The Henry Letters were created by a fraudster named John Henry. The letters reflected that the British government operating in Canada had employed him to try to persuade the New England states to leave the United States and join Canada. A bundle of letters was sold to President James Madison for $50,000. The letters were fraudulent, but both the President of the United States and the United States Congress were deceived, increasing tensions with the United Kingdom before the War of 1812.
Famous quotes containing the word letters:
“There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knolwedge, Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)