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Rh both sides of the Atlantic, and involve in its effects their highest destinies." This expresses Jefferson's settled view of the nature of the Louisiana crisis, for, more than a year and a half later, January 29, 1804, he wrote Doctor Priestly using almost that identical language, "I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon which was to burst in a tornado; and the public are unapprised how near the catastrophe was. Nothing but a frank and friendly development of causes and effects on our part, and good sense in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable and would change the face of the world, saved us from that storm." A further passage in this letter to Doctor Priestly is interesting and pertinent as it gives Jefferson's view of the situation after the purchase of the whole of Louisiana was effected: "The denouement has been happy; and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievment to the mass of happiness which is to ensue. Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future times, as with this; and did I foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty and the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power."

But to turn back to the year 1802, when Jefferson was giving those burning instructions to Livingston and acquainting Monroe with the tactics to be used for all different forms in which the Louisiana question might present itself, before dispatching him to help at Paris.