of James II. he received numerous honours, but he was one of the first to enter into communication with the prince of Orange. He presided over the convention of Edinburgh, summoned at his request, which offered the Scottish crown to William and Mary in March 1689. His death took place at Holyrood on the 18th of April 1694. His wife survived until 1716.
James Douglas, 4th duke of Hamilton (1658–1712), eldest son of the preceding and of Duchess Anne, succeeded his mother, who resigned the dukedom to him in 1698, and at the accession of Queen Anne he was regarded as leader of the Scottish national party. He was an opponent of the union with England, but his lack of decision rendered his political conduct ineffective. He was created duke of Brandon in the peerage of Great Britain in 1711; and on the 15th of November in the following year he fought the celebrated duel with Charles Lord Mohun, narrated in Thackeray’s Esmond, in which both the principals were killed. His son, James (1703–1743), became 5th duke, and his grandson James, 6th duke of Hamilton and Brandon (1724–1758), married the famous beauty, Elizabeth Gunning, afterwards duchess of Argyll. James George, 7th duke (1755–1769), became head of the house of Douglas on the death in 1761 of Archibald, duke of Douglas, whose titles but not his estates then devolved on the duke of Hamilton as heir-male. Archibald’s brother Douglas (1756–1799) was the 8th duke, and when he died childless the titles passed to his uncle Archibald (1740–1819). His son Alexander, 10th duke (1767–1852), who as marquess of Douglas was a great collector and connoisseur of books and pictures (his collections realized £397,562 in 1882), was ambassador at St Petersburg in 1806–1807. His sister, Lady Anne Hamilton, was lady-in-waiting and a faithful friend to Queen Caroline, wife of George IV.; she did not write the Secret History of the Court of England ... (1832) to which her name was attached. William Alexander, 11th duke of Hamilton (1811–1863), married Princess Marie Amélie, daughter of Charles, grand-duke of Baden, and, on her mother’s side, a cousin of Napoleon III. The title of duke of Châtellerault, granted to his remote ancestor in 1548, and claimed at different times by various branches of the Hamilton family, was conferred on the 11th duke’s son, William Alexander, 12th duke of Hamilton (1845–1895), by the emperor of the French in 1864. His sister, Lady Mary Douglas-Hamilton, married in 1869 Albert, prince of Monaco, but their marriage was declared invalid in 1880. She subsequently married Count Tassilo Festetics, a Hungarian noble. The 12th duke left no male issue and was succeeded in 1895 by his kinsman, Alfred Douglas, a descendant of the 4th duke. Claud Hamilton, 1st Baron Paisley, brother of the 1st marquess of Hamilton, was, as mentioned above, ancestor of the Abercorn branch of the Hamiltons. His son, who became earl of Abercorn in 1606, received among a number of other titles that of Lord Hamilton. This title, and also that of Viscount Hamilton, in the peerage of Great Britain, conferred on the 8th earl of Abercorn in 1786, are borne by the dukes of Abercorn, whose eldest son is usually styled by courtesy marquess of Hamilton, a title which was added to the other family honours when the 2nd marquess of Abercorn was raised to the dukedom in 1868.
See John Anderson, The House of Hamilton (1825); Hamilton Papers, ed. J. Bain (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1890–1892); Gilbert Burnet, Lives of James and William, dukes of Hamilton (1677); The Hamilton Papers relative to 1638–1650, ed. S. R. Gardiner for the Camden Society (1880); G. E. C[okayne], Complete Peerage (1887–1898); an article by the Rev. J. Anderson in Sir J. B. Paul’s edition of the Scots Peerage, vol. iv. (1907).
