SOURCE: "The Politics of Romance in The History of Emily Montague," in Canadian Literature, Vol. 133, Summer, 1992, pp. 92-108.

In the following essay, Merrett suggests that in The History of Emily Montague Brooke presented a negative view of British colonization of Canada.

The most interesting, because most problematic, claim that Mary Jane Edwards makes in her fine edition of The History of Emily Montague is that Frances Brooke expresses in her novel an "essentially positive view of the potential of the new British colony."¹ This claim is problematic for many contextual and textual reasons.

In the first place, although on March 22, 1769 Brooke dedicated her book to Guy Carleton, the recently appointed governor of Canada, and spoke glowingly of the country's prospects under his governance, her optimism is rendered questionable by her personal experience of the new province and by the frustration of her political wish to affirm the Conquest...