(Vol. vii., p. 285.)
On reference to the Peerages of Sir Harris Nicolas and Wood, I feel no
doubt that the father of Lord Spencer Hamilton, as TEE BEE remarks, was
the fifth Duke of Hamilton, and not the third, as Collins (edition
Brydges) states, who misled me. Perhaps the perplexity, if any, arose
from Anne Duchess of Hamilton, the inheritress of the ducal
honours by virtue of the patent of 1643, after the deaths of her father
and uncle _s. p. m._, having obtained a _life dukedom_ for her husband,
William Earl of Selkirk, and, subsequently to his decease, having
surrendered all her titles in favour of their eldest son, James Earl of
Arran, who was in 1698 made Duke of Hamilton, with the same precedency
of the original creation of 1643, as if he had succeeded thereto.
Sir William Hamilton, the ambassador, married first, Jan. 25, 1752, the
only child of Hugh Barlow, Esq., of Lawrenny in Pembrokeshire, with whom
he got a large estate: she died at Naples, Aug. 25, 1782, and was buried
in Wales. His second lady was Emma Harte, a native of Hawarden in
Flintshire; where her brother, then a bricklayer working for the late
Sir Stephen Glynne, was pointed out to me forty years ago. In Wood's
_Peerage_ it is stated that Sir W. Hamilton's second marriage took place
at London, Sept. 6, 1794: he died in April, 1803, and was buried in
Slebech Church.
I well remember Single-speech Hamilton, who was a fried of the family,
dining with my father when I was a little boy; and I still retain the
impression of his having been a tall and thin old gentleman, very much
out of health. He left a treatise called _Parliamentary Logick_,
published in 1808. The brief memoir of the author prefixed to the work,
makes no mention of him as a member of the House of Hamilton; but it is
said that he derived his name of Gerard from his god-mother Elizabeth,
daughter of Digby, Lord Gerard of Bromley, widow of James, fourth Duke
of Hamilton, who fell in the duel with Lord Mohun, which looks as if
some affinity was recognised. {334} The same authority tells us that
William Gerard Hamilton was the only child of a Scotch advocate, William
Hamilton, by Hannah Hay, one of the sisters of David Bruce, the
Abyssinian traveller; and that he removed to London, and practised with
some reputation at the English bar. Mr. W. G. Hamilton died, unmarried,
in July, 1796, æt. sixty-eight.