127 
study of the classics especially, flourished in a luxuriant growth in 
our English universities, our public schools, and those numerous 
excellent provincial grammar schools, whose foundations date, for 
the most part, from the Reformation. But in the more remote 
districts education, even of the elementary kind, was too often at 
a discount, and, as I have already stated, the instruction of the 
young generally depended for its efficiency upon the clergyman of 
the parish, who thus was wont to augment his scanty stipend, 
which in the majority of cases it seemed an abuse of terms to call 
his “living.” Two of Captain Huddart’s contemporaries, both of 
whom he knew intimately, were Watt, the inventor—I think we 
may call him—of the steam engine, and Rennie, whom I have 
already mentioned. 
Time will scarcely permit me to enumerate the names of the 
various other eminent men who were Captain Huddart’s contempo- 
raries. There is, however, one whose name occurs to me whose 
fame will never die. He was a sailor like himself—I mean the 
immortal Nelson. You are all more or less acquainted with the. 
' history of this noble life. It is the lot of comparatively few men 
to make their mark and to figure as Nelson does in the pages of 
their Nation’s history ; but it is the proud boast of all of us that it 
is alike our privilege and duty to help onward, to the best of our 
skill and judgment, the building up and consolidation of our 
mighty empire, the promotion of the spiritual and material improve- 
ment and well-being of its several peoples, the spread of education, 
the cultivation of the Arts and Sciences. If this somewhat meagre 
account of Captain Huddart’s life should in ever so slight a degree 
stimulate the minds of any of my hearers in this direction, I shall 
feel that my labours have indeed been productive of good and 
substantial results. 
