Nor did the Eaton trouble dissipate instantly on the passing of the first Cabinet. The retired members stoutly insisted on every occasion that they had been forced out because of their refusal to coerce their wives to associate with naughty Peggy. After his return to his North Carolina home, Branch, in a voluminous letter, charged all the responsibility for the disruption of the Cabinet to the social issue. Berrien, albeit not only willing but anxious to remain, on his return to Georgia eulogized Jackson at a complimentary dinner in his honor, but added that when he attempted to prescribe rules for the association of the families of his Ministers he scorned the dictation.[323] And Duff Green was so active and persistent in ascribing the upheaval to the Eaton affair that Key was convinced “that that matter had not occasioned the change in the Cabinet.”[324] The gossips of the drawing-rooms, distressed at being deprived of a choice morsel, set their teeth into it with a grim determination to hold on. Mrs. Bayard Smith, as though personally affronted, wrote to a friend: “The papers do not exaggerate, nay do not retail one half his [Jackson’s] imbecilities. He is completely under the domination of Mrs. Eaton, one of the most ambitious, violent, malignant, yet silly women you ever heard of.” And a few days later she returns to the attack: “Mrs. Eaton cannot be forced or persuaded to leave Washington.... She ... believes that next winter the present Cabinet Ministers will open their doors to her. Mrs. McLane has already committed herself on that point. Previous to her going to England, while on a visit here, in direct violation of her most violent asseverations previously made, she visited this lady, and instantly became a great favorite with the President.”[325] However, if Mrs. Eaton lingered, others departed with undignified celerity. As soon as the robes of office fell from his shoulders, Eaton began a search for Ingham to administer a personal chastisement. The latter, who had been peculiarly offensive, and whose own wife was a victim of the gossips, would not fight a duel. He did not care to fight at all. Thus began an amusing chase. Eaton lay in wait for him in the streets, while the dignified ex-Minister of Finance carefully picked his way home through the muddy alleys and back yards into the back door of his house. At length the chase became uncomfortable. A stage-coach was chartered. The Inghams’ baggage was packed. Two hours before daybreak, the coach driver might have been seen lashing his horses through the mud and water of the capital, bearing on their way to Philadelphia the erstwhile Cabinet Minister and his family.