Believed to be born in Scotland about 1676, Hamilton did not talk about his parentage, career, or name in the Old World. At one time he was called Trent, although he returned to his name of Hamilton when Queen Anne came to the throne in 1702. In his address to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1739, he speaks of "liberty, the love of which as it first drew me to, so it constantly prevailed on me to reside in this Province, tho' to the manifest prejudice of my fortune." Hamilton was probably his real name, but, for private reasons, he saw fit to discard it for a time, possibly due to his family's involvement of the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite Rising of 1689.