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My Return to New York—Dinner to a Well-known Millionaire—Visit of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Hon. E. Ashley, and G. W. des Voeux to the United States—I Entertain Them at My Southern Home—My Father’s Old Friends Resent my Manner of Entertaining—Her Majesty’s Consul disgruntled—Cedar Wash-tubs and Hot Sheets for my English Guests—Shooting Snipe over the Rice Lands—Scouring the Country for Pretty Girls.

Called home by the stupidity of an agent, who was unable to treat with my old friend, Commodore Vanderbilt, for an extension of his lease of our dock property, most unwillingly we left our dear old Pau, with all its charming associations, and returned to New York.

I have always had a great fondness for men older than myself. Always preferring to associate with my superiors than my inferiors in intellect, and hence when brought in contact with one of America’s noblest and most cultivated men (withal, the then richest man in the United States, if not in the world), by his son-in-law, with whom I had formed a close intimacy abroad, I sought his society, and he, in turn, appeared at least to enjoy mine. Dining with him constantly, I suggested that he should dine with me; to which he readily assented. So I went to Cranston, my landlord of the New York Hotel, and put him to his trumps to give me a suitable dinner. His hotel was then crowded, and I had actually to take down a bedstead and improvise a dining-room. Cranston was one of those hotel-keepers who worked as much for glory as for money. He gave us simply a perfect dinner, and my dear old friend and his wife enjoyed it. I remember his saying to me, “My young friend, if you go on giving such dinners as these you need have no fear of planting yourself in this city.” I here give the menu of this dinner:

CARTE DU DINER.

Les Huitres, salées.

——

Le Potage de Consommé de Volaille, à la Royale.

——

Le Basse rayée, grillée, Sauce Remoulade.

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Les Pommes de Terre, à la Lyonnaise.

——

La Mayonnaise de Homard, decorée à la gélée.

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Le Filet de Bœuf, piqué, rôti, aux champignons.

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Les Cailles, truffées, à la Financière.

Les Côtelettes d’Agneau, à la Soubise.

Les Tomates, à l’Americaine.

Les Petits Pois, à la Française.

——

Canvas-back Ducks, roasted.

Le Celeri, au jus.

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Les Huitres, grillées, à la Ste. Augustine.

——

Le Pouding de Cabinet.

La Gélée, au rhum.

Les Méringues, à la Chantilly.

——

Les Glaces de Crême, à la Portugaise.

Les Quatre Mendiants.

Les Fruits.

Le Café, etc.

L’Hôtel New York, Mercredi, le 5 Janvier, 1859.

Just at this time three charming men visited New York and were fêted by my little circle of friends. They were Lord Frederick Cavendish, Hon. Evelyn Ashley, and G. W. des Voeux, now Governor of Hong Kong; three of the brightest spirits I had ever met, and without the slightest pretension; in fact, just what the real English gentleman always is—the first gentleman in the world. Fearing a cold winter, and a friend who was going off on a foreign mission offering me his furnished house in Savannah, with all his servants, etc., I took it on a lease and proposed leaving for my native city in January. Finding my English friends also going South, I invited them to pass a month with me in my Southern home. All my European purchases, my china, glass, and bric-à-brac, I did not even unbale in New York, but shipped them directly to Savannah. Before leaving I took the precaution to order my marketing from old Waite of Amity Street (the then famous butcher), to be sent to me weekly, and started my new Southern household.

I naturally prided myself, on appearing in my native city, in putting my best foot foremost, and entertaining as well as I knew how, or, rather, in giving to my Southern friends, the benefit of my European education in the way of dinner giving. I found this, at first, instead of gratifying my father’s friends rather piqued them; they said—“Heydey! here is a young fellow coming out here to show us how to live. Why, his father did not pretend to do this. Let us let him severely alone,” which for a time they did. I took up the young fry, who let their elders very soon know that I had certainly learned something and that Mc’s dinners were bound to be a feature in Savannah. Then the old patriarch of the place relented and asked me to a grand dinner.

The papers had announced the intended visit to Savannah of the son of the Duke of Devonshire, and the son of the Earl of Shaftesbury. Southern people then worshipped the English nobility. They prided themselves on retaining all the old English habits and customs, and of being descendants of the greatest nation of the world—excepting their own. The host at the dinner announced the coming of these distinguished men, and wondered who in Savannah would have the honor of entertaining them. The British Consul then spoke up, he was a great character there, giving the finest dinners, and being an authority on wine, i.e. Madeira, “Her Majesty’s Consul will have the honor.” I secretly smiled, as I knew they were coming to me, and I expected them the next day. This same good old Consul had ignored me, hearing I had had the audacity to give at my table filet de bœuf aux truffes et champignons. I returned home feeling sure that these young noblemen would be but a few hours under my roof before Her Majesty’s Consul would give me the honor of a visit. In fact, my guests had not been with me an hour when my old friend, the Consul, rushed up my front steps. Meeting me at the door he threw his arms around my neck, exclaiming, “My dear boy, I was in love with your mother thirty years ago; you are her image; carry me to your noble guests.” Ever after I had the respect and esteem of this dear old man, who, for Savannah, was rich as Crœsus, and before all things esteemed and valued a good dinner and a fine glass of Madeira. My filets de bœuf, and the scions of noble English houses placed me in the front social rank in that little, aristocratic town, and brought forth from one of its oldest inhabitants the exclamation, “My dear boy, your aunts, the Telfairs, could give breakfasts, but you, you can give dinners.”

Knowing the Englishmen’s habits, I gave to each one of them, on their arrival, enormous cedar wash-tubs and hot sheets for their morning ablutions; then a good breakfast, after which we drove to the river and had my brother-in-law’s ten-oared boat, called “The Rice Bird,” all the oarsmen in yachting rig, myself at the tiller, and the darkeys, knowing they would all have tobacco, or money, pulled for dear life from the start to the finish, giving us their plantation songs. The leader improvised his song, the others only singing in chorus. On these occasions, the colored people would give you in song all the annoyances they were subjected to, and the current events of plantation life, bringing in much of and about their “Massa” and his family, as follows: “Massa Ward marry our little Miss Sara, bring big buckra to Savannah, gwine to be good times, my boys, pull boys, pull, over Jordan!” Reaching the plantations, of which there were three, Fairlawn, Argyle, and Shaftesbury, well equipped with admirable dogs (for my brother-in-law was a great sportsman), we would shoot snipe over the rice lands until 2 P.M., then lunch elaborately in his plantation house, and row back in the cool of the afternoon, dining at 8 o’clock, and having as my guests every pretty girl within a hundred miles and more of the city. The flowers, particularly the rose called the Cloth of Gold, and the black rose, I was most prodigal with. I had given a fee to the clerk of the market to scour the country for game and delicacies, so our dinners were excellent, and the old Southern habit of sitting over Madeira until the small hours was adopted, and was, with the bright minds I had brought together, most enjoyable.