Badger's, anciently Langdon's Island, is a reminiscence of one of the noblest of the old Romans of the revolutionary time. His still elegant mansion adorns one of the handsomest streets in Portsmouth.[96] Washington, when there, considered it the finest private house in the town. [Illustration: GOVERNOR LANGDON'S MANSION, PORTSMOUTH.] Langdon was six feet tall, with a very noble presence. Duke Rochefoucauld Liancourt mentions that he had followed the sea first as mate, then as master of a ship. He ultimately became an eminent merchant and ship-builder. A devoted patriot, he was one of the leaders in the first act of aggression committed by the Portsmouth Whigs against the crown. As the words of a man of action and a model legislator in time of invasion by a foreign enemy, his well-known speech to the New Hampshire Assembly is worth the quoting. This is his manner of cutting short useless debate: "Gentlemen, you may talk as much as you please; but I know the enemy is upon our frontiers, and I am going to take my pistols and mount my horse, and go and fight in the ranks of my fellow-citizens." And he did it. Yet a little more about Langdon. Chastellux relates that when on his way to Gates's camp he was followed by a favorite slave. The negro, who beheld the energy with which his master pressed on, without other repose than could be snatched in the woods, said to him, at last, "Master, you undergo great hardships, but you go to fight for liberty. I also should suffer patiently if I had the same liberty to defend." "Then you shall have it," said John Langdon; "from this moment I give you your freedom." Continental Agent Langdon became the superintendent of war ships ordered here by Congress. He presided at the building of the _Ranger_, the _Alliance_, and the _America_, the last a seventy-four gun ship, generously given to Louis XVI. for one of his lost on our coast. Paul Jones was much here; a brave braggart, quarreling with Langdon and Congress, writing quires of memorials, little esteemed among his peers, though a lion on his own quarter-deck. Though Langdon was a member elect of the Old Congress, as his State stipulated that only two of the delegates were to go to Philadelphia, his does not appear among the names signed to the Declaration. Matthew Thornton, elected after Langdon, was allowed to sign when he took his seat in November. Langdon became an opponent of the measures and administration of Washington, joining with Jefferson, Pierce Butler, and a few others in organizing the Republican party of that day. They had five votes in the Senate. In the House was Andrew Jackson, a member from Tennessee, who attracted little attention, though he voted with the small coterie of the Upper House, including Langdon, Butler, and Colonel Burr.