HAMILTON, ALEXANDER (1757–1804), American statesman
and economist, was born, as a British subject, on the island of
Nevis in the West Indies on the 11th of January 1757. He
came of good family on both sides. His father, James Hamilton,
a Scottish merchant of St Christopher, was a younger son of
Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Lanarkshire, by Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir R. Pollock. His mother, Rachael Fawcett
(Faucette), of French Huguenot descent, married when very
young a Danish proprietor of St Croix, John Michael Levine,
with whom she lived unhappily and whom she soon left, subsequently
living with James Hamilton; her husband procured
a divorce in 1759, but the court forbade her remarriage.[1] Such
unions as hers with James Hamilton were long not uncommon
in the West Indies. By her James Hamilton had two sons,
Alexander and James. Business misfortunes having caused
his father’s bankruptcy, and his mother dying in 1768, young
Hamilton was thrown upon the care of maternal relatives at
St Croix, where, in his twelfth year, he entered the counting-house
of Nicholas Cruger. Shortly afterward Mr Cruger, going
abroad, left the boy in charge of the business. The extraordinary
specimens we possess of his mercantile correspondence
and friendly letters, written at this time, attest an astonishing
poise and maturity of mind, and self-conscious ambition. His
opportunities for regular schooling must have been very scant;
but he had cultivated friends who discerned his talents and encouraged
their development, and he early formed the habits of
wide reading and industrious study that were to persist through
his life. An accomplishment later of great service to Hamilton,
common enough in the Antilles, but very rare in the English
continental colonies, was a familiar command of French. In
1772 some friends, impressed by a description by him of the
terrible West Indian hurricane in that year, made it possible
for him to go to New York to complete his education. Arriving
in the autumn of 1772, he prepared for college at Elizabethtown,
N.J., and in 1774 entered King’s College (now Columbia University)
in New York City. His studies, however, were interrupted
by the War of American Independence.
A visit to Boston seems to have thoroughly confirmed the conclusion, to which reason had already led him, that he should cast in his fortunes with the colonists. Into their cause he threw himself with ardour. In 1774–1775 he wrote two influential anonymous pamphlets, which were attributed to John Jay; they show remarkable maturity and controversial ability, and rank high among the political arguments of the time.[2] He organized an artillery company, was awarded its captaincy on examination, won the interest of Nathanael Greene and Washington by the proficiency and bravery he displayed in the campaign of 1776 around New York City, joined Washington’s staff in March 1777 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and during four years served as his private secretary and confidential aide. The important duties with which he was entrusted attest Washington’s entire confidence in his abilities and character; then and afterwards, indeed, reciprocal confidence and respect took the place, in their relations, of personal attachment.[3] But Hamilton was ambitious for military glory—it was an ambition he never lost; he became impatient of detention in what he regarded as a position of unpleasant dependence, and (Feb. 1781) he seized a slight reprimand administered by Washington as an excuse for abandoning his staff position.[4] Later he secured a field command, through Washington, and won laurels at Yorktown, where he led the American column in the
- ↑ These facts were first definitely determined by Mrs Gertrude Atherton from the Danish Archives in Denmark and the West Indies; see article in North American Review, Aug. 1902, vol. 175, p. 229; and preface to her A Few of Hamilton’s Letters (New York, 1903).
- ↑ These were written in answer to the widely read pamphlets published over the nom de plume of “A Westchester Farmer,” and now known to have been written by Samuel Seabury (q.v.). Hamilton’s pamphlets were entitled “A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies,” and “The Farmer Refuted.” Concerning them George Ticknor Curtis (Constitutional History of the United States, i. 274) has said, “There are displayed in these papers a power of reasoning and sarcasm, a knowledge of the principles of government and of the English constitution, and a grasp of the merits of the whole controversy, that would have done honour to any man at any age. To say that they evince precocity of intellect gives no idea of their main characteristics. They show great maturity—a more remarkable maturity than has ever been exhibited by any other person, at so early an age, in the same department of thought.”
- ↑ George Bancroft was the first to point out that there is small evidence that Hamilton ever really appreciated Washington’s great qualities; but on the score of personal and Federalist indebtedness he left explicit recognition.
- ↑ For Hamilton’s letter to General Schuyler on this episode—one of the most important letters, in some ways, that he ever wrote—see the Works, ix. 232 (8: 35).
