Editing Oliver Hazard Perry (section)

==Later commands and controversies==
[[File:OliverHazardPerryEngraving.jpg|thumb|upright|United States Navy engraved portrait of Commodore Perry]]

In May 1814, Perry took command of a squadron of seven gunboats based in Newport. He held this command for only two months as in July he was placed in command of {{USS|Java|1815|6}}, a 44-gun frigate which was under construction in [[Baltimore]]. While overseeing the outfitting of ''Java'', Perry participated in the defenses of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., during the British invasion of the [[Chesapeake Bay]]. In a twist of irony, these land battles would be the last time the career naval officer saw combat. The [[Treaty of Ghent]] was ratified before ''Java'' could be put to sea.<ref name="NPS"/>

For Perry, the post-war years were marred by controversies. In 1815, he commanded ''Java'' in the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] during the [[Second Barbary War]]. While moored in Naples, Perry slapped the commander of the ship's Marines, Captain John Heath, whom Perry charged with "disrespectful, insolent, and contemptuous conduct to me his superior officer".<ref>{{cite web |title=H. Doc. 15-66 - Letter from the Secretary of the Navy, transmitting, in obedience to a resolution of the House of Representatives, of the twenty-second instant, copies of the proceedings of the court martial ordered by Commodore Isaac Chauncey, on the Mediterranean station, for the trial of Captain Oliver H. Perry ; also, for the trial of Captain John Heath of the Marine Corps. January 30, 1818. Read, and ordered to lie upon the table |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/SERIALSET-00007_00_00-029-0066-0000 |website=GovInfo.gov |publisher=E. De Krafft |access-date=June 28, 2023 |page=14 |date=January 30, 1818}}</ref> The ensuing court-martial found both men guilty, but levied only mild reprimands. After the crew returned home, Heath challenged Perry to a pistol [[duel]], which was fought on October 19, 1817, on the same field in [[Weehawken, New Jersey]] where [[Burr–Hamilton duel|Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton]]. Heath fired first and missed. Perry declined to return fire, satisfying the Marine's honor.<ref name=NPS/>

Perry's return from the Mediterranean also reignited the feud with Elliott. After an exchange of angry letters, Elliott challenged Perry to a duel, which Perry refused. (While it was normally considered cowardly to refuse a duel, Perry's stature as a hero was such that no one doubted his physical courage and few felt that Perry had wrongly offended Elliott's honor.){{peacock inline|date=August 2022}} He instead, on August 8, 1818, filed formal court-martial charges against Elliott. Perry filed a total of six charges and twenty-one specifications including "conduct unbecoming an officer," and failure to "do his utmost to take or destroy the vessel of the enemy which it was his duty to encounter."{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Wishing to avoid a scandal between two decorated naval heroes, Secretary of the Navy [[Smith Thompson]] and [[President of the United States|President]] [[James Monroe]] suppressed the matter by offering Perry a diplomatic mission to [[South America]] in exchange for dropping his charges. This put an official end to the controversy, though it would continue to be debated for another quarter century.<ref name=Skaggs2>{{cite book|title=Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage, and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy|first1=David Curtis |last1=Skaggs|publisher=Naval Institute Press|year=2006|pages=191–199|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SAA05BcoIkgC&pg=PR6 |access-date=September 3, 2011|isbn=978-1-59114-792-3}}</ref>