Member of the Sons of Liberty, and took part in the famous Boston tea-party. He later became secretary of the Massachusetts board of war, and was elected a member of the legislature.
Swan House
Colonel James Swan was a native of Scotland, who came to Boston in his boyhood. He was one of the Tea Party in 1773 and fought at Bunker Hill. He was Secretary of War for Massachusetts in 1777 and afterward adjutant-general of the state. Hepzibah Swan was one of the Mt. Vernon Proprietors, a group that developed part of Beacon Hill in Boston.
In the late 1780s, oppressed with heavy debts, Colonel Swan went to Paris with letters of introduction to Lafayette and other prominent men and eventually worked his way into a partnership in the firm of Dallarde, Swan et Compagnie, one of the firms that furnished supplies to the new French government after the French Revolution. When a business partner filed suit against him in 1808, Swan chose to go to a high-class debtor?s prison at St. Pelagie instead of settling the claim. He stayed there for 22 years and died in 1831, just one year after his release. Hepzibah had lived in the house in Dorchester until her death in 1825.
Letter of James Swan to Henry Knox
Date: 22 June 1788
Summary of Content: Swan writes from Brighthelmstone, possibly Brighton, England. Remarks, "There is a coldness and indifference - so far distant from your Letters when I was at home, that chills my heart & forces a discharge, very involuntary of the warmth with which it is animated in love of you and your family." The Knox's were friends with Hepzibah Swan, James's wife, who remained in America when he left for France.
Letter
Jas. Swan, My dear Sir Rouen 29th. March 1788., Enclosed I send you a copy of mine of the 17 Ulto. Since then I have nothing to write you about, but to mention the manner I spend my time & judging that you will be anxious to hear of my agreeable situation, which would [realy] be so were my family with me. Upon my first arriving here, & for a week after, I was employed constantly in writing. Having made some visits - I cast my thots on visiting the Manufactures - but was rejected, without a recommendation from some person well known. I thot it best to go to the fountain & not trouble the merchants to whom I was recommended, & wrote to Mr. Mistral, the Intendant General of the Marine in Normandy, to [inserted: whom] I was recommended by Marqs. Vandeuil, and he wrote to the Commy. of Marine here, who at once made me known to the Trade of Manufactures - From both I have recd. great attention, & from the public officers also. I have pointed [inserted: out] demonstratively, those things which prevent the Manufrs. here from selling in America, and whenever orders for Goods are sent, or a Trade with this Province is opened I presume they'l [sic] be attended to. What renders me more acceptable, & more attended to. I have refused, tho' frequently asked, to give the name of one House in America who may safely be trusted, and I decline all offers of business myself. The reason why the French in this Quarter, have not been able to sell their Manufrs. as low as the English, I saw in a moment, there is not that invention & care used as in Great Britain, to save labour. People being plenty they continue to employ them, because they have done it for a long time. Two instances need only be mentioned [inserted: in] which I have had influence [inserted: which I saw] at [inserted: a] Mr. Quarnell's printing linen [marrill] factory ay Neratol, about 3 miles from this. At the Callendar or glaring mill, four men were labouring hard, at turning the rollers, which I proposed to affect by one boy, who being placed [2] placed in the inner side of a large wheel, in which there must be steps. his attempting to march up the steps will turn the wheel & operate with more ease & go constantly. Another eight men with eight battons or light mauling sticks were [strikeout] frapping wet linen to bleach it. I proposed on the same water where they were at work, to erect a small wheel which would turn a roller that should have as many pins as battons & by turning round the pins would raise the mauls & operate exactly as the eight men. These were instantly approved of & the alteration is now making, by which ten mens wages are saved. By such things with others I have made myself very acceptable to the people, who by the way without recommendations, know no body - and I am little at home, & indeed without I chuse need never be. By mixing with the first people, I have two advantages - their example & acquaintance - & the saving money - added to which , not a little one - that of having the previous connaisance, when Mrs. S. arrives. The Marqs. la Fayette is made lately, one of the Marine Council. He wrote me about a week ago a very polite letter, requesting to whom & where he might send me letters of introduction. I mentioned two or three, not that I am in want of more acquaintance, but to have the respect of the Marqu. Friendship, who is greatly esteemed in this Kingdom. He writes me that the Memorial I wrote upon the French & American trade, which Mr. De le Tombe translated, is forever gone from him, as the Minister who had it is now out of office. I have written to Mr. de le Tombe for another, or to Mr. La Prest who has one. To have it printed here would give me much respect thro' every part & from every rank, and I flatter myself that at this moment it might be of more use than at any other, as the Merchants & Manufacturers want to find a market for their goods, which are not accumulating upon [3] upon their hands by the destructive Treaty with England, & the plan I have proposed, would send their Mercht., and maintain a perfect safety from loss. Last night I return'd from Louviers, with Mr. Fontaigney [inserted: who [strikeout]] one of the first houses in this place, from visiting the Manufactures there. It is truly astonishing the magnitude of them. The one in which he is singly concerned, maintains three thousand people constantly. I was recommended to him. He proposes in a week hence carrying me to the Duke & Boulions, on Boullies, about 4 leagues from Louviers, and I am promised a letter to the Marquis Conflan, about one league from Louviers. In that place, as there is a good master a good society, & being much in the Country, I believe I shall stay, instead of going to Angoville in the neighbourhood of Havre, indeed it is but a day & a half past from Havre, & but [struck: half] a day from Paris. Wherever I be, & in whatever situation, if I cannot be acquainted with the first in the place, I make it a rule not to be acquainted at all. As I have said before, I find it much more agreeable & cheaper, and besides, is supporting a character & rank I maintained at home, & shall again after my return disencumbered from the shakles & perplexities of deranged business & a want of money, I feel my self collected, and quite another person, than almost you have ever seen me, [strikeout] [inserted: from] which character, nothing shall ever urge me to deviate. , Again permit me to ease a little, an over burthen'd heart, by declaring with how much affection & gratitude I am possessed