Perry boldly signs his name beneath an autograph note from E. R. McCall: "There is required for the recruiting service of the U. S. Frigate Java under your command Five hundred Dollars." Oliver Hazard Perry, the Hero of Lake Erie, commanded a successful fleet action against a squadron of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie, forcing the surrender of the British naval squadron during the War of 1812.  

The USS Java was a wooden-hulled sailing frigate, built in Baltimore in 1814 and 1815 by Flannigan & Parsons. It was completed after the War of 1812, and under the command of Captain Oliver Perry, sailed from Baltimore 5 August 1815 to Newport Rhode Island to fill out her crew. The ship was ordered to the Mediterranean to serve in the Second Barbary War.  Java was off the coast of Algiers when Perry went ashore to honor the treaty he had signed, and then the ship sailed to Tripoli to demonstrate the strength and resolve of the U. S. Navy.