Jefferson was President for the eight years beginning March 4, 1801. His residence as minister in France from 1785 to 1788 had given him as mentioned leanings which affected all his later views, despite the monstrous excesses of the French Revolution. He had very peculiar ideas of the ocean-carrying trade, mentioning it as: “this protuberant navigation which has kept us in hot water from the commencement of the government.” He would “an’ he could,” have made of America a rural community, apparently not being able to comprehend that man is, by nature, a trader; that trade is the real civilizer and missioner beyond all other endeavors combined. Linked with this was a willingness to submit the country to unparalleled insult and injury in the seizure of ships and impressment of our seamen without taking any efficient or reasonable steps to resist such outrages. The extent of our Government’s submission is well shown by Captain Basil Hall in his most interesting reminiscences as a seaman. Describing his life as a midshipman in the _Leander_, in the middle years of Jefferson’s administration, he says: “Every morning at daybreak during our stay off New York we set about arresting the progress of all vessels we saw, firing off guns to the right and left, to make every ship that was running in heave to, or wait until we had leisure to send a boat on board ‘to see,’ in our lingo, ‘what she was made of.’ I have frequently known a dozen, and sometimes a couple of dozen ships, lying to, a league or two off the port, losing their fair wind, their tide and, worse than all, their market, for many hours, sometimes the whole day, before our search was completed.” A crowning outrage came in 1807 when the frigate _Chesapeake_ flying the broad-pennant of Commodore Samuel Barron was leaving for the Mediterranean. She had been preparing for some time for sea, but finally was hurried off in a state wholly unfit to go suddenly into action with any vessel of moderate force, and certainly not with the much more powerful ship which was about to attack her. This ship, the _Leopard_, of 54 guns, had been lying, along with several other British men-of-war, in Lynnhaven Bay, just within the Capes of the Chesapeake. They were watching for two French frigates then lying off Annapolis. This occupancy, for such a purpose, of our waters, was in itself an insulting abuse of our neutrality, though Jefferson could speak of it as “enjoying our hospitality.”