towards you & your family. Present me with the best respects that can opperate in the heart or the head, to your good Lady. Remember me with much attachment to your brother, & say those things in my behalf which shall be most acceptable to Miss Lucy & your little ones. Ever I remain yours wholly, Jam. Swan, (Turn), , I recd. about a month ago a Letter from Mrs S mentioning [Jeffrey's] conduct. When I say at this time that I shall ever seek an opportunity to be revenged or to return his kindness, I mean [inserted: it] not to be understood, as the result of passion. I am cool and feel the sentiment too powerfull to cease operating on me until I am glutted. with a full gratification, or return of the obligation he has conferred upon me. He might have trusted to a Jackson and he did not chuse to trust a Hichborn. My engagt. to return shall not be an excuse to [illegible] him, and if the peace of a thousand old women is hazarded in the [event], it shall not in the least cool my design. Oh my heart! My dear family - thus abused - thus trampled upon by the dirty clerk of a bankrupt house, whom in justice I owe not ÂĢ1000! It is too much., , [docket] , James Swan 29 March, 1788 -, , [address] , The Honble. Major General Knox, Secretary at War, New York
A Life of Mary Wollenstonecraft: Vindication by Lyndall Gordon
page 220
One way to approach the elusive (Gilbert) Imlay is through American associates like RICHARD CODMAN who made fortunes in France during this decade. Imlay and Barlow had failed in massive schemes without losing their incorrigible self-confidence.It was common in their milhlieu for fortunes to
page 221
fluctuate and to have their shady aspect. The most prominent figure amongst them was JAMES SWAN, another who had speculated in Kentucky lands. Mired in debt in 1787, had come to France to recuperate his fortunes. He was unprincipled according to future President James Monroe, and was to spend his last twenty-two years in a debtors' prison. But in 1793-4 he flourished as a shipper, banker and dealer in art objects. His Boston firm was the official dealer in French objects d'art and furniture confiscated from the royal palaces after the fall of the monarchy and exported to the United States. Dallarde & Swan, his Paris branch at 63 rue Montmorency, was Barlow's business address. (Joel Barlow)
On July 14, 1790, the FÊte de la FÃĐdÃĐration was held in Paris to celebrate the new constitutional monarchy; during the event, a delegation of the United States of America, led by John Paul Jones, founder of the U.S. Navy, joined the feast. It also included Thomas Paine, James Swan, Georges Howell, Benjamin Jarvis, Samuel Blackden, Joel Barlow and William Henry Vernon. The delegation arrived at the Champ de Mars with its flag, the first instance ever of a U.S. flag flown outside of the USA, and was cheered by the people. At the time, the USA were thought in France as a "sister Republic" of enlightenment and liberty.
In the 1790s, the French, under a new post-revolutionary government, accused the United States of collaborating with the British and proceeded to impound UK-bound U.S. merchant ships. Attempts at diplomacy led to the 1797 XYZ Affair in which three French agents approached American delegates requesting a tribute of $250,000. This led to a state of Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1801. Relations deepened after the rise of Napoleon and the election of Thomas Jefferson, but improved after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. This 828,000 square mile purchase nearly doubled the size of the nascent American republic and is the second largest single expansion of United States territory after the original Thirteen Colonies of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. After the Anglo-American War of 1812, during which British military forces burnt the White House in Washington, France became a main ally of the United States.
American State Papers
By Walter Lowrie
pg 272
Extract of a letter from James Swan, Esq to the Secretary of the Treasury dated Boston, September 30, 1796
My friends Messrs Harrison and Sterrett forwarded me a copy of an account sales of 100 BARS OF SILVER SOLD BY MESSRS VAN STAPHORST & HUBBARD, and MESSRS WILLINKS, said to be that paid by my house to MR MONROE for the bill you had of me for $130,000. Those friends will show you the original receipt of MR MONROE, dated 25th December last, and which is expressly for the $120,000 and which exonerated me from every expense, risk, or trouble in getting the money from Paris to Holland. The every correspondence of MR MONROE with you, I believe, proves that he took all these himself.
Records and briefs of the United States Supreme Court
By United States. Supreme Court
page 1052
land titles in Kentucky in the 1790's to James Swan
To the people of the United States
By William Maclure, United States. Board of Commissioners for the Adjustment of French Spoliation Claim
It also appears by official acts of the French Government that the said JAMES SWAN was at various periods of the FRENCH REVOLUTION THE AGENT OF THE SAID GOVERNMENT
An Exposition of the Pretended Claims of William Vans on the ..., Volume 2 By John Codman, Charles Russell Codman, Francis Codman
Richard Codman to John Codman letter dated Paris, 21st April 1798 involved James Swan
Letter from John Quincy Adams to his brother Thomas Boylston Adams dated London, England 26 Dec 1795The non-payment of the bill on Dallarde & Swan, is a circumstance that mortifies and suprizes me. But as to the causes of the failure neither you nor I can be responsible; the business was put entirely into other hands, and had I been disposed to meddle with it, you remember that the bankers informed me they were in correspondence with Mr: Monroe on the subject, which I considered as a sufficient intimation to me, that it was not a concern of mine. Since then however I have interfered as far as was in my power to secure the payment for them, and regret as much as they can, that any difficulties should yet intercept the remittance.
10 Notable Members of the Bavarian Illuminati
5. Johann Caspar [Jean Gaspard] Schweizer (1754-1811)
Schweizer32 was a Swiss merchant and banker, a member of the Helvetian Society, made a Mason at the Zurich Lodge "Bescheidenheit und Freiheit" (Modestia cum Libertate) in 1782, was initiated into the Illuminati in 1785, and became a Jacobin.33
Late in the summer of 1794 the "Commission de commerce et approvisionnements" appointed Johann-Gaspard Schweizer, a rich Zurich banker then living in Paris, as Swan's associate. The firm of Swan & Schweizer (known in official correspondence as Jones & Gaspard) was ordered by the commission to arrange in America for the purchase of food, merchandise, naval munitions, and whatever the commission might designate as necessary to the republic. The goods were to be paid for with bullion, a quantity of which they were authorized to export, and with the large credit from the American sales of the confiscated goods, including wine which had been captured from British cargoes. Jones & Gaspard was further empowered to provision French vessels in American waters.
