5171. MERRY (A.), Social claims of.—
Mr. Merry is with us, and we believe him to
be personally as desirable a character as could
have been sent us. But he is unluckily associated
with one of an opposite in every point.
She has already disturbed our harmony extremely.
He began by claiming the first visit
from the national ministers. He corrected himself
in this. But a pretension to take precedence
at dinners, &c., over all others is persevered in.
We have told him that the principle of society,
as well as of government, with us, is the equality
of the individuals composing it; that no
man here would come to a dinner, where he
was to be marked with inferiority to any other;
that we might as well attempt to force our
principle of equality at St. James's as he his
principle of precedence here. I had been in
the habit, when I invited female company
(having no lady in my family) to ask one of
the ladies of the four Secretaries to come and
take care of my company; and as she was to
do the honors of the table I handed her to
dinner myself. That Mr. Merry might not
construe this as giving them a precedence over
Mrs. Merry, I have discontinued it. And here,
as well as in private houses, the pele-mele practice
is adhered to. They have got Yrujo to
take a zealous part in the claim of precedence.
It has excited generally emotions of great contempt
and indignation (in which the members
of the Legislature participate sensibly), that
the agents of foreign nations should assume to
dictate to us what shall be the laws of our
society. The consequence will be that Mr.
and Mrs. Merry will put themselves into Coventry,
and that he will lose the best half of
his usefulness to his nation, that derived from
a perfectly familiar and private intercourse
with the Secretaries and myself. The latter, be
assured, is a virago, and in the short course of
a few weeks has established a degree of dislike
among all classes which one would have
thought impossible in so short a time. Thornton
has entered into their ideas. At this we
wonder, because he is a plain man, a sensible
one, and too candid to be suspected of wishing
to bring on their recall, and his own substitution.
To counterwork their misrepresentations,
it would be as well their government should un
derstand as much of these things as can be
communicated with decency, that they May
know the spirit in which their letters are written.—
To James Monroe.
Ford ed., viii, 290.
(W.
Jan. 1804)
