The first opportunity came when Mr. Merry went with Secretary of State Madison to present his credentials at the White House. The traditional story is that the President received the emissary from his Majesty King George III in his bedroom slippers. Of course there was no rule against such informality. Mr. Jefferson’s indifference to dress was notorious. No slight may have been intended. Yet the British Minister, wearing the full regalia of his office, was made to look somewhat foolish. He not unnaturally assumed that the author of the Declaration of Independence was being deliberately rude. That impression gained support soon thereafter when, at his official dinners, the President abolished the rules of precedence and substituted that of “pêle mêle,” under which the company marched from the drawing room to the dining room in whatever order they found themselves. The system deprived the British Minister of the place to which he felt entitled. It so happened that Mrs. Merry was a lady of fiery temper who rejoiced in the clash of battle. She was more eager than her husband to pick up the gantlet Mr. Jefferson had thrown down. The result of all this was a tempest in official circles in Washington which the critics and enemies of the President rejoiced in and did nothing to allay. Such was the unfriendly relationship between the President and the Merrys when, in July of 1804, following his duel with Hamilton, Colonel Burr appeared as a refugee in Philadelphia. The Merrys were spending the summer there. It was not long before the Colonel, with his unerring eye for singling out malcontents in the prospect of working them into his plans, made a contact with Merry. In a letter to Lord Harrowby, then the British Foreign Secretary, dated August 4, Merry informed his superior of the details of a visit he had just received from Colonel Williamson, an emissary of Burr, whom he described as the “actual Vice-President of the United States (which situation he is about to resign).” On that point Merry was definitely misinformed. Burr, said Merry, had made an offer through Colonel Williamson to lend his assistance to his Majesty’s Government in any manner in which they might think fit to employ him, “particularly in endeavoring to effect a separation of the western part of the United States from that which lies between the Atlantic and the mountains.” Burr’s proposition, said Merry, would be fully detailed to Lord Harrowby by Williamson who was to embark for England within a few days.