The head of the Commission de Commerce, Jean-Claude Picquet, knew that Swan was an expert financier, but he was entirely aware of Swan's reputation. For this reason, Picquet dispatched Schweizer to accompany the colonel on his American mission, charging him to follow Swan's every step.57
Swan, a most interesting character, had an "uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time."58 An immigrant from Scotland, he arrived in Boston in 1765 and was initiated into the famous St. Andrews Masonic Lodge in 1777,59 which met at the Green Dragon Tavern (referred to by subsequent historians as the "headquarters of the revolution"). The Sons of Liberty gathered there as well. Swan joined them, and together, along with the tavern's fellow-Masons, planned and executed the Boston Tea Party.60 He worked in a counting house alongside "Count Rumford," served in the revolutionary army, was appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, and married heiress Hepzibah Clarke â thus linking him with the gentry and gaining ample opportunities to benefit financially. After the war of independence, Swan "launched a wide variety of commercial ventures, including speculation in Maine lands, Boston real estate, and confiscated loyalist property."61 The economic depression of 1786 affected his fortune, and in late-1787 he set out for France looking for new schemes. With letters of introduction from prominent French officers (Lafayette among them), Swan succeeded in insinuating himself among the financial elite, and in 1791 "entered into partnership with a French firm, rechristened Dallarde, Swan & Cie."62 His wife Hepzibah joined him in 1790 and they lived in luxury on the rue de Lille across the river from the Tuileries Gardens. "Casting all shame aside," Eleanor Pearson DeLorme cites historian Yvon Bizardel, "Swan was inviting influential Frenchmen and distinguished Americans to dinner with shady traffickers, including âa Persian from Damascus' and two pirates who pillaged American cargoes and sold their crews into slavery."63
The gold bullion was obtained from melting down confiscated ecclesiastical ornaments while the large caches of luxury goods were looted from aristocrats and the royal family. An example of the latter still exists today in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts â a âVase Bachelier,' "decorated in polychrome enamels and gold," from the ChÃĒteau of Versailles.
Rice writes:
Swan reached America in December, 1794, and with the new year the "commercial agency" of Swan & Schweizer began doing business. Schweizer, incidentally, had been delayed on the way, but his absence or presence never greatly concerned his partner. Headquarters were established at Philadelphia, then the seat of the federal government. Sub agents were appointed in all the principal ports: John Vaughan, at Philadelphia; John Murray, at New York; Mason & Fenwick, at Georgetown; Samuel & Joseph Sterett, at Baltimore; W. & J. Thayer, at Charleston; Caleb Gardner, at Newport; Elias Derby, at Salem; Myers, at Norfolk; William Armistead & Company, at Alexandria; N. & J. Cuslie at Petersburg; and Henry Jackson, at Boston. All these firms could be "depended upon" as true friends to France and liberty. If their political principles were suspected, the business was entrusted to some one else, as the case of Messrs. Sterett of Baltimore, who found the agency taken from them in September, 1795.64
Swan & Schweizer closed its books in 1796. France had negotiated treaties with its enemies and was fortunate to have had a good crop year. But due to the political situation in Europe and deteriorating relations between the United States and France, Schweizer stayed in America, with the Swan family in Philadelphia, until 1801. Schweizer occupied himself with tutoring Swan's three daughters, composing poems to his wife, land speculation, as well as writing a book called Critique de la civilisation.
Hepzibah Clarke Swan
James Swan
France, 1787â1830
After various ventures in finance and real estate, and years of living in high style, in 1787 or 1788 the indebted Swan moved to France. En route, he stayed at Mt. Vernon as a guest of George Washington. In France his social circle included Lafayette. Swan was successful in his business activities related to the millions of dollars owed by the United States to France. While in France, Swan acquired furniture, now held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Swan returned to the U.S. in 1794 or 1795. He travelled to Philadelphia and while there posed for portraitist Gilbert Stuart; the finished painting is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Around 1796 he built a summer home in Dorchester, possibly designed by Charles Bulfinch.
He again went to France in 1798. He was imprisoned in Paris for debt in 1808, and released ca.1830. He died in Paris in 1830
Genealogy of James Swan
Swan House
Colonel James Swan was a native of Scotland, who came to Boston in his boyhood. He was one of the Tea Party in 1773 and fought at Bunker Hill. He was Secretary of War for Massachusetts in 1777 and afterward adjutant-general of the state. Hepzibah Swan was one of the Mt. Vernon Proprietors, a group that developed part of Beacon Hill in Boston.
In the late 1780s, oppressed with heavy debts, Colonel Swan went to Paris with letters of introduction to Lafayette and other prominent men and eventually worked his way into a partnership in the firm of Dallarde, Swan et Compagnie, one of the firms that furnished supplies to the new French government after the French Revolution. When a business partner filed suit against him in 1808, Swan chose to go to a high-class debtor?s prison at St. Pelagie instead of settling the claim. He stayed there for 22 years and died in 1831, just one year after his release. Hepzibah had lived in the house in Dorchester until her death in 1825.
Letter of James Swan to Henry Knox
Date: 22 June 1788
Summary of Content: Swan writes from Brighthelmstone, possibly Brighton, England. Remarks, "There is a coldness and indifference - so far distant from your Letters when I was at home, that chills my heart & forces a discharge, very involuntary of the warmth with which it is animated in love of you and your family." The Knox's were friends with Hepzibah Swan, James's wife, who remained in America when he left for France.
Letter
Jas. Swan, My dear Sir Rouen 29th. March 1788., Enclosed I send you a copy of mine of the 17 Ulto. Since then I have nothing to write you about, but to mention the manner I spend my time & judging that you will be anxious to hear of my agreeable situation, which would [realy] be so were my family with me. Upon my first arriving here, & for a week after, I was employed constantly in writing. Having made some visits - I cast my thots on visiting the Manufactures - but was rejected, without a recommendation from some person well known. I thot it best to go to the fountain & not trouble the merchants to whom I was recommended, & wrote to Mr. Mistral, the Intendant General of the Marine in Normandy, to [inserted: whom] I was recommended by Marqs. Vandeuil, and he wrote to the Commy. of Marine here, who at once made me known to the Trade of Manufactures - From both I have recd. great attention, & from the public officers also. I have pointed [inserted: out] demonstratively, those things which prevent the Manufrs. here from selling in America, and whenever orders for Goods are sent, or a Trade with this Province is opened I presume they'l [sic] be attended to. What renders me more acceptable, & more attended to. I have refused, tho' frequently asked, to give the name of one House in America who may safely be trusted, and I decline all offers of business myself. The reason why the French in this Quarter, have not been able to sell their Manufrs. as low as the English, I saw in a moment, there is not that invention & care used as in Great Britain, to save labour. People being plenty they continue to employ them, because they have done it for a long time. Two instances need only be mentioned [inserted: in] which I have had influence [inserted: which I saw] at [inserted: a] Mr. Quarnell's printing linen [marrill] factory ay Neratol, about 3 miles from this. At the Callendar or glaring mill, four