10 President's Address. 



capacity, and the overflowing gentleness and kindness of his 

 Christian character. 



An original portrait of the refugee was long in possession of 

 our family ; it was until recent years hanging at Maxwelton, when 

 it was handed over by my predecessor to the Minet family, as 

 having a deeper interest in it than we could have. The scroll in 

 the hand has on it the words " Eappel de 1' edit." 



I now touch briefly upon the link between our own family and 

 that of the Minets. At the time of the persecution in the 17th cen- 

 tury, to which I have been referring, there was living at Mulhausen, 

 in German Switzerland, a family of the name of Vechter. They 

 were members of the Reformed Church, engaged in manufacture ; 

 and, whether drawn together by business or religion, they became 

 intimate with the French family of Minet. A son of the family, 

 Jeremy Vechter, established a house of business in Rotterdam, 

 and married Mary, daughter of Thomas Minet, eldest brother of 

 Isaac the refugee. Mary's son Peter came over from Rotterdam 

 as a lad in 1739 to be clerk in his great uncle's house at Dover. 

 Isaac's son John had become rector of Eythorne, in East Kent, and 

 an account is preserved of the expenses of his induction in 1723, 

 and of providing him with a horse, saddle, feather bed, and wig ; 

 and also of some Havana snuff, of which he seems to have been 

 fond, The Rector of Eythorne had a daughter Mary, to whom 

 her cousin Peter became attached, and whom, after several refusals 

 on her part, he married. Born in 1724, he survived until 1814. 

 His portrait is at Maxwelton, as also that of his son John Minet 

 Fector, my grandfather. 



And this brings me to another link of the chain which 

 unites the Laurie family with all these ancient worthies. I quote 

 from a copy of the Kentish Register of 1794, which I lately 

 unearthed. " February 18. In London, by special license, John 

 Minet Fector, Esq. of Updown, Kent, eldest son of Peter Fector, 

 Esq.. of Dover, to Miss Laurie, only daughter of Sir Robert Laurie, 

 Bart, of Maxwelton, member for the county of Dumfries." My 

 father's marriage with their daughter, Miss Fector, completes the 

 chain which unites the lines of Bayley (de Bailleul), Fector 

 (Vechter), Minet, and Laurie. The families of both Fector and 

 Laurie are now extinct in the male line, but in the female line they 

 are represented by your humble servant. 



For lack of better material upon which to found my paper, I 



