Sam Haselby, a history professor in Lebanon and Egypt, claims it was British officials who first called the colonists "Americans". When the drafters of the "Declaration"—Thomas Jefferson from Virginia, for example, or John Adams from Massachusetts—talked about "my country", they meant Virginia or Massachusetts, respectively. This situation was changed by the Revolution and the impulse toward nationalism. Jefferson, newly elected president in May 1801 wrote, "I am sure the measures I mean to pursue are such as would in their nature be approved by every American who can emerge from preconceived prejudices; as for those who cannot, we must take care of them as of the sick in our hospitals. The medicine of time and fact may cure some of them."