Footnotes:
[1] During the following winter Mr. Merry had opportunity to fulfill his threat. In February, 1804, the President again invited him to dine, in the following words:
“Thomas Jefferson asks the favor of Mr. Merry to dine with a small party of friends on Monday, the 13th, at half past three.”
Mr. Merry, still smarting all these months, stood on his dignity and addressed his reply to the Secretary of State.
Reviewing at some length what seemed to him important events, he added:
“If Mr. Merry should be mistaken as to the meaning of Mr. Jefferson’s note, and it should prove that the invitation is designed for him in a public capacity, he trusts that Mr. Jefferson will feel equally that it must be out of his power to accept it, without receiving previously, through the channel of the Secretary of State, the necessary formal assurance of the President’s determination to observe toward him those niceties of distinction which have heretofore been shown by the executive government of the United States to the persons who have been accredited as our Majesty’s ministers.
“Mr. Merry has the honor to request of Mr. Madison to lay this explanation before the President, and to accompany it with the strongest assurance of his highest respect and consideration.”
The Secretary of State, who seems to have been acting as social secretary to Mr. Jefferson, without hesitation replied as follows:
“Mr. Madison presents his compliments to Mr. Merry. He has communicated to the President Mr. Merry’s note of this morning, and has the honor to remark to him that the President’s invitation, being in the style used by him in like cases, had no reference to the points of form which will deprive him of the pleasure of Mr. Merry’s company at dinner on Monday next.