The Embargo, giving time to the belligerent powers to revise their unjust proceedings and to listen to the dictates of justice, of interest and reputation, which equally urge the correction of their wrongs, has availed our country of the only honorable expedient for avoiding war: and should a repeal of these Edicts supersede the cause for it, our commercial brethren will become sensible that it has consulted their interests, however against their own will. It will be unfortunate for their country if, in the mean time, these, their expressions of impatience, should have the effect of prolonging the very suffering which have produced them, by exciting a fallacious hope that we may, under any pressure, relinquish our equal right of navigating the ocean, go to such ports only as others may prescribe, and there pay the tributary exactions they may impose. . ." --Source: Thomas Jefferson, in a broadside signed to Eliot Brown, Jr., UH digital history, 1808

Which of the following groups would have been most likely to support Jefferson’s views expressed in this excerpt?
A. farmers in the South
B. the Democratic-Republicans
C. merchants in the North
D. the Federalists