men were labouring hard, at turning the rollers, which I proposed to affect by one boy, who being placed [2] placed in the inner side of a large wheel, in which there must be steps. his attempting to march up the steps will turn the wheel & operate with more ease & go constantly. Another eight men with eight battons or light mauling sticks were [strikeout] frapping wet linen to bleach it. I proposed on the same water where they were at work, to erect a small wheel which would turn a roller that should have as many pins as battons & by turning round the pins would raise the mauls & operate exactly as the eight men. These were instantly approved of & the alteration is now making, by which ten mens wages are saved. By such things with others I have made myself very acceptable to the people, who by the way without recommendations, know no body - and I am little at home, & indeed without I chuse need never be. By mixing with the first people, I have two advantages - their example & acquaintance - & the saving money - added to which , not a little one - that of having the previous connaisance, when Mrs. S. arrives. The Marqs. la Fayette is made lately, one of the Marine Council. He wrote me about a week ago a very polite letter, requesting to whom & where he might send me letters of introduction. I mentioned two or three, not that I am in want of more acquaintance, but to have the respect of the Marqu. Friendship, who is greatly esteemed in this Kingdom. He writes me that the Memorial I wrote upon the French & American trade, which Mr. De le Tombe translated, is forever gone from him, as the Minister who had it is now out of office. I have written to Mr. de le Tombe for another, or to Mr. La Prest who has one. To have it printed here would give me much respect thro' every part & from every rank, and I flatter myself that at this moment it might be of more use than at any other, as the Merchants & Manufacturers want to find a market for their goods, which are not accumulating upon [3] upon their hands by the destructive Treaty with England, & the plan I have proposed, would send their Mercht., and maintain a perfect safety from loss. Last night I return'd from Louviers, with Mr. Fontaigney [inserted: who [strikeout]] one of the first houses in this place, from visiting the Manufactures there. It is truly astonishing the magnitude of them. The one in which he is singly concerned, maintains three thousand people constantly. I was recommended to him. He proposes in a week hence carrying me to the Duke & Boulions, on Boullies, about 4 leagues from Louviers, and I am promised a letter to the Marquis Conflan, about one league from Louviers. In that place, as there is a good master a good society, & being much in the Country, I believe I shall stay, instead of going to Angoville in the neighbourhood of Havre, indeed it is but a day & a half past from Havre, & but [struck: half] a day from Paris. Wherever I be, & in whatever situation, if I cannot be acquainted with the first in the place, I make it a rule not to be acquainted at all. As I have said before, I find it much more agreeable & cheaper, and besides, is supporting a character & rank I maintained at home, & shall again after my return disencumbered from the shakles & perplexities of deranged business & a want of money, I feel my self collected, and quite another person, than almost you have ever seen me, [strikeout] [inserted: from] which character, nothing shall ever urge me to deviate. , Again permit me to ease a little, an over burthen'd heart, by declaring with how much affection & gratitude I am possessed towards you & your family. Present me with the best respects that can opperate in the heart or the head, to your good Lady. Remember me with much attachment to your brother, & say those things in my behalf which shall be most acceptable to Miss Lucy & your little ones. Ever I remain yours wholly, Jam. Swan, (Turn), , I recd. about a month ago a Letter from Mrs S mentioning [Jeffrey's] conduct. When I say at this time that I shall ever seek an opportunity to be revenged or to return his kindness, I mean [inserted: it] not to be understood, as the result of passion. I am cool and feel the sentiment too powerfull to cease operating on me until I am glutted. with a full gratification, or return of the obligation he has conferred upon me. He might have trusted to a Jackson and he did not chuse to trust a Hichborn. My engagt. to return shall not be an excuse to [illegible] him, and if the peace of a thousand old women is hazarded in the [event], it shall not in the least cool my design. Oh my heart! My dear family - thus abused - thus trampled upon by the dirty clerk of a bankrupt house, whom in justice I owe not ÂĢ1000! It is too much., , [docket] , James Swan 29 March, 1788 -, , [address] , The Honble. Major General Knox, Secretary at War, New York
A Life of Mary Wollenstonecraft: Vindication by Lyndall Gordon
page 220
One way to approach the elusive (Gilbert) Imlay is through American associates like RICHARD CODMAN who made fortunes in France during this decade. Imlay and Barlow had failed in massive schemes without losing their incorrigible self-confidence.It was common in their milhlieu for fortunes to
page 221
fluctuate and to have their shady aspect. The most prominent figure amongst them was JAMES SWAN, another who had speculated in Kentucky lands. Mired in debt in 1787, had come to France to recuperate his fortunes. He was unprincipled according to future President James Monroe, and was to spend his last twenty-two years in a debtors' prison. But in 1793-4 he flourished as a shipper, banker and dealer in art objects. His Boston firm was the official dealer in French objects d'art and furniture confiscated from the royal palaces after the fall of the monarchy and exported to the United States. Dallarde & Swan, his Paris branch at 63 rue Montmorency, was Barlow's business address. (Joel Barlow)
On July 14, 1790, the FÊte de la FÃĐdÃĐration was held in Paris to celebrate the new constitutional monarchy; during the event, a delegation of the United States of America, led by John Paul Jones, founder of the U.S. Navy, joined the feast. It also included Thomas Paine, James Swan, Georges Howell, Benjamin Jarvis, Samuel Blackden, Joel Barlow and William Henry Vernon. The delegation arrived at the Champ de Mars with its flag, the first instance ever of a U.S. flag flown outside of the USA, and was cheered by the people. At the time, the USA were thought in France as a "sister Republic" of enlightenment and liberty.
In the 1790s, the French, under a new post-revolutionary government, accused the United States of collaborating with the British and proceeded to impound UK-bound U.S. merchant ships. Attempts at diplomacy led to the 1797 XYZ Affair in which three French agents approached American delegates requesting a tribute of $250,000. This led to a state of Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1801. Relations deepened after the rise of Napoleon and the election of Thomas Jefferson, but improved after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. This 828,000 square mile purchase nearly doubled the size of the nascent American republic and is the second largest single expansion of United States territory after the original Thirteen Colonies of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. After the Anglo-American War of 1812, during which British military forces burnt the White House in Washington, France became a main ally of the United States.
American State Papers
By Walter Lowrie
pg 272
Extract of a letter from James Swan, Esq to the Secretary of the Treasury dated Boston, September 30, 1796
My friends Messrs Harrison and Sterrett forwarded me a copy of an account sales of 100 BARS OF SILVER SOLD BY MESSRS VAN STAPHORST & HUBBARD, and MESSRS WILLINKS, said to be that paid by my house to MR MONROE for the bill you had of me for $130,000. Those friends will show you the original receipt of MR MONROE, dated 25th December last, and which is expressly for the $120,000 and which exonerated me from every expense, risk, or trouble in getting the money from Paris to Holland. The every correspondence of MR MONROE with you, I believe, proves that he took all these himself.
