James Duke of Hamilton was at this period nearly fifty years of age. His youth had been passed in the gay court of Charles the Second, as one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber of that monarch,--an office which he only relinquished to become Ambassador Extraordinary to France, where he remained long enough to serve in two campaigns under Louis the Fourteenth. Upon the death of Charles the Second, Louis recommended the young nobleman, then termed Earl of Arran, strongly and essentially to James the Second, who made him Master of his Wardrobe, and appointed him to other offices. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that in the honest and warm feelings of the Duke of Hamilton, affection for the Stuarts should form a principal feature. He had the courage to adhere firmly to James the Second, amid the general obloquy, and to accompany the monarch on his abdication to his embarkation at Rochester. "I can distinguish," he said, at a meeting of the Scottish nobility in London, over which his father, the Duke of Hamilton presided, "between the King's popery and his person. I dislike the one, but have sworn to do allegiance to the other, which makes it impossible to withhold that which I cannot forbear believing is the King my master's right: for his present absence in France can no more affect my duty, than his longer absence from us has done all this while." Notwithstanding these professions, upon the unfortunate conclusion of the affair of Darien, the Earl of Arran, after twice encountering imprisonment upon account of the Stuarts, esteemed it his duty to his country to take the oaths to King William, in order to qualify himself to sit in Parliament. The character of the Duke of Hamilton presents a favourable specimen of the well-principled and well-intentioned Scotchman, with the acknowledged virtues and obvious defects of the national character. He was disinterested in great matters, refusing many opportunities of worldly advantage, and bearing for the first eight years of his public career, a retirement which is always more galling to an ambitious temper than actual danger; yet, it was supposed, and not without reason, that, whilst his heart was with the Cavaliers, or country party, the considerations of his great estate in England occasioned a lukewarmness in his political conduct, and broke down his opposition to the Union. Wary and cautious, he could thus sacrifice his present hopes of a distinction which his talents would have readily attained, to his adherence to a lost cause; but his resolution failed when the sacrifice of what many might deem inferior interests, was required.