The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson

By Subject

BRITAIN / IMPRESSMENT OF U.S. SEAMEN

I am in hopes you will have been able to enter into proper arrangements with the British minister for the protection of our seamen from impressments, before the preparations for war shall have produced inconvenience to them. While he regards so minutely the inconveniences to themselves which may result from a due regulation of this practice, it is just he should regard our inconveniences also, from the want of it. His observations in your letter imply merely, that if they should abstain from injuring us, it might be attended with inconvenience to themselves.

to Thomas Pinckney, 16 March 1793