1890-91.] DISCOVERER OF THE GREAT FALLS OF LABRADOR. 339 



tons, deeply laden with fish and oil," and made the passage across the 

 Atlantic, from York Factory in a fortnight ! One would hardly like to 

 venture across Lake Ontario in such a tiny craft, with such a cargo, and 

 so much of it, but, as he declares "the inconveniences weighed lightly in 

 the scales, when compared with the anticipated delight of visiting one's 

 native land." 



Reaching his Highland home on 20th of September, he says, " the 

 meeting of a mother with an only son after so long an absence (twenty- 

 three years) need not be described, nor the feelings, the well-known 

 scenes of youthful sports and youthful joys gave rise to." 



About the middle of January, 1843, he found himself in New York on 

 his way back to the service of the Company, and in proof of his critical 

 faculty and the extent of his reading I quote the following paragraph. 



" As to the peculiar phrases the Americans use in conversation, I am 

 convinced that their forefathers brought the greater part of them from 

 Britain, as many of those phrases are to be found in the works of old 

 English authors still extant. The English language as spoken in 

 America is elegance itself, compared to the provincial dialects of Britain, 

 or even to the vile slang one hears in the streets of London. This is a 

 fact that every one who has travelled in America must admit." 



Elsewhere, he writes of the United States and her citizens in a highly 

 complimentary way, in a way indeed quite unubual among British 

 authors of that period, and for a long time subsequently. 



On his return to Montreal he was ordered to York Factory, where he 

 received an appointment on the Mackenzie River, very much to his 

 disgust. For many years he and Governor Sir George Simpson had not 

 pulled well together, and the correspondence shows that Simpson was 

 actuated by base motives in his treatment of McLean. 



The last post he held was at Great Slave Lake, when he severed his 

 connection with the service in 1845. After this he married a daughter 

 of the Rev. Mr. Evans, a Methodist missionary in the North-West, and 

 inventor of the Cree phonetic character, in which the books in that 

 language are printed. His family as I knew it, consisted of one son, and 

 three beautiful daughters, all of whom are still living. 



I am unable to state what his movements were immediately after his 

 resignation, but in course of time he made his way to Guelph, then a 

 young and flourishing town. Here he remained for some years, and here 

 he certainly was in 1849, as we learn from the preface to his first volume. 