Records and briefs of the United States Supreme Court
By United States. Supreme Court
page 1052
land titles in Kentucky in the 1790's to James Swan
To the people of the United States
By William Maclure, United States. Board of Commissioners for the Adjustment of French Spoliation Claim
It also appears by official acts of the French Government that the said JAMES SWAN was at various periods of the FRENCH REVOLUTION THE AGENT OF THE SAID GOVERNMENT
An Exposition of the Pretended Claims of William Vans on the ..., Volume 2 By John Codman, Charles Russell Codman, Francis Codman
Richard Codman to John Codman letter dated Paris, 21st April 1798 involved James Swan
Letter from John Quincy Adams to his brother Thomas Boylston Adams dated London, England 26 Dec 1795The non-payment of the bill on Dallarde & Swan, is a circumstance that mortifies and suprizes me. But as to the causes of the failure neither you nor I can be responsible; the business was put entirely into other hands, and had I been disposed to meddle with it, you remember that the bankers informed me they were in correspondence with Mr: Monroe on the subject, which I considered as a sufficient intimation to me, that it was not a concern of mine. Since then however I have interfered as far as was in my power to secure the payment for them, and regret as much as they can, that any difficulties should yet intercept the remittance.
10 Notable Members of the Bavarian Illuminati
5. Johann Caspar [Jean Gaspard] Schweizer (1754-1811)
Schweizer32 was a Swiss merchant and banker, a member of the Helvetian Society, made a Mason at the Zurich Lodge "Bescheidenheit und Freiheit" (Modestia cum Libertate) in 1782, was initiated into the Illuminati in 1785, and became a Jacobin.33
Late in the summer of 1794 the "Commission de commerce et approvisionnements" appointed Johann-Gaspard Schweizer, a rich Zurich banker then living in Paris, as Swan's associate. The firm of Swan & Schweizer (known in official correspondence as Jones & Gaspard) was ordered by the commission to arrange in America for the purchase of food, merchandise, naval munitions, and whatever the commission might designate as necessary to the republic. The goods were to be paid for with bullion, a quantity of which they were authorized to export, and with the large credit from the American sales of the confiscated goods, including wine which had been captured from British cargoes. Jones & Gaspard was further empowered to provision French vessels in American waters.
The head of the Commission de Commerce, Jean-Claude Picquet, knew that Swan was an expert financier, but he was entirely aware of Swan's reputation. For this reason, Picquet dispatched Schweizer to accompany the colonel on his American mission, charging him to follow Swan's every step.57
Swan, a most interesting character, had an "uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time."58 An immigrant from Scotland, he arrived in Boston in 1765 and was initiated into the famous St. Andrews Masonic Lodge in 1777,59 which met at the Green Dragon Tavern (referred to by subsequent historians as the "headquarters of the revolution"). The Sons of Liberty gathered there as well. Swan joined them, and together, along with the tavern's fellow-Masons, planned and executed the Boston Tea Party.60 He worked in a counting house alongside "Count Rumford," served in the revolutionary army, was appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, and married heiress Hepzibah Clarke â thus linking him with the gentry and gaining ample opportunities to benefit financially. After the war of independence, Swan "launched a wide variety of commercial ventures, including speculation in Maine lands, Boston real estate, and confiscated loyalist property."61 The economic depression of 1786 affected his fortune, and in late-1787 he set out for France looking for new schemes. With letters of introduction from prominent French officers (Lafayette among them), Swan succeeded in insinuating himself among the financial elite, and in 1791 "entered into partnership with a French firm, rechristened Dallarde, Swan & Cie."62 His wife Hepzibah joined him in 1790 and they lived in luxury on the rue de Lille across the river from the Tuileries Gardens. "Casting all shame aside," Eleanor Pearson DeLorme cites historian Yvon Bizardel, "Swan was inviting influential Frenchmen and distinguished Americans to dinner with shady traffickers, including âa Persian from Damascus' and two pirates who pillaged American cargoes and sold their crews into slavery."63
The gold bullion was obtained from melting down confiscated ecclesiastical ornaments while the large caches of luxury goods were looted from aristocrats and the royal family. An example of the latter still exists today in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts â a âVase Bachelier,' "decorated in polychrome enamels and gold," from the ChÃĒteau of Versailles.
Rice writes:
Swan reached America in December, 1794, and with the new year the "commercial agency" of Swan & Schweizer began doing business. Schweizer, incidentally, had been delayed on the way, but his absence or presence never greatly concerned his partner. Headquarters were established at Philadelphia, then the seat of the federal government. Sub agents were appointed in all the principal ports: John Vaughan, at Philadelphia; John Murray, at New York; Mason & Fenwick, at Georgetown; Samuel & Joseph Sterett, at Baltimore; W. & J. Thayer, at Charleston; Caleb Gardner, at Newport; Elias Derby, at Salem; Myers, at Norfolk; William Armistead & Company, at Alexandria; N. & J. Cuslie at Petersburg; and Henry Jackson, at Boston. All these firms could be "depended upon" as true friends to France and liberty. If their political principles were suspected, the business was entrusted to some one else, as the case of Messrs. Sterett of Baltimore, who found the agency taken from them in September, 1795.64
Swan & Schweizer closed its books in 1796. France had negotiated treaties with its enemies and was fortunate to have had a good crop year. But due to the political situation in Europe and deteriorating relations between the United States and France, Schweizer stayed in America, with the Swan family in Philadelphia, until 1801. Schweizer occupied himself with tutoring Swan's three daughters, composing poems to his wife, land speculation, as well as writing a book called Critique de la civilisation.
Hepzibah Clarke Swan
James Swan
France, 1787â1830
After various ventures in finance and real estate, and years of living in high style, in 1787 or 1788 the indebted Swan moved to France. En route, he stayed at Mt. Vernon as a guest of George Washington. In France his social circle included Lafayette. Swan was successful in his business activities related to the millions of dollars owed by the United States to France. While in France, Swan acquired furniture, now held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Swan returned to the U.S. in 1794 or 1795. He travelled to Philadelphia and while there posed for portraitist Gilbert Stuart; the finished painting is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Around 1796 he built a summer home in Dorchester, possibly designed by Charles Bulfinch.
He again went to France in 1798. He was imprisoned in Paris for debt in 1808, and released ca.1830. He died in Paris in 1830
Genealogy of James Swan
Member of the Sons of Liberty, and took part in the famous Boston tea-party. He later became secretary of the Massachusetts board of war, and was elected a member of the legislature.
