He was one of Robert Burns's intimate friends during his Nithsdale and Dumfries days, noted for his Jacobite links that struck a chord with the poet's own symapthies.

Maxwell made some efforts to practice in Dumfries and then London, however he instead departed to undertake the European 'Grand Tour' but found himself in Paris nearing the pivotal moment of the establishment of the republic and became friends with some of the leaders of the revolutionary movement.

He knew Thomas Paine and had also helped form the radical London Corresponding Society in 1792 and [3] had even advertised a meeting for sympathisers to attend at Great Portland Street to donate funds to the cause.

[7][8][5] He is said to have been so close to the scaffold that he could see the face of the king and heard Abbe Edgeworth say to him Fils de Saint Louis, Montez au Ciel!

[5] His fraught experiences in France taught him the folly of his idealistic beliefs and chastened, he spent some time with family in Aberdeenshire[3] before setting about taking up a career in medicine again in 1794.

[3] Maxwell's mother, Mary, purchased the 32-acre Troqueer Holm Estate on the west bank of the River Nith and lived here with her son until her death in 1805.

[10] He met Burns in Dumfries where he was viewed with some suspicion by the authorities because of his Jacobin associations, but his skills as a doctor mostly overcame these difficulties amongst the populace, but less so with the aristocracy.

[4] For reasons unknown, Maxwell failed to rally to Burns's support in regard to George Thomson's negative unsigned obituary that had appeared in the Glasgow Mercury and the Edinburgh Evening Courant.

[18] Taking over from Dr James Mundell as the family physician in 1794,[8] Maxwell attended Burns during his last illness, diagnosing what were probably the stabbing pains of endocarditis or 'flying gout,' a form of rheumatism, and prescribed "sea-bathing in country quarters and horseriding"; 'cures' which were far from effective and are likely to have hastened his death.

[8] In July 1796, Burns rode the ten miles to the hamlet of Brow where he spent nearly three weeks drinking from the chalybeate well and bathing in the waters of the Solway Firth.

[19] Upon his return to Dumfries, John Syme visited him and was shocked by his condition, writing to Alexander Cunningham that "Dr Maxwell told me yesterday he had no hopes.

"[20] Shortly before his death, the poet presented Maxwell, as previously stated, with his pair of Excise pistols that had been gifted to him by David Blair the gunsmith.