Unfriendliness began with the new century, when Jefferson
first came into power. He treated the British navigation
laws as if they had been invented on purpose to wrong
Americans, though they had been in force for a hundred
and fifty years, and though they had been originally
passed, at the zenith of Cromwell's career, by the only
republican government that ever held sway in England.
Jefferson said that British policy was so perverse, that
when he wished to forecast the British line of action on
any particular point he would first consider what it
ought to be and then infer the opposite. His official
opinion was written in the following words: 'It is not
to the moderation or justice of others we are to trust
for fair and equal access to market with our productions,
or for our due share in the transportation of them; but
to our own means of independence, and the firm will to
use them.' On the subject of impressment, or 'Sailors'
Rights,' he was clearer still: 'The simplest rule will
be that the vessel being American shall be evidence that
the seamen on board of her are such.' This would have
prevented the impressment of British seamen, even in
British harbours, if they were under the American merchant
flag--a principle almost as preposterous, at that particular
time, as Jefferson's suggestion that the whole Gulf Stream
should be claimed 'as of our waters.'

If Jefferson had been backed by a united public, or if
his actions had been suited to his words, war would have
certainly broken out during his second presidential term,
which lasted from 1805 to 1809. But he was a party man,