Swan House
Colonel James Swan was a native of Scotland, who came to Boston in his boyhood. He was one of the Tea Party in 1773 and fought at Bunker Hill. He was Secretary of War for Massachusetts in 1777 and afterward adjutant-general of the state. Hepzibah Swan was one of the Mt. Vernon Proprietors, a group that developed part of Beacon Hill in Boston.
In the late 1780s, oppressed with heavy debts, Colonel Swan went to Paris with letters of introduction to Lafayette and other prominent men and eventually worked his way into a partnership in the firm of Dallarde, Swan et Compagnie, one of the firms that furnished supplies to the new French government after the French Revolution. When a business partner filed suit against him in 1808, Swan chose to go to a high-class debtor?s prison at St. Pelagie instead of settling the claim. He stayed there for 22 years and died in 1831, just one year after his release. Hepzibah had lived in the house in Dorchester until her death in 1825.
Letter of James Swan to Henry Knox
Date: 22 June 1788
Summary of Content: Swan writes from Brighthelmstone, possibly Brighton, England. Remarks, "There is a coldness and indifference - so far distant from your Letters when I was at home, that chills my heart & forces a discharge, very involuntary of the warmth with which it is animated in love of you and your family." The Knox's were friends with Hepzibah Swan, James's wife, who remained in America when he left for France.
Letter
Jas. Swan, My dear Sir Rouen 29th. March 1788., Enclosed I send you a copy of mine of the 17 Ulto. Since then I have nothing to write you about, but to mention the manner I spend my time & judging that you will be anxious to hear of my agreeable situation, which would [realy] be so were my family with me. Upon my first arriving here, & for a week after, I was employed constantly in writing. Having made some visits - I cast my thots on visiting the Manufactures - but was rejected, without a recommendation from some person well known. I thot it best to go to the fountain & not trouble the merchants to whom I was recommended, & wrote to Mr. Mistral, the Intendant General of the Marine in Normandy, to [inserted: whom] I was recommended by Marqs. Vandeuil, and he wrote to the Commy. of Marine here, who at once made me known to the Trade of Manufactures - From both I have recd. great attention, & from the public officers also. I have pointed [inserted: out] demonstratively, those things which prevent the Manufrs. here from selling in America, and whenever orders for Goods are sent, or a Trade with this Province is opened I presume they'l [sic] be attended to. What renders me more acceptable, & more attended to. I have refused, tho' frequently asked, to give the name of one House in America who may safely be trusted, and I decline all offers of business myself. The reason why the French in this Quarter, have not been able to sell their Manufrs. as low as the English, I saw in a moment, there is not that invention & care used as in Great Britain, to save labour. People being plenty they continue to employ them, because they have done it for a long time. Two instances need only be mentioned [inserted: in] which I have had influence [inserted: which I saw] at [inserted: a] Mr. Quarnell's printing linen [marrill] factory ay Neratol, about 3 miles from this. At the Callendar or glaring mill, four men were labouring hard, at turning the rollers, which I proposed to affect by one boy, who being placed [2] placed in the inner side of a large wheel, in which there must be steps. his attempting to march up the steps will turn the wheel & operate with more ease & go constantly. Another eight men with eight battons or light mauling sticks were [strikeout] frapping wet linen to bleach it. I proposed on the same water where they were at work, to erect a small wheel which would turn a roller that should have as many pins as battons & by turning round the pins would raise the mauls & operate exactly as the eight men. These were instantly approved of & the alteration is now making, by which ten mens wages are saved. By such things with others I have made myself very acceptable to the people, who by the way without recommendations, know no body - and I am little at home, & indeed without I chuse need never be. By mixing with the first people, I have two advantages - their example & acquaintance - & the saving money - added to which , not a little one - that of having the previous connaisance, when Mrs. S. arrives. The Marqs. la Fayette is made lately, one of the Marine Council. He wrote me about a week ago a very polite letter, requesting to whom & where he might send me letters of introduction. I mentioned two or three, not that I am in want of more acquaintance, but to have the respect of the Marqu. Friendship, who is greatly esteemed in this Kingdom. He writes me that the Memorial I wrote upon the French & American trade, which Mr. De le Tombe translated, is forever gone from him, as the Minister who had it is now out of office. I have written to Mr. de le Tombe for another, or to Mr. La Prest who has one. To have it printed here would give me much respect thro' every part & from every rank, and I flatter myself that at this moment it might be of more use than at any other, as the Merchants & Manufacturers want to find a market for their goods, which are not accumulating upon [3] upon their hands by the destructive Treaty with England, & the plan I have proposed, would send their Mercht., and maintain a perfect safety from loss. Last night I return'd from Louviers, with Mr. Fontaigney [inserted: who [strikeout]] one of the first houses in this place, from visiting the Manufactures there. It is truly astonishing the magnitude of them. The one in which he is singly concerned, maintains three thousand people constantly. I was recommended to him. He proposes in a week hence carrying me to the Duke & Boulions, on Boullies, about 4 leagues from Louviers, and I am promised a letter to the Marquis Conflan, about one league from Louviers. In that place, as there is a good master a good society, & being much in the Country, I believe I shall stay, instead of going to Angoville in the neighbourhood of Havre, indeed it is but a day & a half past from Havre, & but [struck: half] a day from Paris. Wherever I be, & in whatever situation, if I cannot be acquainted with the first in the place, I make it a rule not to be acquainted at all. As I have said before, I find it much more agreeable & cheaper, and besides, is supporting a character & rank I maintained at home, & shall again after my return disencumbered from the shakles & perplexities of deranged business & a want of money, I feel my self collected, and quite another person, than almost you have ever seen me, [strikeout] [inserted: from] which character, nothing shall ever urge me to deviate. , Again permit me to ease a little, an over burthen'd heart, by declaring with how much affection & gratitude I am possessed towards you & your family. Present me with the best respects that can opperate in the heart or the head, to your good Lady. Remember me with much attachment to your brother, & say those things in my behalf which shall be most acceptable to Miss Lucy & your little ones. Ever I remain yours wholly, Jam. Swan, (Turn), , I recd. about a month ago a Letter from Mrs S mentioning [Jeffrey's] conduct. When I say at this time that I shall ever seek an opportunity to be revenged or to return his kindness, I mean [inserted: it] not to be understood, as the result of passion. I am cool and feel the sentiment too powerfull to cease operating on me until I am glutted. with a full gratification, or return of the obligation he has conferred upon me. He might have trusted to a Jackson and he did not chuse to trust a Hichborn. My engagt. to return shall not be an excuse to [illegible] him, and if the peace of a thousand old women is hazarded in the [event], it shall not in the least cool my design. Oh my heart! My dear family - thus abused - thus trampled upon by the dirty clerk of a bankrupt house, whom in justice I owe not ÂĢ1000! It is too much., , [docket] , James Swan 29 March, 1788 -, , [address] , The Honble. Major General Knox, Secretary at War, New York
A Life of Mary Wollenstonecraft: Vindication by Lyndall Gordon
page 220
One way to approach the elusive (Gilbert) Imlay is through American associates like RICHARD CODMAN who made fortunes in France during this decade. Imlay and Barlow had failed in massive schemes without losing their incorrigible self-confidence.It was common in their milhlieu for fortunes to
page 221
fluctuate and to have their shady aspect. The most prominent figure amongst them was JAMES SWAN, another who had speculated in Kentucky lands. Mired in debt in 1787, had come to France to recuperate his fortunes. He was unprincipled according to future President James Monroe, and was to spend his last twenty-two years in a debtors' prison. But in 1793-4 he flourished as a shipper, banker and dealer in art objects. His Boston firm was the official dealer in French objects d'art and furniture confiscated from the royal palaces after the fall of the monarchy and exported to the United States. Dallarde & Swan, his Paris branch at 63 rue Montmorency, was Barlow's business address. (Joel Barlow)
On July 14, 1790, the FÊte de la FÃĐdÃĐration was held in Paris to celebrate the new constitutional monarchy; during the event, a delegation of the United States of America, led by John Paul Jones, founder of the U.S. Navy, joined the feast. It also included Thomas Paine, James Swan, Georges Howell, Benjamin Jarvis, Samuel Blackden, Joel Barlow and William Henry Vernon. The delegation arrived at the Champ de Mars with its flag, the first instance ever of a U.S. flag flown outside of the USA, and was cheered by the people. At the time, the USA were thought in France as a "sister Republic" of enlightenment and liberty.
