No evidence he was the husband of Jane Cavan (or anyone else).

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Merchant Adventurer; Merchant Seaman; Sometime Ship's Captain

Fake Genealogy

Contrary to what is claimed by at least one pedigree published by MyHeritage, Captain Alexander Hamilton, here treated, is not the same person as Lord Alexander Hamilton, Lord of Grange. MyHeritage More particulary, Alexander Hamilton, here treated, is not the same person as Alexander Hamilton of Grange whose son James Hamilton was the father of Alexander Hamilton, 1st Secretary of the United States Treasury Stirnet: Hamilton 25

The Question of Identity

The parents of Alexander Hamilton have not been identified. DNB WikiTree However, in view of the claims made by at least one pedigree published by MyHeritagei it should also be said that he is not one of the sons of Sir George Hamilton of Donalong and his wife Mary Butler who are mentioned in the Scots Peerage account of the family. The Scots Peerage I: pp. 52-6

Biographical Account by the Dictionary of National Biography

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (d. 1732): "merchant and author, describes himself as t having a rambling mind and a fortune too narrow to allow him to travel like a gentleman.' He therefore applied himself to the study of nautical affairs,' and having spent his younger days ' in visiting most of the maritime kingdoms of Europe and some parts of Barbary,' and having made a voyage to Jamaica, he went out to the East Indies in 1688, and remained there till 1723. During this time he seems to have followed a life of commercial adventure, sometimes as captain of a ship, sometimes as supercargo, sometimes in a ship of his own, or in one privately owned, sometimes in a ship of one or other of the rival companies, and so to have visited almost every port, from Jeddah in the Red Sea to Amoy in China. His adventures and experiences are told in a most interesting manner in his ( New Account of the East Indies ' (2 vols. 8vo, 1727 ; 2nd edit. 2 vols. 8vo, 1744),a work which, in the charm of its naive simplicity, perfect honesty, with some similarity of subject in its account of the manners and history of people little known, offers a closer parallel to the history of Herodotus than perhaps any other in modern literature. Its historical value must, however, be weighted with his distinct confession that 'these observations have been mostly from the storehouse of my memory, and are the amusements or lucubrations of the nights of two long winters ; ' and again, that ' If I had thought while I was in India of making my observations or remarks public and to have had the honour of presenting them to so noble a patron ' — as the Duke of Hamilton, to whom the work is dedicated — ' I had certainly been more careful and curious in my collections, and of keeping memorandums to have made the work more complete.' As these reminiscences extend over five-andthirty years, they may well be occasionally untrustworthy ; still, as a seaman, we may suppose that he had his journals, or, as a merchant, his trade memoranda, which would to some extent keep him straight. Of his honesty and of his truthfulness, within the limits of his memory and observation, it is impossible to doubt. He returned to England in 1723, seems to have spent a considerable part of 1724 in Holland, presumably settling his business affairs, and the two following years in writing and arranging his 'lucubrations.' He describes himself as having ' brought back a charm that can keep out the meagre devil, poverty, from entering into my house, and so I have got holy Agur's wish in Prov. xxx. 8. A ' Captain Alexander Hamilton' died 7 Oct. 1732 (Gent. Mag. 1732, p. 1030) [Note 1] [The only authority for Hamilton's life is his own book ; there is also some mention of him in Clement Downing's Compendious History of the Indian Wars (1737), pp. 14-25.] J. K. L. [Note 2]Dictionary of National Biography

Note 1: J.K.L. seems uncertain about the identity of the man who died on 7 October 1732. His caution about the date of death is shared by Wikipedia.

Note 2: According to J.K.L., Alexander Hamilton, the subject of his piece in the DNB., was the same person as Captain Alexander Hamilton, a man who was given command of a new frigate (24 guns) which had been launched at Bombay in India. This Alexander Hamilton was evidently appointed Commander in Chief of all the East India Company's Naval Force at Bombay. A Compendious History of the Indian Wars, etc., page 14

Biographical Account by Wikipedia

Alexander Hamilton (before 1688 – after 1733) was a Scottish sea captain, privateer and merchant. He later became commander of the Bombay Marine, in charge of suppressing piracy. In his early years he travelled widely through Europe, the Barbary coast, the West Indies, India and Southeast Asia. On his arrival in Bombay in 1688 he was briefly pressed into the employ of the East India Company in a local war, and then set up as a private country trader, operating from Surat, India. He was appointed commander of the Bombay Marine in June 1717, in which post he suppressed piracy. In 1718, he visited Ayutthaya (present-day Thailand) and his account of his visit there survives. The main extant source of information on Captain Hamilton is his own book, A New Account of the East Indies (1727). The term 'East Indies' then covered a much wider geographic area than it does today – 'most of the countries and islands of commerce and navigation, between the Cape of Good Hope and the island of Japan'. Illustrated with lively anecdotes, it provides a valuable insight into British involvement in and perception of early modern Asia. Confusingly, he used the English name Canton to refer to both the walled city (Guangzhou) and the province (Guangdong), but used Canton more often for the city and Quantung occasionally for the province. Wikipedia

