HAMILTON, Robert, an eminent Scottish writer on political economy and finance, was born at Edinburgh in 1743. After an excellent education he entered a bank, where he passed the first years of his youth as a clerk, and thus acquired a practical knowledge of financial affairs, which he afterwards turned to good account. In 1760, however, he changed his views, and, resolving to devote himself to teaching, was made rector of the Perth Academy, and ten years later was promoted to the chair of natural philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1780 he exchanged this chair for the more congenial professorship of mathematics in the same university. For some years before his death in 1829, Hamilton had retired from the active business of his chair, and quitted his privacy only at rare intervals to take part in important affairs concerning the college.
Hamilton published a number of minor pieces, but it
Hamilton was not till the appearance of his Essay on the National Debt in 1813 that he attracted especial attention as a political economist. That work, published under the title of an Inquiry concerning the Rise and Progress, the Redemption and Present State, and the Management of the National Debt of Great Britain, was written with a view to expose the inadequacy of the sinking-fund system, which had been received as an axiom in financial science ever since the days of Pitt. In course of time Hamilton's views, regarded at first with disfavour, came to be known and adopted in other countries of Europe than Great Britain. His other works, such as his Introduction to Merchandise, his essay on War and Peace, exhibit marks of strong common sense, and a vigorous understanding; but as they discuss their subjects solely with reference to the actual state of things and without allusion to the future, their interest has long since died away.