“I cannot describe to you,” wrote Merry privately,[260] “the difficulty and expense which I have to encounter in fixing myself in a habitation. By dint of money I have just secured two small houses on the common which is meant to become in time the city of Washington. They are mere shells of houses, with bare walls and without fixtures of any kind, even without a pump or well, all which I must provide at my own cost. Provisions of any kind, especially vegetables, are frequently hardly to be obtained at any price. So miserable is our situation.”
Had these been the worst trials that awaited the new British minister, he might have been glad to meet them; for when once surmounted, they favored him by preventing social rivalry. Unfortunately he met more serious annoyances. Until his arrival, Yrujo was the only minister of full rank in the United States; and Yrujo’s intimate relations at the White House had given him family privileges. For this reason the Spanish minister made no struggle to maintain etiquette, but living mostly in Philadelphia disregarded the want of what he considered good manners at Washington, according to which he was placed on the same social footing with his own secretary of legation. Yet Yrujo, American in many respects, belonged to the school of Spanish diplomacy which had for centuries studied points of honor. He might well have made with his own mouth the celebrated retort which one of his predecessors made to Philip II., who reproached him with sacrificing an interest to a ceremony: “How a ceremony? Your Majesty’s self is but a ceremony!” Although Yrujo submitted to Jefferson, he quarrelled with Pichon on this point, for Pichon was only a secretary in charge of the French legation. In November, 1803, Yrujo’s friendship for Jefferson was cooling, and he waited the arrival of Merry in the hope of finding a champion of diplomatic rights. Jefferson, on the other hand, waited Merry’s arrival in order to establish, once for all, a new social code; and that there might be no misunderstanding, he drafted with his own hand the rules which were to control Executive society,—rules intended to correct a tendency toward monarchical habits introduced by President Washington.
In 1801 on coming into power Jefferson announced that he would admit not the smallest distinction that might separate him from the mass of his fellow-citizens. He dispensed with the habit of setting apart certain days and hours for receiving visits of business or curiosity, announcing that he would on any day and at any hour receive in a friendly and hospitable manner those who should call upon him.[261] He evidently wished to place the White House on the footing of easy and generous hospitality which was the pride of every Virginia gentleman. No man should be turned away from its doors; its table, liberal and excellent, should be filled with equal guests, whose self-respect should be hurt by no artificial rules of precedence. Such hospitality cost both time and money; but Washington was a petty village, society was very small, and Jefferson was a poor economist. He entertained freely and handsomely.
“Yesterday I dined with the President,” wrote Senator Plumer of New Hampshire, Dec. 25, 1802.[262] “His rule is to have about ten members of Congress at a time. We sat down to the table at four, rose at six, and walked immediately into another room and drank coffee. We had a very good dinner, with a profusion of fruits and sweetmeats. The wine was the best I ever drank, particularly the champagne, which was indeed delicious. I wish his French politics were as good as his French wines.”
So long as this manner of life concerned only the few Americans who were then residents or visitors at Washington, Jefferson found no great difficulty in mixing his company and disregarding precedence. Guests accommodated themselves to the ways of the house, took care of their own comfort, went to table without special request, and sat wherever they found a vacant chair; but foreigners could hardly be expected at first to understand what Jefferson called the rule of pell-mell. Thornton and Pichon, being only secretaries of legation, rather gained than lost by it; but Yrujo resented it in secret; and all eyes were turned to see how the new British minister would conduct himself in the scramble.
Either before or soon after Merry’s arrival the President wrote the rules, which he called “Canons of Etiquette to be observed by the Executive;”[263] and these canons ultimately received the approval of the Cabinet. Foreign ministers, he said, were to pay the first visit to the “ministers of the nation;” their wives were to receive the first visit from the wives of “national ministers.” No grades among diplomatic members were to give precedence; “all are perfectly equal, whether foreign or domestic, titled or untitled, in or out of office.” Finally, “to maintain the principle of equality, or of pêle-mêle, and prevent the growth of precedence out of courtesy, the members of the Executive will practise at their own houses, and recommend an adherence to, the ancient usage of the country,—of gentlemen in mass giving precedence to the ladies in mass in passing from one apartment where they are assembled into another.” Such, according to Rufus King, whose aid was invoked on this occasion, was the usage in London.
Merry duly arrived in Washington, and was told by Madison that the President would receive his letter of credence Nov. 29, according to the usual formality. At the appointed hour the British minister, in diplomatic uniform, as was required in the absence of any hint to the contrary, called upon Madison, and was taken to the White House, where he was received by the President. Jefferson’s manner of receiving guests was well known, although this was the first occasion on which he had given audience to a new foreign minister. Among several accounts of his appearance at such times, that of Senator Plumer was one of the best.
“In a few moments after our arrival,” said the senator, writing two years before Merry’s mishap,[264] “a tall, high-boned man came into the room. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an old brown coat, red waistcoat, old corduroy small-clothes much soiled, woollen hose, and slippers without heels. I thought him a servant, when General Varnum surprised me by announcing that it was the President.”
The “Evening Post,” about a year later, described him as habitually appearing in public “dressed in long boots with tops turned down about the ankles like a Virginia buck; overalls of corduroy faded, by frequent immersions in soap suds, from yellow to a dull white; a red single-breasted waistcoat; a light brown coat with brass buttons, both coat and waistcoat quite threadbare; linen very considerably soiled; hair uncombed and beard unshaven.” In truth the Virginia republicans cared little for dress. “You know that the Virginians have some pride in appearing in simple habiliments,” wrote Joseph Story in regard to Jefferson, “and are willing to rest their claim to attention upon their force of mind and suavity of manners.” Indeed, “Virginia carelessness” was almost a proverb.[265]
On the occasion of Merry’s reception, the President’s chief offence in etiquette consisted in the slippers without heels. No law of the United States or treaty stipulation forbade Jefferson to receive Merry in heelless slippers, or for that matter in bare feet, if he thought proper to do so. Yet Virginia gentlemen did not intentionally mortify their guests; and perhaps Madison would have done better to relieve the President of such a suspicion by notifying Merry beforehand that he would not be expected to wear full dress. In that case the British minister might have complimented Jefferson by himself appearing in slippers without heels.