Published Work

1. A New Account of the East Indies, Volume I
2. A New Account of the East Indies, Volume II

Marriage and Children

The biographical accounts published by the Dictionary of National Biography and Wikipedia make no mention of a marriage or children.

Research Notes

Possible (probable) Scottish Covenanter. Maybe left out of family (government and genealogist) records due to being a Covenater (or other reasons).
All Scottish Covenanters Index results for people named "Alexander Hamilton":
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7021/?name=alexander_ha...

(For some reason (or reasons), a lot of information has been left out of "Stirnet", wikitree, "A history of the house of Hamilton" by Lieutenant-Colonel George Hamilton, "The Scots Peerage", the Hamilton DNA Project (which is done independently, but included in the Family Tree DNA website), and other so-called expert sources.)

Captain Alexander wrote this 2-volume set of books in the year 1723 (three hundred years ago). Yet not one of the aforementioned sources stated knowledge of this very interesting source of information. Had one individual on this geni website sending messages to all of the managers of Alexander Hamilton strongly denying his very existence. He then contacted the geni curator who agreed with him.

HAMILTON, Alexander
in the Scottish Covenanters Index

Name HAMILTON, Alexander
Birth Date Abt 1650
Birthplace St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland
Notes ! 23vol5 pg. 640 - of Kinkell! 23vol5

https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/9898:7021?_phsrc=...

Source Information.
Drown, Isabelle McLean, comp.. Scottish Covenanters Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.

Death: 7 OCT 1732
Dictionary of national biography
by Stephen, Leslie, Sir, 1832-1904
https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati25stepuoft/page/133/mod...

Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-22 Alexander Hamilton death 7 OCT 1732
Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-22
Glover - Harriott (Vol 08).

https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/20027187:1981?ssr...

The dictionary of national biography
by Stephen, Leslie, Sir, 1832-1904, ed; Lee, Sidney, Sir, 1859-1926, ed; Davis, H. W. Carless (Henry William Carless), 1874-1928, ed; Weaver, J. R. H. (John Reginald Homer), 1882- ed

Publication date 1921
Topics Smith, George, 1824-1901
Publisher London, Oxford university press
Collection americana
Digitizing sponsor Google
Book from the collections of University of California
Language English
Volume 8
Book digitized by Google from the library of University of California and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

First published 1885-1901, in 66 volumes

Vol. 23 (3 v. in 1) has title: the dictionary of national biography ... Supplement, January 1901-December 1911, edited by Sir Sidney Lee

Vol. 24 has title: The dictionary of national biography ... 1912-1921, edited by H. W. C. Davis an J. R. H. Weaver; with an index covering the years 1901-1921 in one alphabetical series

"Memoir of George Smith": v. 1, p. [xxi]-lix

https://archive.org/details/dictionarynatio02nichgoog/page/1017/mod...

"HAMILTON, ALEXANDER (d. 1732), merchant and author, describes himself as having a rambling mind and a fortune too narrow to allow him to travel like a gentle- man.' He therefore applied himself to the study of nautical affairs,' and having spent his younger days ' in visiting most of the maritime kingdoms of Europe and some parts of Bar- bary,' and having made a voyage to Jamaica, he went out to the East Indies in 1688, and remained there till 1723.

https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati25stepuoft/page/132/mod...

Again, death: 7 OCT 1732.

This Alexander Hamilton (one of many Hamiltons named Alexander) never visited the Americas (contrary to the information below).

    xxxxx     

This family?

Hamilton in the U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s < AncestrySharing > Name: Hamilton
Arrival Year: 1729
Arrival Place: America
Primary Immigrant: Hamilton
Family Members: Wife & Child
Source Publication Code: 1212.8
Annotation: Date and port of arrival. This is a more readable account than that given in no. 1212.11 below. There is much difference in how names are transcribed. See 982.7 above for another version of this voyage.
Source Bibliography: CLINTON, CHARLES. "Journal of the Voyage of Charles Clinton from Ireland to America 1729." In Olde Ulster, vol. 4 (Jan.-Dec. 1908), pp. 175-183.