“The tide has turned completely in our favor. At Washington they are in a state of the most animated confusion, the Cabinet divided, and the Democratic party going various ways.... Their foreign politics embarrass them even more than home ones. One moment they want another embargo; the next, to take off the restrictions; then, to arm their merchantmen; and next, to declare war. In short, they do not know what to be at.... Notwithstanding all that has passed,--which would fill volumes to relate in full,--and the Government being at open war with me, ‘the respectability’ has been both here and at Baltimore so anxious to show that they did not share the sentiments of the Democrats that we have had throngs of visitors and innumerable invitations that we could not accept, though we have dined at home but twice during the month we have been here. To prevent this, the savages have threatened in one of their papers to tar and feather every man who should ask me to his house.”[156] Pleased with his social success at Baltimore and Philadelphia, Jackson found New York and New England fairly delightful. His vogue in Baltimore and Philadelphia meant little more than curiosity to see his wife and her toilettes; but as he approached New England he became a personage in politics, and received attentions such as he could hardly have expected even from those European courts whose civility lingered in his mind. February 25 he wrote from New York:[157]-- “As we get farther north and east, the said Yankees improve very much. New York is a fine town, unlike any other in America, and resembling more the best of our country towns, with the additional advantage of the finest water that can be imagined. There is as much life and bustle as at Liverpool or any other of our great commercial towns; and like them New York has inhabitants who have made and are making rapid and brilliant fortunes by their enterprise and industry.... We have met with unbounded civility and good-will, and may be said to live here in triumph. We are now engaged to dinner every day but two, till the end of the first week in March.... The governor of Massachusetts has written to me to invite me to Boston, where, he says, he and many others will be happy to receive me. That State, which is one of the most populous and enlightened of the States of the Union, and, as you know, is the birthplace of American independence, has done more toward justifying me to the world than it was possible from the nature of things that I or any other person could do in the present stage of the business. The legislature, which is not a mob like many that have passed resolutions, has agreed to a report of a joint committee, and passed resolutions in conformity with it, exculpating me altogether, and in the most direct manner censuring the conduct of the President and of the general government.”