74 CAPTAIN ZACHARY G. LAMSON 



pressment was both honorable and patriotic, 

 and it is to the credit of President Jefferson 

 that through his stormy and unfortunate 

 term of service he never wavered in the 

 position he had taken, that the rights of 

 American seamen on the ocean must be 

 respected. If, however, this could not be 

 accomplished by negotiation, President 

 Jefferson was prepared to sacrifice com- 

 merce and have the people of the United 

 States live the simple life of an agricultural 

 community, 1 an idea which, however pleas- 

 ant to a rich planter or farmer, hardly com- 

 mended itself to the inhabitants of sterile 

 New England. 



There was in the question of impress- 



1 "Perhaps to remove as much as possible the occasion 

 of making war, it might be better for us to abandon the 

 ocean altogether, that being the element whereon we shall 

 be exposed to jostle with other nations. This would make 

 us invulnerable to Europe by offering none of our pro- 

 perty to their prize, and would turn all our citizens to the 

 cultivation of the soil. It might be time enough to seek 

 employment for them as seamen, when the land no longer 

 offers it.*' JEFFERSON, Notes on Virginia, vol. iv, p. 20. 



