One of the few ladies to follow their husbands into “the wilderness” at this time was Mrs. Adams. To her belongs the distinction of being the first mistress to grace the President’s house. The house itself was but partially finished, and, though Congress had appropriated $6000 with which to furnish it, but little of the furniture was in place when she arrived. Mrs. Adams, however, seems to have been of a bright and cheerful disposition, for, in her letters to her daughter, she gives a more lenient account of the inconveniences and a more just view of the possibilities of the city than many of the new residents. During the short remaining period of President Adams’s term, Mrs. Adams assisted her husband to receive at many formal dinners and stately functions, and under their combined influence Washington society became as polished and as exclusive as the best in other cities. [Illustration: THE WHITE HOUSE. FROM THE NORTHEAST.] A drawback to the city’s progress lay in the constant agitation for the removal of the capital--an agitation that in no wise abated until in very recent times, when the railroad and the telegraph overcame “remoteness and inaccessibility,” the chief grounds for complaint. The press of New York and Philadelphia united with the Northern members in declaiming against the discomforts of the infant city, and such pressure was brought to bear that in March, 1804, a bill “to remove the seat of government to Baltimore” passed to its second reading in the Senate. However, the “Capital-movers,” as they came to be called, succeeded only in retarding the growth of the city. As a result, at the close of Jefferson’s administration there were but five thousand inhabitants. The North spread the sarcasm that Washington was a city of streets without houses and houses without streets. The ludicrous fame of America’s capital created laughter even in Europe. Foreigners after gazing at the President’s house were said to peer into the woods and inquire ingenuously where the city was. The satire of Tom Moore has been mentioned. Here is his picture of Washington: “In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom, Come, let me lead thee o’er this modern Rome, Where tribunes rule, where duski Davi bow, And what was Goose Creek once is Tiber now. This famed metropolis, where fancy sees Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees; Which travelling fools and gazateers adorn With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn; Tho’ naught but wood and ... they see Where streets should run, and sages ought to be.” With the inauguration ceremonies of President Madison, March 4, 1809, the capital returned from Jeffersonian simplicity to the stateliness and fashion of Washington and Adams. Mrs. Madison, the charming hostess of the White House, revived the stately dinners and formal levees, and a court circle gradually grew up resplendent at balls and assemblies.