Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/230

570 expose the corruptions of the Romish church, and to point out the errors which had crept into its religion as professed in Scotland. Hamilton's gentle demeanour and powerful eloquence soon procured him many followers, and these were every day increasing in number. The Romish ecclesiastics became alarmed at this progress of heresy, and determined to put an immediate stop to it. Not choosing, however, at first to proceed openly against him, Beaton, then archbishop of St Andrews, under pretence of desiring a friendly conference with him on religious matters, invited him to that city, then the head-quarters of the Romish church in Scotland. Deceived by the terms of the invitation, Hamilton repaired to St Andrews. All that Beaton desired was now attained; the young reformer was within his grasp. One Campbell, a prior of the black friars, was employed to confer with him, and to ascertain what his doctrines really were. This duty Campbell performed by means of the most profound treachery. He affected to be persuaded by Hamilton's reasoning, acknowledged that his objections against the Romish religion were well founded, and, in short, seemed a convert to the doctrines of his unsuspecting victim; and thus obtained from him acknowledgments of opinions which brought him immediately under the power of the church. Campbell having from time to time reported the conversations which took place, Hamilton was at length apprehended in the middle of the night, and thrown into prison. On the day after, he was brought before the archbishop and his convention, charged with entertaining sundry heretical opinions, Campbell being his accuser, and as a matter of course being found guilty, was sentenced to be deprived of all dignities, honours, orders, offices, and benefices in the church ; and furthermore, to be delivered over to the secular arm for corporeal punishment, a result which soon followed. On the afternoon of the same day he was hurried to the stake, lest the king should interfere in his behalf. A quantity of timber, coals, and other combustibles having been collected into a pile in the area before the gate of St Salvator's college, the young martyr was bound to a stake in the middle of it. A train of powder had been laid to kindle the fire, but the effect of its explosion was only to add to the victim's sufferings, for it failed to ignite the pile, but scorched his face and hands severely. In this dreadful situation he remained, praying fervently the while, and maintaining his faith with unshaken fortitude, until more powder was brought from the castle. The fire was now kindled, and the intrepid sufferer perished, recommending his soul to his God, and calling upon him to dispel the darkness which overshadowed the land.

The infamous and most active agent in his destruction, Campbell, was soon after Hamilton's death, seized with a remorse of conscience for the part he had acted in bringing about that tragedy, which drove him to distraction, and he died a year after, under the most dreadful apprehensions of eternal wrath.

HAMILTON,, LL.D., a mathematician and political economist, was born in June, 1743. He was the eighth son of Gavin Hamilton, a bookseller and publisher in 'Edinburgh, whose father was at one time professor of divinity in, and afterwards principal of, the university of Edinburgh. In the life of a retired and unobtrusive student, who has hardly ever left his books to engage even in the little warfares of literary controversy, there is seldom much to attract the attention of the ordinary reader : but when perusing the annals of one of the most feverish periods of the history of the world, posterity may show a wish to know something about the man who discovered the fallacy of the cele-