Alexander Hamilton (1762–1824) was a British linguist who was one of the first Europeans to study the Sanskrit language.
[3] Wilkins remained in England but Hamilton went to France after the Treaty of Amiens (1802) to collate Sanskrit manuscripts held at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
[citation needed] After war broke out between Britain and France in 1803 Hamilton was interned as an enemy alien, but was released to carry on his researches at the insistence of the French scholar Constantine Volney.
Hamilton spend most of his time compiling a catalogue of Indian manuscripts in the library which was published in 1807.
Following the end of the Napoleonic wars many German scholars came to study with him, notably Franz Bopp and August Wilhelm Schlegel.