Horsburgh, a nephew of the famous Captain Horsburgh of East India Directory fame. During his voyages, he visited the Cape of Good Hope, Isle of France, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Batavia, Hong Kong, Canton, Amoy, Chusan, Woosing and St. Helena, this latter before the removal of the great Bonaparte. After remaining in China a couple of years, he returned home to his father in Ireland in 1845, where he remained studying farming till 1851. During his residence at Lismore, the Smith O’Brien rebellion broke out, and he then made acquaintance with Nicholas O’Gorman, once secretary to the Catholic Emancipation League, under O’Connell, but then a loyal subject; also of Richard O’Gorman, his nephew, one of the Young Irelanders; who had to flee the country in order to escape prosecution for his action in that rebellion. Richard O’Gorman is now a judge in New York. Liebig’s work on agricultural chemistry, then lately published, having caused a great sensation, he turned his attention to the subject, and the Royal Agricultural Society of England having offered a prize open to all the world on the occasion of the International Exhibition of 1851, for the best essay on chemistry applied to agriculture, Mr. Hemming entered the competition and carried off the prize. This essay may be found in the Parliamentary library at Ottawa. While attending the International Exhibition in 1851, he met his cousin, afterwards Judge Dunkin, who prevailed upon him to enter his office in Montreal as a law student, and he commenced his legal studies in the office of Bethune & Dunkin in the fall of that year. Among his fellow students were the Judges Ramsay, and Papineau, and Julius Scriver, the M.P. for Huntingdon; and he also entered the law course of McGill College, and in 1855, took his degree of B.C.L., being first in honours; and in 1871, took his degree of D.C.L. in course. While he was a law student he was elected president of the Law Students’ Society, succeeding the late Judge Ramsay of the Court of Queen’s Bench; Judge Baby, now of the same court, being elected secretary-treasurer. Shortly after, in May, 1855, he was admitted to the bar, and immediately returned to England, where, on the 19th July, 1855, he was married to Sophia Louisa Robinson (a cousin), eldest daughter of the late Thomas Robinson, of London and Norwood, merchant, and returned to Montreal the same year, and commenced practising law in partnership with A. H. Lunn. He was employed by G. W. Wickstead, Q.C., law clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Canada, on behalf of the government, to compile a digested index of all the statute law in force from the conquest to that date, preparatory to a consolidation of the statutes, which work he accomplished to his satisfaction. In 1851, he entered the active militia force by joining the Montreal Light Infantry Battalion as second lieutenant, and served therein for seven years, until he was gazetted out on leaving limits as unattached, retaining his rank of captain.