BELHAVEN AND STENTON, JOHN HAMILTON, 2ND BARON (1656-1708), eldest son of Robert Hamilton, Lord Presmennan (d. 1696), was born on July 5 1656. He succeeded to the title of Belhaven and Stenton in virtue of his wife in 1679. In 168 i he was imprisoned for opposing the government and for speaking slightingly of James, duke of York, in parliament, and in 1689 he was among those who asked William of Orange to undertake the government of Scotland. Belhaven was at the battle of Killiecrankie; he was a member of the Scottish privy council, and he was a director of the Scottish Trading Company, which was formed in 1695 and was responsible for the Darien expedition. He opposed the union of the English and Scottish parliaments, a speech which he delivered against this proposal in Nov. 1706 attracting much notice and a certain amount of ridicule. Later he was imprisoned, ostensibly for favouring a pro jected French invasion, and died in London on June 21 1708. Two of his speeches, one of them the famous one of Nov. 1706, were printed by D. Defoe in an appendix to his History of the Union (1786).