From Harlow Giles Unger's excellent book Henry Clay: America's Greatest Statesman. Love these kinds of historical anecdotes:
[John Quincy] Adams, Clay, and the others had signed the peace treaty with England [ending the War of 1812] on December 24, 1814, and although Clay longed to return home, the President asked him to remain overseas and join Adams and Treasury Secretary Gallatin in London for negotiations scheduled for April of a new commercial treaty with the British. Clay spent the next three months exploring and carousing in Paris and parts of France with American ambassador William H. Crawford, a former Georgia senator. Virginia-born like Clay, Crawford had grown close to Clay while they were members of the Ghent peace commission—often irritating Puritan John Quincy Adams with their raucous all-night drinking bouts. Crawford took pleasure introducing Clay to Paris life—by day and night. Clay met Paris luminaries at the court of Louis XVIII and at fashionable salons.
Far from Denny’s Department store in Richmond, Virginia, the former errand boy displayed the gallantry of Kentucky’s storied land barons by kissing the hand of French writer Madame de Staël, the daughter of the renowned Swiss banker -- statesman Jacques Necker. Clay met her extensive social set, including the Duke of Wellington, by then legendary as victor over Napoléon at Waterloo .
When Madame de Staël told Clay the British had contemplated sending the Duke to America during the War of 1812, Clay tried to be clever. “I am very sorry, Madam, that they did not send his grace. ”
“And why , Sir?” Madame de Staël asked.
“Because if he had beaten us, we should only have been in the condition of all Europe, without disgrace. But if we had been so fortunate as to beat the Duke, we should have added greatly to the renown of our arms.”
Later, when Madame de Staël introduced Wellington to Clay and repeated the American’s remark, the equally glib Wellington had a ready riposte: “If I had been sent on that errand and been so fortunate to be successful against so gallant a foe as the Americans, I should have regarded it as the proudest feather in my cap. ”
