A few years after his court-martial Mackenzie fell dead from his horse. One of the wardroom officers of the Somers was Adrian Déslonde of Louisiana, whose sister married the Hon. John Slidell, of whom I have already spoken as Commander Mackenzie's brother.
I seldom hear the name of John Slidell without being reminded of a witticism which I heard from my mother's lips, the author of which was Louisa Fairlie, a daughter of Major James Fairlie, who, during the War of the Revolution, served upon General Steuben's staff. She was, I have understood, a great belle with a power of repartee which bordered upon genius. During the youth of John Slidell he attended a dinner at a prominent New York residence and sat at the table next to Miss Fairlie. In a tactless manner he made a pointedly unpleasant remark bearing upon the marriage of her sister Mary to the distinguished actor, Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, a subject upon which the Fairlie family was somewhat sensitive. Miss Fairlie regarded Mr. Slidell for only a moment, and then retorted: "Sir, you have been dipped not moulded into society"—an incident which, by the way, I heard repeated many years later at a dinner in China. To appreciate this witticism, one may refer to the New York directory of 1789, which describes John Slidell, the father of the Slidell of whom we are speaking, as "soap boiler and chandler, 104 Broadway." Miss Fairlie's pun seems to me to be quite equal to that of Rufus Choate, who, when a certain Baptist minister described himself as "a candle of the Lord," remarked, "Then you are a dipped, but I hope not a wick-ed candle." It is said that upon another occasion, after the return of Mr. Slidell from a foreign trip, he was asked by Miss Fairlie whether he had been to Greece. He replied in the negative and asked the reason for her query. "Oh, nothing," she said, "only it would have been very natural for you to visit Greece in order to renew early associations!" Many years thereafter Priscilla Cooper, the wife of Robert Tyler and the daughter-in-law of President John Tyler, a daughter of Thomas Apthorpe Cooper and his wife, Mary Fairlie, presided at the White House during the widowhood of her distinguished father-in-law.
As has already been stated, the father of the Hon. John Slidell was a chandler, and he conducted his business with such success that in time he became prominent in mercantile and financial circles, and eventually was made president of the Mechanics Bank and the Tradesmen's Insurance Company. His son John, who at first engaged in his father's soap and tallow business as an apprentice, finally succeeded him, and the enterprise was continued under the firm name of "John Slidell, Jr. and Company." The house failed, however, and it is said that this fact, together with the scandal attending his duel with Stephen Price, manager of the Park Theater, in which the latter was wounded, were the controlling factors that led the future Hon. John Slidell to remove his residence to New Orleans. In this place he became highly celebrated as a lawyer, and his successful political career is well known. He married Miss Marie Mathilde Déslonde, a member of a well-known Creole family, and many persons still living will recall her grace and savoir faire in Washington when her husband represented Louisiana in the United States Senate. Miss Jane Slidell, a sister of the Hon. John Slidell, married Commodore Matthew C. Perry, U.S.N., who opened the doors of Japan to the trade of the world, and whose daughter, Caroline Slidell Perry, became the wife of the late August Belmont of New York, while Julia, another of Mr. Slidell's sisters, married the late Rear Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers, U.S.N.
CHAPTER V
LONG BRANCH, NEWPORT AND ELSEWHERE
When I was about ten years of age, accompanied by my parents, I made a visit to Long Branch, which was then one of the most fashionable summer resorts for New Yorkers. As we made the journey by steamboat and the water was rough we were the victims of a violent attack of seasickness from which few of the passengers escaped. Many Philadelphians also spent their summers at this resort, and there was naturally a fair sprinkling of people from other large cities. At that time there were no hotels in the place, but there was one commodious boarding house which accommodated a large number of guests. It bore no name, but was designated as "Mrs. Sairs'," from its proprietress. In this establishment our whole family, by no means small, found accommodations. I recall many pleasant acquaintances we made while there, especially that of Miss Molly Hamilton of Philadelphia. She was a vivacious old lady, and was accompanied by her nephew, Hamilton Beckett, in whom I found a congenial playmate. His name made a strong impression upon my memory, as I was then reading the history of Thomas à Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury. I have heard that this friend of my childhood went eventually to England to reside. The Penningtons of Newark had a cottage near us. William Pennington subsequently became Governor of New Jersey. I also enjoyed the youthful companionship of his daughter Mary, whom many years later I met in Washington. In the interval she had become a pronounced belle and the wife of Hugh A. Toler of Newark.
The guests of the boarding house were inclined to complain that the beach was too exclusively appropriated by two acquaintances of ours who were living in the same house with us, Mrs. G. W. Featherstonhaugh and Mrs. Thomas M. Willing, and their train of admirers. They were sprightly young women and daughters of Bernard Moore Carter of Virginia. I remember it was the gossip of the place that both of them could count their offers of marriage by the score. Mrs. Willing was a skilled performer upon the harp, an instrument then much in vogue, but whose silvery tones are now, alas, only memory's echo. Mr. Featherstonhaugh, who was by birth an Englishman, after residing in the United States a few years, wrote in 1847 a book entitled "Excursion through the Slave States from Washington on the Potomac to the Frontier of Mexico." I recall that in this volume he spoke with enthusiasm of the agréments of the palate which he enjoyed during a few days' sojourn at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore. He dwelt particularly, with gastronomic ecstasy, upon the canvas-back duck and soft-shell crab upon which he feasted, and was inclined to draw an unfavorable comparison between the former hotel and Gadsby's, the well-known Washington hostelry. Upon his journey he visited Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson. His encomium on this distinguished man appealed to me as I am sure it does to others; he spoke of him as the "Confucius of his country." Altogether, Mr. Featherstonhaugh's experiences in America were as novel and entertaining as a sojourn with Aborigines.
Just off the beach at Long Branch was a high bluff which descended gradually to the sea, and at this point were several primitive bath houses belonging to Mrs. Sairs' establishment. Following the prevalent custom, we wore no bathing shoes and stockings, but, accompanied by a stalwart bathing master, we enjoyed many dips in the briny deep, and were brought safely back by him to our bath house. There was no immodest lingering on the beach; this privilege was reserved for the advanced civilization of a later day.
While I was still a young child, and some years after our visit to Long Branch, my infant brother Malcolm became seriously ill. Dr. John W. Francis, our family physician, prescribed a change of air for him, and my parents took him to Newport. We found pleasant accommodations for our family in a fashionable boarding house on Thames Street, the guests of which were composed almost exclusively of Southern families. Newport was then in an exceedingly primitive state and I have no recollection of seeing either cottages or hotels, while modern improvements were unknown. We led a simple outdoor life, taking our breakfast at eight, dining at two and supping at six. It was indeed "early to bed and early to rise."