"young Gentlemen are at a reasonable rate to be boarded," but tempted further custom with this note: "The family is intirely French, whereby Boarders will have the Advantage to learn that Language most effectually, and with very little Hindrance to their other Studies."
Palmer Smythies, who followed Comarque, established a record for this School by holding the office of master for 50 years. In this time, however, little progress was made, and the number of scholars fell so much that at one period the School was closed. But Smythies was succeeded by an illustrious figure, Dr. Samuel Parr, famed for his wit and wisdom, who in the course of his short term of office restored the prosperity and prestige lost since Dugard's time. Parr was born at Harrow and educated at the great school there, and later at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Returning to be assistant at his old school he became so popular among the boys that there was virtually a rebellion when another man was elected by the governors as headmaster. Parr resigned, and opened his own school at Stanmore before coming to Colchester. He brought with him 24 boys as boarders, and admitted nine more in that year. He closed his entries in the Liber Scholae Colcestriensis with this note :
"Boarders 34
Foundation Boys 7
Oppidans 11
resigned the Mastership of the Colchester School January 1st, 1779."
Parr lived until 1825, and at the time of his death was said to be the only clergyman in England still to smoke in the vestry. It was further alleged that he chose long hymns to afford an opportunity to fortify himself with his pipe before the sermon. He once explained to a friend who discovered him thus occupied, "My people like long hymns, I like a long clay."
A most furiously contested election for the post of master occurred in 1779, when Parr had resigned. Cromwell compares the struggle then to one in which "the object had been that which has so frequently convulsed this ancient borough, the return of its members to Parliament." Of the two candidates, Hewitt of Bristol and Duddell of Coggeshall, Hewitt was supported by the "Church Party," who looked upon Duddell as a "Calvanist." After a long campaign, enlivened by riots and processions, during which "many of the voters were brought from a great distance " for the four days of polling, the result was: For the Rev. Mr. Charles Hewitt, 487; for the Rev. Mr. John Duddell, 470," when the former gentleman was in consequence declared elected."
Upon that note we reach the end of the eighteenth century, for when Hewitt resigned the new century had opened. In the next hundred years the School was to see great changes, and the second great step in the evolution of the modern school. The School in 1800 bore a close resemblance to the School of 1584, not only in that