In the 1790s, the French, under a new post-revolutionary government, accused the United States of collaborating with the British and proceeded to impound UK-bound U.S. merchant ships. Attempts at diplomacy led to the 1797 XYZ Affair in which three French agents approached American delegates requesting a tribute of $250,000. This led to a state of Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1801. Relations deepened after the rise of Napoleon and the election of Thomas Jefferson, but improved after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. This 828,000 square mile purchase nearly doubled the size of the nascent American republic and is the second largest single expansion of United States territory after the original Thirteen Colonies of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. After the Anglo-American War of 1812, during which British military forces burnt the White House in Washington, France became a main ally of the United States.
American State Papers
By Walter Lowrie
pg 272
Extract of a letter from James Swan, Esq to the Secretary of the Treasury dated Boston, September 30, 1796
My friends Messrs Harrison and Sterrett forwarded me a copy of an account sales of 100 BARS OF SILVER SOLD BY MESSRS VAN STAPHORST & HUBBARD, and MESSRS WILLINKS, said to be that paid by my house to MR MONROE for the bill you had of me for $130,000. Those friends will show you the original receipt of MR MONROE, dated 25th December last, and which is expressly for the $120,000 and which exonerated me from every expense, risk, or trouble in getting the money from Paris to Holland. The every correspondence of MR MONROE with you, I believe, proves that he took all these himself.
Records and briefs of the United States Supreme Court
By United States. Supreme Court
page 1052
land titles in Kentucky in the 1790's to James Swan
To the people of the United States
By William Maclure, United States. Board of Commissioners for the Adjustment of French Spoliation Claim
It also appears by official acts of the French Government that the said JAMES SWAN was at various periods of the FRENCH REVOLUTION THE AGENT OF THE SAID GOVERNMENT
An Exposition of the Pretended Claims of William Vans on the ..., Volume 2 By John Codman, Charles Russell Codman, Francis Codman
Richard Codman to John Codman letter dated Paris, 21st April 1798 involved James Swan
Letter from John Quincy Adams to his brother Thomas Boylston Adams dated London, England 26 Dec 1795The non-payment of the bill on Dallarde & Swan, is a circumstance that mortifies and suprizes me. But as to the causes of the failure neither you nor I can be responsible; the business was put entirely into other hands, and had I been disposed to meddle with it, you remember that the bankers informed me they were in correspondence with Mr: Monroe on the subject, which I considered as a sufficient intimation to me, that it was not a concern of mine. Since then however I have interfered as far as was in my power to secure the payment for them, and regret as much as they can, that any difficulties should yet intercept the remittance.
10 Notable Members of the Bavarian Illuminati
5. Johann Caspar [Jean Gaspard] Schweizer (1754-1811)
Schweizer32 was a Swiss merchant and banker, a member of the Helvetian Society, made a Mason at the Zurich Lodge "Bescheidenheit und Freiheit" (Modestia cum Libertate) in 1782, was initiated into the Illuminati in 1785, and became a Jacobin.33
Late in the summer of 1794 the "Commission de commerce et approvisionnements" appointed Johann-Gaspard Schweizer, a rich Zurich banker then living in Paris, as Swan's associate. The firm of Swan & Schweizer (known in official correspondence as Jones & Gaspard) was ordered by the commission to arrange in America for the purchase of food, merchandise, naval munitions, and whatever the commission might designate as necessary to the republic. The goods were to be paid for with bullion, a quantity of which they were authorized to export, and with the large credit from the American sales of the confiscated goods, including wine which had been captured from British cargoes. Jones & Gaspard was further empowered to provision French vessels in American waters.
The head of the Commission de Commerce, Jean-Claude Picquet, knew that Swan was an expert financier, but he was entirely aware of Swan's reputation. For this reason, Picquet dispatched Schweizer to accompany the colonel on his American mission, charging him to follow Swan's every step.57
Swan, a most interesting character, had an "uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time."58 An immigrant from Scotland, he arrived in Boston in 1765 and was initiated into the famous St. Andrews Masonic Lodge in 1777,59 which met at the Green Dragon Tavern (referred to by subsequent historians as the "headquarters of the revolution"). The Sons of Liberty gathered there as well. Swan joined them, and together, along with the tavern's fellow-Masons, planned and executed the Boston Tea Party.60 He worked in a counting house alongside "Count Rumford," served in the revolutionary army, was appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, and married heiress Hepzibah Clarke â thus linking him with the gentry and gaining ample opportunities to benefit financially. After the war of independence, Swan "launched a wide variety of commercial ventures, including speculation in Maine lands, Boston real estate, and confiscated loyalist property."61 The economic depression of 1786 affected his fortune, and in late-1787 he set out for France looking for new schemes. With letters of introduction from prominent French officers (Lafayette among them), Swan succeeded in insinuating himself among the financial elite, and in 1791 "entered into partnership with a French firm, rechristened Dallarde, Swan & Cie."62 His wife Hepzibah joined him in 1790 and they lived in luxury on the rue de Lille across the river from the Tuileries Gardens. "Casting all shame aside," Eleanor Pearson DeLorme cites historian Yvon Bizardel, "Swan was inviting influential Frenchmen and distinguished Americans to dinner with shady traffickers, including âa Persian from Damascus' and two pirates who pillaged American cargoes and sold their crews into slavery."63
The gold bullion was obtained from melting down confiscated ecclesiastical ornaments while the large caches of luxury goods were looted from aristocrats and the royal family. An example of the latter still exists today in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts â a âVase Bachelier,' "decorated in polychrome enamels and gold," from the ChÃĒteau of Versailles.
