John McLean's second volume opens with a journey to Norway House and quickly establishes a pattern of movement between remote posts and the wider world. The table of contents alone signals a work of varied interests: exploring expeditions through Labrador, detailed accounts of the Nascopie and Esquimaux peoples, and a chapter of 'General Remarks' on climate, soil, and animals. McLean writes as a servant of the Hudson's Bay Company, yet his narrative often steps back to assess the land and its inhabitants with a surveyor's eye.

What sets this volume apart is its willingness to engage in polemic. Late in the text, McLean launches into a lengthy rebuttal of an American publication titled 'The Glory and Shame of England,' defending English institutions while acknowledging the 'misery and wretchedness' in British cities. This editorial turn reveals a writer who sees his travel notes as a platform for broader cultural argument.

A Cataract and Its Context

McLean's discovery of a 'stupendous cataract' on the Hamilton River is one of the volume's set pieces. The phrasing is typical of his descriptive style: he favors strong adjectives ('stupendous') but provides little sensory detail, focusing instead on the event's significance as a geographical finding. The expedition up George's River that precedes it is narrated as a series of 'difficulties'—a word that recurs throughout the text. McLean rarely lingers on scenery for its own sake; landscape is usually an obstacle or a resource.

This approach contrasts with the chapter on the climate of Ungava, where he lists facts about the aurora borealis, soil, and vegetable productions in a systematic manner. The two modes—narrative and catalogue—sit side by side, suggesting a writer who values both the story of exploration and the data it yields.

Nascopie and Esquimaux: Observation and Inference

McLean devotes separate chapters to the Nascopies and the Esquimaux, organizing his material under headings such as 'Religion,' 'Manners and Customs,' and 'Dress.' His tone is ethnographic but not neutral: he notes the Nascopie practice of 'community of goods' and the Esquimaux's 'identity of language from Labrador to Behring's Straits,' yet he offers no explicit judgment. The structure itself—a list of traits—implies a desire to classify.

However, the excerpts do not reveal how McLean gathered this information or whether he relied on interpreters. Readers should note that his observations are filtered through his role as a Company servant and his own cultural assumptions. The chapter on 'Esquimaux Half-Breeds' and the Moravian Brethren suggests contact zones where multiple cultures intersect, but McLean's perspective remains that of an outsider.

A Transatlantic Argument

In the volume's later pages, McLean interrupts his travel narrative to respond to an American clergyman's book, 'The Glory and Shame of England.' He accuses the author of 'sacrificing the truth' and 'gratifying his resentment against England.' The passage is remarkable for its directness: McLean quotes the title, names the profession of the writer, and then argues against the idea that redistributing land would solve poverty.

His counter-argument relies on a chain of hypotheticals—'Supposing the whole arable soil of England were divided'—and a defense of the existing social order. He insists that the incomes of the nobility 'flow back into the hands of the merchants, tradesmen, servants.' This section reveals McLean as a conservative polemicist, willing to set aside his travelogue for a sustained political essay. It also shows his awareness of a transatlantic readership: he is writing back to American critics.

Readers approaching this volume should be prepared for a work that shifts between genres: travel journal, natural history, ethnography, and political pamphlet. McLean's voice is that of a Company man who is also a sharp observer of human behavior, whether among the Nascopies or in the streets of London. The volume's value lies not in a single narrative arc but in the juxtaposition of its parts—the cataract and the controversy, the snow-house and the sermon. Pay attention to the moments when McLean steps back from description to argue; they reveal the convictions that shaped his twenty-five years of service.