Twenty-eight years after the “shot heard round the world” at Lexington and Concord, President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 lit a powder keg of his own when first meeting Britain’s newly appointed minister to the United States, Anthony Merry.
Merry understood this to be a formal occasion and, accompanied by Secretary of State James Madison, he appeared at the President’s House in formal attire. He wore a blue dress coat with gold braid, white breeches, silk stockings, ornate buckled shoes, a plumed hat, and a gentlemen’s dress sword.
