CCXIV.--_To_ MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
[James Hamilton was educated for the ministry in Scotland, but going over to Ireland, he continued for some time to act as steward or agent for his uncle, Lord Claneboy. He commenced his labours as a preacher of the Gospel in 1624, and in the following year was settled at Ballywater, in the county of Down, in which charge, says Robert Blair, "he was painful, successful, and constant, notwithstanding he had many temptations to follow promotion, which he might easily have obtained" (Blair's "Life"). In August 1636, he and several of his brethren in the ministry were deposed by Henry Leslie, Bishop of Down, for refusing to subscribe the canons then imposed on ministers in Ireland. He was one of those who that year embarked for New England, but who were forced to return by the adverse state of the weather. After his coming over to Scotland, he became minister of Dumfries, and subsequently of Edinburgh, where he continued to labour for fifteen years. He was a member of the famous Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638. In March 1644, he and Mr. Weir, minister of Dalserf, were appointed to administer the Solemn League and Covenant in Ireland. On their return to Scotland, falling in with the noted Alaster Macdonnell, the two ministers, with several others (including Hamilton's father-in-law, Mr. Watson, a minister in Ireland), were taken prisoners, and carried to Castle Meagrie, or Mingarry, on the coast of Ardnamurchan, where they suffered incredible hardships, which brought Mr. Weir and Mr. Watson to their graves. Hamilton was liberated in May 1645, after an imprisonment of ten months. In August 1651, when the Committee of Estates and of the General Assembly, of which he was a member, were sitting at Alyth, they were apprehended by a party of horse sent out by Monk, and were shipped for the Tower of London, where Hamilton was kept two years. Continuing faithful to the principles, he was ejected from his charge in 1662, upon which he retired to Inveresk, and died on the 10th of March 1666. "He was naturally of an excellent temperament both of body and mind; always industrious and facetious in all the several provinces and scenes of his life; he was delightful to his friends and acquaintances, yea beloved of his enemies; he was bold for truth, and tenacious in everything of moment, though naturally, and in his own things, among the mildest of men; rich in learning, intelligent, judicious, he was great in esteem with the greatest and wisest" (Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland"). Blair, in his "Life" (p. 136, Wodrow Edit.), mentions another James Hamilton, minister, first at Killileagh, in Ireland, and then at Ballantrae, in Scotland. Blair's first wife was sister to the wife of this James Hamilton of Killileagh, and her name was Catherine Montgomery of Busby.]