Edinburgh Bookshelf

Kay's Originals Vol. 2

Search

160 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Here he had a wider field for his exertions, both as a temporal and spiritual physician ; but although he readily acquired extensive practice, and was highly esteemed by all belonging to the Connection in that quarter, he remained amongst them only a very few years. Yielding to the repeated solicitations of his friends in London, Dr. Hamilton repaired to the metropolis about the year 1796. Soon after his arrival, he was elected Physician to the London Dispensary- a situation for which he was peculiarly adapted. The conscientious manner in which he discharged his duties, and the solicitude manifested by him for the meanest of his patients, at once endeared him to the Directors of the Institution, and to the poor, by whom his services were principally. required. An instance of the esteem in which he was held is thus related by his biographer :-“ He was mercifully preserved in the haunts of misery and crime. Going one day to visit a poor person in a place noted for both (Petticoat Lane), he was surrounded by a gang of thieves, but was wondrously delivered by a woman screaming from one of the upper windows, ‘ Don’t touch the gentleman ; that’s the good Doctor that saved the life of Mrs. Moses.’ The rogues slunk away in all directions.” Having been some years in London, Dr. Hamilton married for the third time.’ By this union it is understood he obtained a considerable addition to his fortune. His subsequent progress was eminently successful ; but uninterrupted as was his course of usefulness, he was not without his own share of the afflictions which less or more fall to the lot of every one. Several of his sons were in the army. Thomas and William held commissions in a Highland regiment. They served in Egypt, and were present at the unsuccessful attack on Rosetta in 1807. They survived the disaster, having been only slightly wounded ; but shortly after the return of the army to Alexandria, Thomas, the adjutant, was seized with fever, and died in a few days’ illness. The brother, Lieutenant William, returned with his regiment to England, and was for some time stationed in Scotland ; but having negotiated exchange for a Captaincy in the Buffs, then under Wellington in the Peninsula, he repaired thither ; and, after the French had been driven out of Spain, was unfortunately wounded in the south of France, on the 13th of November, when “ foremost of the. brave men who mre pursuing the enemy.” He died on the 29th of the same month. These bereavements were severely felt by Dr. Hamilton j yet he manifested in his conduct that steady bearing and submission to events, nobly characteristic of the Christian. Until extreme old age, he continued in the exercise of his professional and ministerial duties, “dispensing the word of life in several of the most respectable congregations (besides that to which he belonged) in the metropolis.” ‘In B letter to a lady in Scotland, writben in 1826, the Doctor During his residence in Dunbar he was twice married ; first, to a Miss Coutts ; and, secondly, What is perhaps a little singular, a brother of the latter afterwards a Dr. Hamilton’s eldest son, was Colonel James Hamilton, of the Colombian army, South to a Miss Amot from Alnwick. married a daugter of Dr. Haniilton by hia firvt wife. America. Another of his sons, Francis, resided in Kentish-town.
Volume 9 Page 215
  Shrink Shrink   Print Print