The incident of the Mary Carver was far more worrisome for the American government than the incident of the Edward Burley (although both contributed to Congress’s decision to establish a standing naval squadron in western Africa). In 1842, the schooner Mary Carver anchored off the coast of Little Berriby. Captain Farewell was kidnapped by the natives, taken ashore, tortured, and then put to death. Subsequently, the schooner was run aground, the entire crew massacred and the ship plundered. Although the palaver regarding the Edward Burley affair resulted in leniency for the parties responsible, as Brancaccio notes, “Perry felt the affair of the Mary Carver, whose cargo had been plundered when its captain and crew were killed, called for more severe measures” (33). While Bridge’s journal recounts the palaver with King Ben Cracow investigating the incident, and the subsequent burning of the villages, Perry’s letters reveal that the village burning was premeditated as “an impressive lesson to the people of other towns suspected of piratical acts” (5). It is also worth noting that Commodore Perry’s detailed notes contain hardly any description of the burning of the villages. Finally, neither Perry’s letters nor Bridge’s journal contains a straightforward account of the original attack, and neither contains any testimony from native Africans.
Journal of An African Cruiser 