The Cadore Letter, issued on August 5, 1810, was one of the major causes of increasing militancy between the United States and Great Britain, leading to the War of 1812 (1812-15). The Cadore Letter derives its name from its author, the duke of Cadore, Jean-Baptiste Nom-pere de Champagny, who was the French minister to the United States at the time. The Cadore Letter was written on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was seeking to extract maximum advantage from the neutral commerce of the United States and to distract Great Britain from its war with France. In the Cadore Letter, Napoleon indicated that he would repeal the Berlin Decree and Milan Decree, which put limits on neutral shipping, if the United States would reimpose a policy of nonintercourse with Great Britain. Even though the letter was a nonofficial piece of correspondence, and as such came with no guarantee that France would stop attacking ships from the United States, President James Madison jumped at the chance to reactivate his policy of nonintercourse (see Non-Intercourse Act) in order to restore his standing in the Democratic-Republican Party. Agreeing to Napoleon’s terms, in a desperate attempt to ease pressure on U. S. trade, Madison reinstated nonintercourse with Great Britain in November 1810.
By December 1810, as the French continually harassed U. S. shipping, it was apparent that France was not living up to the promises of the Cadore Letter. Napoleon deceived the United States in order to put economic pressure on the British. Had the Cadore Letter turned out to be an actual precursor of change in French policy, Madison would not have looked like such a dupe in the eyes of his opponents in the Federalist Party. Federalists in Congress used the Cadore Letter to decry Madison’s presidency. Madison responded by presenting the letter as an example of European corruption. Madison also used the Cadore incident and the failure of nonintercourse with Great Britain to shift his foreign policy onto a war footing, which would lead to the outbreak of conflict with the War of 1812.
See also eoreign aeeairs.
Further reading: Clifford L. Egan, Neither Peace nor War: Franco-American Relations, 1803-12 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983); J. C. A. Stagg, Mr Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early Republic, 1783-1830 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1983).
—Charles E. Russell
World History
