age rendered him unable to
stand the hot sun of summer.... I think it was the summer of 1817,--that
was the last time (he told me) he tried it, and found the sun too hot
for him,--then sixty years of age, a senator, and the refuser of all
office. How often I think of him, when I see at Washington robustious
men going through a scene of supplication, tribulation, and degradation,
to obtain office, which the salvation of the soul does not impose upon
the vilest sinner! His fields, his flocks, and his herds, yielded an
ample supply of domestic productions. A small crop of tobacco--three
hogsheads when the season was good, two when bad--purchased the exotics
which comfort and necessity required, and which the farm did not
produce. He was not rich, but rich enough to dispense hospitality and
charity, to receive all guests in his house, from the president to the
day laborer--no other title being necessary to enter his house but that
of an honest man;... and above all, he was rich enough to pay as he
went, and never to owe a dollar to any man.

... He always wore the same dress,--that is to say, a suit of the same
material, cut, and color, superfine navy-blue,--the whole suit from the
same piece, and in the fashion of the time of the Revolution, and always
replaced by a new one before it showed age. He was neat in his person,
always wore fine linen, a fine cambric stock, a fine fur hat with a
brim to it, fair top-boots--the boot outside of the pantaloons, on the
principle that leather was stronger than cloth.

... He was an habitual reader and student of the Bible, a pious and
religious man, and of the "_Baptist persuasion_," as he was accustomed
to express it.

[Footnote 30: Nathaniel Macon, United States Senator from North
Carolina.]

* * * * *

=_Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, 1803-1845._= (Manual, pp. 490, 505.)

From the Life of Commodore Decatur.

=_106._= RECAPTURE, AND BURNING OF THE FRIGATE "PHILADELPHIA," AT
TRIPOLI.

When all were safely assembled on the deck of the Intrepid, (for so
admirably had the service been executed that not a man was missing, and
only one slightly wounded,) Decatur gave the order to cut the fasts and
shove off. The necessity for prompt obedience and exertion was urgent.
The flames had now gained the lower rigging, and ascended to the tops;
they darted furiously from the ports, flashing from the quarter gallery
round the mizzen of the Intrepid, as her