ABSTRACT
The belief that Canada was of little economic value to the British empire can be detected behind many of the diplomatic policies James Madison advocated as secretary of state from 1801 to 1809. The Madison administration thus seems to have presumed that the occupation of Canada in 1812 would be sufficient to bring Great Britain to terms. The focus on Madison is justified on the ground that he was, after all, the commander-in-chief and the official most responsible for conceiving a war strategy. Madison's belief that the United States should seize Canada in 1812 emerged from concerns that were broader than the practical problems of enforcing commercial restrictions. In Washington, the administration journal reported that some of the assemblies of the West Indian islands-which had usually been as skeptical as Madison about the claims made for Canada's economic potential-were considering resolutions that they should rely in future on Canadian rather than American timber.
