A card of invitation was next sent, asking Mr. and Mrs. Merry to dine at the White House, December 2. Such an invitation was in diplomatic usage equivalent to a command, and Merry at once accepted it. The new minister was then told that he must call on the heads of departments. He remonstrated, saying that Liston, his predecessor, had been required to make the first visit only to the Secretary of State; but he was told, in effect, that what had been done under the last Administration was no rule for the present one. Merry acquiesced, and made his calls. These pin-thrusts irritated him; but he was more seriously inconvenienced by the sudden withdrawal of diplomatic privileges by the Senate, although Vice-President Burr took occasion to explain that the Senate’s action was quite unconnected with the President’s “canons of etiquette,” and was in truth due to some indiscretion of Yrujo in the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile the President took an unusual step. When two countries were at war, neutral governments commonly refrained from inviting the representative of one belligerent to meet the representative of the other, unless on formal occasions where the entire diplomatic body was invited, or in crowds where contact was not necessary. Still more rarely were such incongruous guests invited to an entertainment supposed to be given in honor of either individual. No one knew this rule better than Jefferson, who had been himself four years in diplomatic service at Paris, besides being three years Secretary of State to President Washington at Philadelphia. He knew that the last person whom Merry would care to meet was Pichon, the French chargé; yet he not only invited Pichon, but pressed him to attend. The Frenchman, aware that Merry was to be mortified by the etiquette of the dinner, and watching with delight the process by which Jefferson, day after day, took a higher tone toward England, wrote an account of the affair to Talleyrand.[266] He said:—
“I was invited to this dinner. I had learned from the President what was the matter (ce qui en était), when I went to tell him that I was going for some days to Baltimore, where I was called by the affairs of the frigate ‘La Poursuivante.’ The President was so obliging as to urge my return in order to be present with Mme. Pichon at the dinner (Le Président eut l’honnêteté de me presser de revenir pour être au diner). I came back here, although business required a longer stay at Baltimore. Apart from the reason of respect due to the President, I had that of witnessing what might happen (j’avais celle de connaître ce qui se passerait).”
Pichon accordingly hurried back from Baltimore, especially at the President’s request, in order to have the pleasure of seeing Jefferson humiliate his own guest in his own house.
Pichon was gratified by the result. At four o’clock on the afternoon of Dec. 2, 1803, this curious party assembled at the White House,—Mr. and Mrs. Merry, the Marquis Yrujo and his American wife, M. Pichon and his American wife, Mr. and Mrs. Madison, and some other persons whose names were not mentioned. When dinner was announced, the President offered his hand to Mrs. Madison and took her to table, placing her on his right. Mme. Yrujo took her seat on his left.
“Mrs. Merry was placed by Mr. Madison below the Spanish minister, who sat next to Mrs. Madison. With respect to me,” continued the British minister in his account of the affair,[267] “I was proceeding to place myself, though without invitation, next to the wife of the Spanish minister, when a member of the House of Representatives passed quickly by me and took the seat, without Mr. Jefferson’s using any means to prevent it, or taking any care that I might be otherwise placed....
“I will beg leave to intrude a moment longer on your Lordship’s time,” continued Merry’s report, “by adding to this narrative that among the persons (none of those who were of this country were the principal officers of the government except Mr. Madison) whom the President selected for a dinner which was understood to be given to me, was M. Pichon the French chargé d’affaires. I use the word selected, because it could not be considered as a diplomatic dinner, since he omitted to invite to it the Danish chargé d’affaires, who, with the Spanish minister, form the whole body.”
Merry’s report was brief; but Yrujo, who also made an official report to his Government, after mentioning the neglect shown to Merry before dinner, added a remark that explained the situation more exactly:[268]—
“I observed immediately the impression that such a proceeding of the President must have on Mr. and Mrs. Merry; and their resentment could not but be increased at seeing the manifest, and in my opinion studied, preference given by the President throughout to me and my wife over him and Mrs. Merry.”
There the matter might have rested, had not Madison carried the new “canons” beyond the point of endurance. December 6, four days after the dinner at the White House, the British minister was to dine with the Secretary of State. Pichon and Yrujo were again present, and all the Cabinet with their wives. Yrujo’s report described the scene that followed.