Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/259



HAMILTON, (, British ambassador at the court of Naples, and celebrated for his patronage of the fine arts, and his investigations on the subject of volcanoes, was born in 1730. Neither biographers nor contemporary periodical writers have furnished any account of his education or early habits; all that is commemorated regarding him previous to the commencement of his public life, is^ that his family, a branch of the noble house of Hamilton, was in very reduced circumstances. He was in the most difficult of all situations poor, highborn, and a Scotsman. "I was condemned," to use his own words, " to make my way in the world, with an illustrious name and a thousand pounds." Like many of his countrymen so situated, he had a choice betwixt semi-starvation in the army, and an affluent marriage he prudently preferred the latter; and in 1755 he found himself most happily settled in life, with a young lady of beauty, connexions, amiable qualifications, and 5000 a-year. It is very probable that Mr Hamilton spent his hours in philosophical ease, until his acquisition of that situation in which he afterwards distinguished himself. In 1764, he was appointed ambassador to the court of Naples, where he continued till the year 1800. If his appointment as a resident ambassador for so long a period, is to be considered as but a method of expressing in more consequential terms the employment of an agent for advancing the study of the arts, the person was well chosen for the purpose, and the interests of the public were well attended to; but if Mr Hamilton's claims to national respect are to be judged by his merely diplomatic duties, the debt, in addition to the salary he received, will be very small. The reason why a permanent representative of the British government should have been found requisite in Sicily, is in reality one of those circumstances which a diplomatist only could explain. The fame acquired in other departments by the subject of our memoir, has prompted his biographers to drag to light his diplomatic exertions, yet, although nothing has been discovered which can throw a blot on his good name, the amount of service performed in thirty-six years is truly ludicrous. He entered into explanations with the marquis Tanucci, first minister of Sicily, regarding some improper expressions used by a gentleman of the press of the name of Torcia, in his "Political Sketch of Europe." He managed to keep his Sicilian majesty neuter during the American war. He acted with prudence during the family misunderstandings between Spain and Naples in 1784; and finally, he exerted himself in preventing any mischief from being perpetrated by "an eccentric