sent by Amherst from Batavia. Henry (afterwards Sir Henry) Ellis, an attaché of the embassy, who returned in the Ternate, wrote in his journal: ‘Participation of privation and equal distribution of comfort had lightened the weight of suffering to all, and I found the universal sentiment to be an enthusiastic admiration of the temper, energy, and arrangements of Captain Maxwell. … His look was confidence, and his orders were felt to be security.’ At Batavia a ship was chartered to convey to England both the embassy and the officers and ship's company of the Alceste. Touching at St. Helena, Maxwell was presented to Napoleon, who referred to the capture of the Pomone. ‘Your government,’ he said, ‘must not blame you for the loss of the Alceste, for you took one of my frigates.’ (The Alceste was also one of his frigates; she had been captured by Sir Samuel Hood off Rochefort on 25 Sept. 1806.) On his arrival in England in August 1817 Maxwell was tried by court-martial, and not only ‘most fully acquitted,’ but specially complimented for ‘the most zealous and officer-like manner’ in which he had conducted himself in the difficult and intricate navigation, and for ‘his coolness, self-collection,’ and exertions after the ship struck. Lord Amherst appeared as a witness in his behalf. On 27 May 1818 Maxwell was knighted. He was elected F.R.S., 18 Feb. 1819, and on 20 May 1819 was presented by the East India Company with 1,500l. in reward of the services rendered by him to the embassy and in compensation for the loss he had sustained in the wreck.
In 1821–2 he was captain of the Bulwark, bearing the flag of Sir Benjamin Hallowell (afterwards Carew) at Chatham, and in 1823 of the Briton on the South American station. In May 1831 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Prince Edward's Island, and was preparing for his departure when he died suddenly on 26 June 1831.
He married about 1798 Grace Callander, daughter of Colonel Waugh of the 57th regiment, and had issue a daughter and one son, John Balfour, who died an admiral on the retired list in 1874. The latter possessed a portrait of Sir Murray by Martin Cregan.
Of Maxwell's six brothers three were in the army, two in the navy. Of these last, John, a captain of 1810, died in command of the Aurora frigate in 1826. Keith, born about 1774, a lieutenant of 1794, was specially promoted to be commander in 1801 for his brilliant and successful gallantry in cutting out the French 20-gun corvette Chevrette from under the batteries of Camaret Bay, on the night of 21–2 July (James, iii. 138; Troude, iii. 255). He was promoted to be captain in 1804, and died in 1823.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. iv. (vol. ii. pt. ii.) 797, 884, and vi. (Suppl. pt. ii.) 94; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict. s.n. ‘Maxwell, John Balfour;’ James's Naval Hist. (edit. of 1860); Ellis's Journ. of the Proceedings of the late Embassy to China (1817); McLeod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M. late ship Alceste (1817), with a portrait of Maxwell. The story of the loss of the Alceste is popularly told in Maria Hack's Winter Evenings, or Tales of Travellers.]
MAXWELL, ROBERT, fifth LORD MAXWELL (d. 1546), was descended from a family which, probably originally from England, settled in Scotland at Maccuswell or Maxwell, on the Tweed, near Kelso, in or before the reign of David I. Ewen Maccuswel of Caerlaverock, Dumfriesshire, assisted Malcolm Canmore at the siege of Alnwick in 1093, and it is with Dumfriesshire and Galloway that the subsequent history of the Maxwells is chiefly associated. Sir Herbert Maxwell won special renown for his defence of the castle of Caerlaverock against the army of Edward I in 1300, and in the subsequent wars its possession was frequently in dispute. The lordship of Maxwell dates from about 1428. The fifth lord was the eldest son of John, fourth lord, killed at Flodden, 9 Sept. 1513, his mother being Agnes, daughter of Sir Alexander Stewart of Garlies, ancestor of the Earls of Galloway. He was returned heir to his father on 4 Nov. 1513. At the time of Flodden he was admiral of a fleet, which it was proposed to send to France, but which on the voyage was driven back, and arrived at Kirkcudbright on the day after the battle. Maxwell immediately afterwards seized Lochmaben; and on 26 Nov. he was appointed captain and keeper of Thrieve. On the forfeiture of Lord Home in 1516 he acquired part of his lands, and in the following year was made warden of the west marches.
After the return of the Earl of Angus, husband of the queen, to Scotland, Maxwell became one of the queen's party. He was concerned in the removal of the young king from Stirling to Edinburgh, 26 July 1524; was on 18 Aug. made lord provost of Edinburgh; took part in the scheme for the king's nominal assumption of the government in November, with the advice of his mother; and was one of the council appointed to assist her in the government. The queen's divorce from Angus changed the attitude of Maxwell as well as other nobles towards her; and on the king attaining his majority, fourteen years, 21 June 1526, Maxwell became one of the council appointed to assist
