We are astonished that such an apparently important personality is almost a blank page in books or documents. It is not even on record as to where he died on December 30, 1824, not to talk about the place of his birth. This date of his death is found as an obituary notice in “Gentleman’s Magazine” in England.
As a rule, the importance and the extent of fame of contemporary personalities can be derived from documented references. Does anybody depart from life the way Alexander Hamilton did if he had been such an important personality as late-born “historians” and “Indologists” want to make us believe? Why do they do it? We just cannot accept that Alexander Hamilton was an important personality of his time. In all probability, he is made to be an important personality. But why? What was the necessity? We have to investigate.
As narrated by Helmine de Chézy and Friedrich and Dorothea von SchlegeI Alexander Hamilton was born in a Scottish village. Name unknown. Nothing else is known about his childhood, or anything about his education. They had often been together in Paris, they were friends, in fact, and they had shared a flat and lived as a “commune” for some time. They must have known much more about Alexander Hamilton than they have handed-down to posterity in writing.
Why didn’t they tell us more about him? The most probable explanation is that there was nothing worthwhile narrating about his parents, his childhood, his school days, his upbringing, and his education. He apparently didn’t have a college degree. He doesn’t appear on any Graduate list of the colleges in Great Britain.
The earliest record about him is found in the alphabetical list of all members of the Indian army of 1783. Accordingly, he is recruited as a cadet for the “Bengal Army” in England. The date of his birth is missing, which was not usual. This could be an indication that either his parents died early or that he did not know the exact date of his birth. It is also not known when he comes to Kolkata. This was uncustomary too.
At that time, only a few ships sailed to Kolkata. Usually passenger lists were prepared and filed. Nevertheless, there were passengers and lesser passengers presumably also at that time. He however appears on a list in Kolkata in February 1785 as an ensign of the infantry, the lowest rank of a would be officer in the infantry, and not as a naval officer, as Franz Bopp, Salomon Lefmann, Ernst Windisch (1844–1918) and others have handed-down. Who would like to know how they came to “Naval Officer” and which wishful wrong information they had copied. It was definitely not accidental to vendor wrong information. Naturally, this wrong information is diligently created and spread. Doesn’t “Naval Officer” sound more dignified than an “infantry ensign”? Well!”
This list of February 1785 indicates that Alexander Hamilton arrived in Kolkata not before the 4th quarter of 1784. According to the “Bengal Calendar” on February 22, 1785 and according to the “Calcutta Monthly Register” on March 13, 1785 he joins the infantry. From 1785–1790 he remains a “supernumerary” in the infantry, i.e. the lowest grade in the career to an officer. On February 15, 1790, he becomes permanent: “Ensign Supernumerary to the Establishment, to be brought from the 15th February 1790, on Full Pay and Posted to Corps.”
He couldn’t have been a big shot at that time. His financial means were modest up to February 15, 1790. The “Asiatick Society” was founded on January 15, 1784. It publishes in the first volume of Asiatick Researches a list of all members of the “Asiatick Society” for the first time on January 15, 1789. We shall deal with this Society and all that goes with in later in a separate chapter. On this list he is listed as a lieutenant. How could he be “Lieut. Alexander Hamilton” on January 15, 1789 if he was “Ensign Supernumerary to the Establishment, to be brought from the 15th February 1790, on Full Pay and Posted to Corps?” Is it because an ensign supernumerary was too low in standard for the high honourable society of “colonial scholars” and he was therefore just upgraded?
This list might have tempted Theodor Benfey to promote Alexander Hamilton to a founder member of the “Asiatick Society”. “Founder-members” carry more weight, don’t they? The fact is that he couldn’t be a founder member because he landed in Kolkata approximately a year after the “Asiatick Society” was founded. “Modern historians” and “Indologists” are obviously just carried away to palatability when they narrate and thus becoming swindlers. Who is going to check once it was printed? We know already that celebrities like Arthur Llewellyn Basham didn’t care more about checking before copying former printed products and did not hesitate to tamper documents to transport great visions.
Since 1785, its founder, Sir William Jones, celebrates the “Asiatick Society” at the beginning of every year. He invites all non-Asians in and around Kolkata and those posted elsewhere to his annual “discourses”. He encourages and puts pressure on every “Tom, Dick and Harry” to write field reports. Only non-Asiatic “Tom, Dick and Harry”, of course. He edits and publishes them as learned investigation reports.
Since 1789 the Asiatick Researches comes out annually and are circulated in Great Britain. And from there to the whole of Europe. In none of these volumes is there a mention of Alexander Hamilton. Not to speak about an “enthusiastic Sanskritist” or “Orientalist” Alexander Hamilton. And there is absolutely no indication in later publications that anybody in Kolkata had ever taken notice of Alexander Hamilton. Quite remarkable, isn’t it?
We have taken notice of Alexander Hamilton whilst we rummaged through available documents. On March 4, 1790, Alexander Hamilton submitted an application to the governor general Lord Cornwallis. This application was detected later among Lord Cornwallis’ personal correspondence. We take a note that the application was in the file of personal correspondence. This is the first specimen of the writing quality of Alexander Hamilton. We quote this application here in full:
“My lord.
I beg leave to submit in the most respectful manner to your Lordship’s consideration, a request which I flatter myself will not be deemed unreasonable, when the motives upon which it is founded are considered. A sense of the utility which might be derived from a knowledge of the Sungscrit language, its importance to the political interests of England in this country, and the conviction of that importance discovered by the Court of Directors in their approbation of the ample salary granted to Mr. Wilkins during the crisis of last war to enable him to prosecute that study, as well as in the letter from their Chairman, congratulating that Gentleman on so extraordinary an attainment, encouraged me to engage in a pursuit, where my own inclination was stimulated by so flattering a precedent. The liberal and enlightened policy of the Honble Court could not fail to suggest to them the difficulty of governing a nation, without an intimate acquaintance with its language, religion, laws, manners and customs: and that with respect to the Hindus who constitute the great body of the people, and who from their superiority in mental endowments as well as in industry and number, merit the first consideration, that knowledge is chiefly to be expected from the development of the science contained in their Sacred Language. Whether these, or motives more cogent influenced the Court of Directors I shall not presume to determine; it is sufficient for my purpose to shew by a respectful reference to that document, that it was their wish to encourage the study, and that such a resolution was founded on the wisest principles of policy. A due regard for your Lordship's time will not permit me to encroach on it so far as would be requisite to prove how essentially the knowledge, to which those researches ultimately tend, is connected with the happiness of the subject and the security of property. The importance of the Sungscrit in a political view requires no elucidation, it being the only language universally diffused over