“The probability of an extensive war on the continent of Europe, strengthening every day for some time past, is now almost certain,” he wrote October 23 to Madison.[67] “This gives us our great desideratum, time. In truth it places us quite at our ease. We are certain of one year of campaigning at least, and one other year of negotiation for their peace arrangements. Should we be now forced into war, it is become much more questionable than it was whether we should not pursue it unembarrassed by any alliance, and free to retire from it whenever we can obtain our separate terms. It gives us time, too, to make another effort for peaceable settlement. Where should this be done? Not at Madrid, certainly. At Paris! through Armstrong, or Armstrong and Monroe as negotiators, France as the mediator, the price of the Floridas as the means. We need not care who gets that, and an enlargement of the sum we had thought of may be the bait to France, while the Guadalupe as the western boundary may be the soother of Spain; providing for our spoliated citizens in some effectual way. We may announce to France that determined not to ask justice of Spain again, yet desirous of making one other effort to preserve peace, we are willing to see whether her interposition can obtain it on terms which we think just; that no delay, however, can be admitted; and that in the mean time should Spain attempt to change the _status quo_, we shall repel force by force, without undertaking other active hostilities till we see what may be the issue of her interference.” A similar letter was sent on the same day to Gallatin; and the next day Jefferson wrote to Robert Smith, suggesting the same idea, with some characteristic additions.[68]