ABSTRACT
In the 1670s, Elie Bouhereau's network widened to include some 27 Protestant ministers serving churches on the west coast, some but not all of whose letters survive. It is probable that they first met at the regional synods, which Bouhereau attended in his capacity as an elder of the Reformed Church in La Rochelle, and they made a point of keeping in contact with him despite the many demands of their calling. Against a backdrop of escalating oppression in the 1680s that was particularly aggressive on the west coast, Bouhereau faced a crisis of his own. Providence may well have been working in the background, but west coast connections engineered Bouhereau's arrival in England in January 1686 and thence to Ireland 11 years later. Both his talents and his connections made it possible for him to become again, what he had always wanted to be, namely a professional man of letters.
