Evidently this deference pleased the British minister, who saw nothing behind it but a social triumph for himself and his wife; yet he had already been forced to protest against the ceremonial forms with which Madison studiously surrounded him, and had he read Shakspeare rather than Erskine’s writings, he might have learned from Julius Cæsar the general diplomatic law that “when love begins to sicken and decay, it useth ever an enforced ceremony.” A man of tact would have seen that from the moment Madison became formal he was dangerous. The dinner of October 23 at the White House came at a moment when Jackson had been so carefully handled and so effectually disarmed as to stand at Madison’s mercy; and although he was allowed to please himself by taking Mrs. Madison to dinner, the “mean-looking little man” at the head of the table, was engaged only in thinking by what stroke the British minister’s official life should be most quickly and quietly ended. Jackson’s interviews with Robert Smith began immediately after the President’s arrival in Washington. The first conversation was reported by the British minister to his Government in language so lifelike, but showing such astonishment on both sides at the attitude of each, as to give it place among the most natural sketches in American diplomatic history. After some fencing on the subject of Erskine’s responsibility, Jackson passed to the subject of his own instructions, and remarked that he was ordered to wait for propositions from the President. “Here the American minister,” reported Jackson,[91] “exhibited signs of the utmost surprise and disappointment. He seemed to be so little prepared for this close of my conversation that he was some time before he could recollect himself sufficiently to give me any answer at all. Expecting to meet suggestions of a totally different nature, and finding that what he had ready to say to them did not suit the occasion, he seemed to require some time and reflection to new arrange his thoughts. Accordingly a considerable pause in our conversation took place, which at length he broke in upon by saying: ‘Then, sir, you have no proposal to make to us,--no explanation to give? How shall we be able to get rid of the Non-intercourse Act?’”