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Accordingly, when the President invited the two ministers to dine at the White House without their wives, they replied that they could not accept the invitation until after receiving instructions from their Governments. Jefferson regarded this concerted answer as an insult. He too lost his temper so far as to indulge in sharp comments, and thought the matter important enough to call for explanation. In a private letter to Monroe, dated Jan. 8, 1804, he wrote: —


 * "Mr. Merry is with us, and we believe him to be personally as desirable a character as could have been sent us; but he is unluckily associated with one of an opposite character in every point. She has already disturbed our harmony extremely.  He began by claiming the first visit from the national ministers.  He corrected himself in this; but a pretension to take precedence at dinner, etc., over all others is perservered in.  We have told him that the principle of society as well as of government with us is the equality of the individuals composing it; that no man here would come to a dinner where he was to be marked with inferiority to any other; that we might as well attempt to force our principle of equality at St. James's as he his principle of precedence here.  I had been in the habit when I invited female company (having no lady in my family) to ask one of the ladies of the four Secretaries to come and take care of my company,