I welcome this opportunity to respond to Douglas Hunter’s review of A Fleeting Empire: Early Stuart Britain and the Merchant Adventurers to Canada and begin by noting a point of agreement. I concur in his assertion that the growing influence of the Dutch on the Hudson River and Manhattan Island was an issue of wider importance, both strategically and in the context of the fur trade, than I have explicitly stated. In a different study that pursued a broader conceptual framework, I would have analyzed that theme. I do not ignore it completely but instead, via citations, refer readers to secondary material. For the principal British players within this study, however, the Dutch initiatives he refers to were of little direct importance. Cited correspondence demonstrates this.
I disagree entirely with Hunter’s dismissive view of the central aims of the book. As is stated clearly in the introduction, the intention here was to explore what has customarily been treated as a footnote to early Canadian history and its traditional narrative that features French enterprises from the perspective of British interests. This requires both domestic context and the introduction of a variety of individuals who are central to understanding the unfolding narrative. Given that, he should hardly be surprised that much of my analysis rests on those antecedents, and that much of the action takes place on “the other side” of the Atlantic. He is good enough to acknowledge that I expand our knowledge of the likes of Sir William Alexander (the pivotal figure in the story) and Lord Ochiltree. However, he clearly has scant interest in that dimension of the book, and chooses instead to focus on points of detail that would have added little to the study as defined. Addressing them would not have changed my major assertions or analysis.
The role that Charles I and the dynamics of his court played in drawing the Kirke brothers and their backers, and Sir William Alexander and his, together in late 1628 and early 1629, is clear from a variety of sources. These included supplications to the king, interventions from his key advisors and direct contemporary references to his interest. Furthermore, these, and the actions that his agents pursued on the St. Lawrence, on Cape Breton Island and in Nova Scotia, confirmed the need to coordinate efforts, in no small measure because they knew the French were preparing military responses of their own, throughout the theatre, for the spring of 1629. Hunter desires a smoking gun. I would counter that the work demonstrates a series of dots that I have tried to connect persuasively. I hope that interested readers will judge for themselves.
