Mr. William Baxter was not slow to observe that a new era was commencing in the history of flax-spinning. Many failures attended the first attempts to establish the new machinery in Scotland, but at length the difficulties were overcome, and in 1822 Mr. Baxter judged that the time had come when spinning could be profitably carried on on a larger scale than had ever been tried. In that year he and his eldest son erected a spinning-mill of fifteen horse-power at Lower Dens, near Dundee, and established the firm of William Baxter and Son. The enterprise was successful. Some years afterwards, Mr. Baxter took other sons into partnership, and the celebrated firm of Baxter Brothers and Co., was formed. In 1836 power-loom weaving was made a department of the business, and Messrs. Baxter Brothers and Co. became the largest power-loom linen weavers in Scotland, if not in the world. The late Sir David Baxter, of Kilmaron, Baronet, one of the sons of the founder of this firm, and long the senior partner in it, was well known and will be long remembered for his munificent charities as well as his private worth. One of his many princely gifts was the noble park which he presented to the town of Dundee, and which now bears his name. On the 9th September, 1863, this park was opened to the public at a total cost of somewhere about £50,000. A pavilion in the centre of it contains a statue of the donor by Sir John Steel, on the pedestal of which is the following inscription : "This statue of Sir DAVID BAXTER, of Kilmaron, was erected by 16,731 subscribers, in grateful acknowledgment of the gift of this Park to the people of Dundee by him and his sisters Miss ELEANOR and Miss MARY ANN BAXTER ; and, in affectionate remembrance of their late father, William Baxter, Esq., of Balgavies, they desire that his name be associated with the gift, A.D. 1863." Sir David Baxter's gifts to the Scottish Universities and to other educational and charitable institutions are too numerous to mention. Mr. William Edward Baxter, the subject of the present memoir, is the son of the late Edward Baxter, Esq., of Kincaldrum, elder brother of Sir David Baxter. His mother was a daughter of the late William Wilson, Esq., of Dundee. Born in 1825, he was educated at the High School of Dundee, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh. He married in 1847 Janet, the eldest daughter of J. Home Scott, Esq., of Dundee.* The political condition of Europe at the time when Mr. Baxter entered It is only fair to state that Mr. Edward Baxter was a Liberal at a time when Liberalism was at a discount, and it was no small gratification to him to find his son following in his footsteps. He was one of those export merchants whom De Quincey describes when he says, "My father was a merchant; not in the sense of Scotland; there it means a retail dealer; one, for instance, who sells groceries in a cellar; but in the English sense, a sense rigorously exclusive; that is, he was a man engaged in foreign commerce, and no other; therefore, in wholesale commerce, and no other-which last limitation of the idea is important." on his manhood was one that could not fail to excite serious thoughts in a mind so observant as his. From one end of the continent to the other enslaved and oppressed populations were rising against the tyrants who ruled them. Revolt and bloodshed were rife in every land. Even in our own fortunate and free country the wide-spread discontent of the populace was with difficulty prevented from breaking out into armed hostility to the government. Mr. Baxter travelled over a great part of Europe during the year 1849, and on his return he published an account of his tour under the title "Impressions of Central and Southern Europe: being Notes of Successive Journies in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and the Levant." We remember being much struck, when reading this volume many years ago, with its fresh and unhackneyed sketches of the social condition of the various countries it deals with, and with the suggestiveness of Mr. Baxter's remarks on the industries of the continent. A re-perusal of the book has added greatly to our estimate of its value in this respect, and has led us to form a very high opinion of Mr. Baxter as a political thinker. His faith in the future of Constitutional Liberalism never He knows that every Despotism contains within itself the seeds of dissolution, and that right will infallibly become might as the years roll on. Here is a quotation from a chapter on Lombardy which requires no comment in the year 1876. The quarter of a century which has passed since it was penned has amply justified the views expressed in it. wavers. "The peace of Europe is commonly dated from the day on which the Treaty of Vienna was ratified by the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the stipulating Powers. All looked upon that agreement founded on the wise theories of such diplomatists as Prince Metternich and Lord Castlereagh, as a guarantee for continued tranquillity; they witnessed kingdoms formed on the most politic principles, and firmly trusted that so wise a distribution would end all strife. "In many instances the Congress did act prudently; but they studied too closely the interests of princes to be always right. One main object they had in view was to adjust a balance of power; for its security, the feelings of the people were in some instances not sufficiently accounted of. They overlooked national peculiarities, the differences of race, the varied institutions of provinces, to create a sort of royal road to territorial equality. One great principle seems to have been sadly undervalued, viz. that permanent peace can never be secured as long as populous and wealthy states are governed by foreigners. But, perhaps, we judge too harshly; it may be that these European portioners, at least in the case of Venetian Lombardy, succumbed to a hard necessity, and made a virtue of what they could not help. "On these plains, contending armies had fought once and again. The Austrians had debouched from the passes of the Tyrol to meet Napoleon at Marengo and Lodi. Every village among the vineyards had been the scene of some exploit; and foreigners had so long held the strongholds that they regarded them as their own, deaf to the claims of Italian liberty. The country must belong to the Gaul or to the German, and when Waterloo humbled the former, the latter without scruple hoisted the double eagle of Hapsburg on the citadel of Milan. Thus did the wars of emperors enslave a neutral territory. 'Force first made conquest, And that conquest law.' The Austrian "The arrangement was unnatural, as time has shown. empire is as clearly bounded by the Bellunese Alps as is Great Britain by the German sea. As soon as you emerge from the deep ravine of the Adige into the great Italian plain, or cross from the upper Engadine to the Baths of Bormio, another language meets your ear, new manners and customs attract your eye. The Hollanders do not differ more from the sprightly French, than do the inhabitants of Venice, Verona, and Milan, from the mountaineers of the Tyrol. The former are as good Italians as the children of St. Peter; their complexion, their gait, and, above all, their eye, betray their origin to the first glance of the stranger. That these men should be ruled by German functionaries is an anomaly in the arrangements of the contracting Powers. "These Italians are in every respect a conquered people. They have not amalgamated with their rulers, as did the descendants of Harold and William the Conqueror in England. Restless, discontented, sullen, unhappy, and (we add emphatically) trampled on, they have been since Austria entered upon possession. It is our firm opinion that the case will thus remain till new arrangements have been entered into, and not a German soldier remains on this side the Tagliamento to recall the memories of the past." Mr. Baxte has no high opinion of German rule, nor of the Prussian system of education; but he sympathized cordially with the Hungarians in their struggle with Austria, and with the Italians in their aspirations after liberty. He condemned the French intervention in favour of the Pope, laying down, with a clearness and firmness to which he has consistently adhered during his whole subsequent career as a politician, the grand principle that priestly domination is the worst of all despotisms. "Whatever virtues," he says, "the Popes may have possessed-and, certes, few of them would be recognised by Christianity's Founder,-no government acts so prejudicially upon the best interests of a nation as that of priests. We should prefer as rulers the Russian Czar, or the * It is to be remembered that the Czar referred to is not the present one. |