
entitled him to the honorary rank of commodore. On the 23rd
of October 1846, during the Mexican War, Perry, in command of
the steam vessels “Vixen” and “McLane,” and four schooners,
attacked and captured Frontera, at the mouth of the Tobasco
river, then pushed on up the river and (on the 24th) captured
the town of Tobasco, thereby cutting off Mexico from Yucatan.
He relieved Commodore David Conner at Vera Cruz on the 21st
of March 1847, and after a two days' bombardment by a battery
landed from the ships the city wall was breached sufficiently
to admit the entrance of troops.
Commodore Perry’s distinctive achievement, however, was his negotiation in 1854 of the treaty between the United States and Japan, which opened Japan to the influences of western civilization. Perry sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, on the 24th of November 1852, in the “Mississippi.” He reached Hong-Kong
