The President was not in Washington when the British minister drove into that “famous city,” as he called it, which “resembles more nearly Hampstead Heath than any other place I ever saw.”[87] Robert Smith apologized for the incivility of leaving him without the usual public recognition, and explained that the risk of fever and the fatigue of four days’ journey made the President extremely unwilling to return before October 1, the day fixed for Jackson’s reception. Indirectly Smith suggested that Jackson might visit the President at Montpelier, or even begin negotiation before being officially received; but the minister replied that he would cheerfully wait. Gallatin wrote to the President, September 11,-- “I do not think that there is any necessity to hurry yourself beyond your convenience in returning here. It will be as well the 10th as the 1st of October, for I am sure, although I have not seen Mr. Jackson and can judge only from what has passed between him and Mr. Smith, that he has nothing to say of importance, or pleasant.”[88] Madison replied, proposing to set out for Washington about the 29th, but agreeing with Gallatin that in view of “Jackson’s apparent patience and reserve,” his disclosures “would not be either operative or agreeable.”[89] Whether Jackson showed patience or activity, he could not avoid giving offence; and perhaps he did wisely to gain all the time he could, even if he gained nothing else. Unlike some of his predecessors, he understood how to make the best of his situation. He found amusement for a month of idleness, even though the month was September and the place was Washington. He took the house which Merry and Erskine had occupied,--a house that stood amid fields looking over Rock Creek to Georgetown: “Erskine had let it go to such a state of ruin and dirt that it will be several weeks before we can attempt to move into it. A Scotchman with an American wife who would be a fine lady, are not the best people to succeed on such an occasion. “It is but justice to say that I have met with nothing but the utmost civility, and with none of those hardships and difficulties of which the Merrys so bitterly complained. The travelling is not worse than much that I have met with before in my life, and the accommodations are better than many I have thought supportable. The expense is about the same as in England, and must be considered most exorbitant when the inferiority of their arrangements to ours and the greater cheapness of provisions are taken into account.”[90]