nd again in 1820. At
the general election of 1827 he ran for the county of York, to which he
had removed several years before, but was again defeated. This was his
last attempt to become a member of the House of Assembly. His loss of
three elections out of four had certainly been discouraging, and was in
singular contrast to the fortune of his distinguished son, who never
experienced a defeat.

{AS A LAW STUDENT}

Lemuel Wilmot's mother died when he was only eighteen months old, so
that he never knew a mother's love or a mother's care. But his father
early recognized his youthful promise, and gave him all the educational
advantages then available. He became a pupil at the College of New
Brunswick, which was situated in Fredericton, of which the Rev. Dr.
Somerville was the president and sole professor. This college was in
fact merely a grammar school, but Wilmot acquired there some knowledge
of the classics. However, his scholastic career was not prolonged, for
in June, 1825, he entered as a student-at-law with Charles S. Putnam, a
leading barrister of Fredericton. He was admitted an attorney of the
supreme court in July, 1830, and a barrister two years later. He was
then twenty-three years of age.

The men who were contemporaries of Mr. Wilmot as a youth are all dead,
and not many anecdotes of his career as a student have been handed down
to us. Being of an ardent and ambitious disposition, he took a keen
interest in the stirring events that were being enacted around him; for
it was a time of great political excitement, and the business troubles
of the province increased the difficulties of its inhabitants. In 1825,
all the lumbermen in the province were ruined, and the bad management of
the Crown lands office which had added to the business difficulties
became more than a political question, for by cramping its leading
industry it affected the prosperity of every man in New Brunswick. It
was then that young Wilmot resolved to enter upon a political career and
to do what he could to redress the wrongs from which the people were
suffering. Strange to say, at this time he, who afterwards became most
eloquent, had an impediment in his speech, which it took much labour to
overcome. To improve his knowledge of French, he spent some months with
a French family in Madawaska, among the descendants of the ancient
Acadians. In this way he acquired a colloquial knowledge of that
language.

Wilmot's ambition was to become a pu