Rice writes:
Swan reached America in December, 1794, and with the new year the "commercial agency" of Swan & Schweizer began doing business. Schweizer, incidentally, had been delayed on the way, but his absence or presence never greatly concerned his partner. Headquarters were established at Philadelphia, then the seat of the federal government. Sub agents were appointed in all the principal ports: John Vaughan, at Philadelphia; John Murray, at New York; Mason & Fenwick, at Georgetown; Samuel & Joseph Sterett, at Baltimore; W. & J. Thayer, at Charleston; Caleb Gardner, at Newport; Elias Derby, at Salem; Myers, at Norfolk; William Armistead & Company, at Alexandria; N. & J. Cuslie at Petersburg; and Henry Jackson, at Boston. All these firms could be "depended upon" as true friends to France and liberty. If their political principles were suspected, the business was entrusted to some one else, as the case of Messrs. Sterett of Baltimore, who found the agency taken from them in September, 1795.64
Swan & Schweizer closed its books in 1796. France had negotiated treaties with its enemies and was fortunate to have had a good crop year. But due to the political situation in Europe and deteriorating relations between the United States and France, Schweizer stayed in America, with the Swan family in Philadelphia, until 1801. Schweizer occupied himself with tutoring Swan's three daughters, composing poems to his wife, land speculation, as well as writing a book called Critique de la civilisation.
Hepzibah Clarke Swan
James Swan
France, 1787â1830
After various ventures in finance and real estate, and years of living in high style, in 1787 or 1788 the indebted Swan moved to France. En route, he stayed at Mt. Vernon as a guest of George Washington. In France his social circle included Lafayette. Swan was successful in his business activities related to the millions of dollars owed by the United States to France. While in France, Swan acquired furniture, now held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Swan returned to the U.S. in 1794 or 1795. He travelled to Philadelphia and while there posed for portraitist Gilbert Stuart; the finished painting is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Around 1796 he built a summer home in Dorchester, possibly designed by Charles Bulfinch.
He again went to France in 1798. He was imprisoned in Paris for debt in 1808, and released ca.1830. He died in Paris in 1830
Genealogy of James Swan
Swan House
Colonel James Swan was a native of Scotland, who came to Boston in his boyhood. He was one of the Tea Party in 1773 and fought at Bunker Hill. He was Secretary of War for Massachusetts in 1777 and afterward adjutant-general of the state. Hepzibah Swan was one of the Mt. Vernon Proprietors, a group that developed part of Beacon Hill in Boston.
In the late 1780s, oppressed with heavy debts, Colonel Swan went to Paris with letters of introduction to Lafayette and other prominent men and eventually worked his way into a partnership in the firm of Dallarde, Swan et Compagnie, one of the firms that furnished supplies to the new French government after the French Revolution. When a business partner filed suit against him in 1808, Swan chose to go to a high-class debtor?s prison at St. Pelagie instead of settling the claim. He stayed there for 22 years and died in 1831, just one year after his release. Hepzibah had lived in the house in Dorchester until her death in 1825.
Letter of James Swan to Henry Knox
Date: 22 June 1788
Summary of Content: Swan writes from Brighthelmstone, possibly Brighton, England. Remarks, "There is a coldness and indifference - so far distant from your Letters when I was at home, that chills my heart & forces a discharge, very involuntary of the warmth with which it is animated in love of you and your family." The Knox's were friends with Hepzibah Swan, James's wife, who remained in America when he left for France.
Letter
Jas. Swan, My dear Sir Rouen 29th. March 1788., Enclosed I send you a copy of mine of the 17 Ulto. Since then I have nothing to write you about, but to mention the manner I spend my time & judging that you will be anxious to hear of my agreeable situation, which would [realy] be so were my family with me. Upon my first arriving here, & for a week after, I was employed constantly in writing. Having made some visits - I cast my thots on visiting the Manufactures - but was rejected, without a recommendation from some person well known. I thot it best to go to the fountain & not trouble the merchants to whom I was recommended, & wrote to Mr. Mistral, the Intendant General of the Marine in Normandy, to [inserted: whom] I was recommended by Marqs. Vandeuil, and he wrote to the Commy. of Marine here, who at once made me known to the Trade of Manufactures - From both I have recd. great attention, & from the public officers also. I have pointed [inserted: out] demonstratively, those things which prevent the Manufrs. here from selling in America, and whenever orders for Goods are sent, or a Trade with this Province is opened I presume they'l [sic] be attended to. What renders me more acceptable, & more attended to. I have refused, tho' frequently asked, to give the name of one House in America who may safely be trusted, and I decline all offers of business myself. The reason why the French in this Quarter, have not been able to sell their Manufrs. as low as the English, I saw in a moment, there is not that invention & care used as in Great Britain, to save labour. People being plenty they continue to employ them, because they have done it for a long time. Two instances need only be mentioned [inserted: in] which I have had influence [inserted: which I saw] at [inserted: a] Mr. Quarnell's printing linen [marrill] factory ay Neratol, about 3 miles from this. At the Callendar or glaring mill, four men were labouring hard, at turning the rollers, which I proposed to affect by one boy, who being placed [2] placed in the inner side of a large wheel, in which there must be steps. his attempting to march up the steps will turn the wheel & operate with more ease & go constantly. Another eight men with eight battons or light mauling sticks were [strikeout] frapping wet linen to bleach it. I proposed on the same water where they were at work, to erect a small wheel which would turn a roller that should have as many pins as battons & by turning round the pins would raise the mauls & operate exactly as the eight men. These were instantly approved of & the alteration is now making, by which ten mens wages are saved. By such things with others I have made myself very acceptable to the people, who by the way without recommendations, know no body - and I am little at home, & indeed without I chuse need never be. By mixing with the first people, I have two advantages - their example & acquaintance - & the saving money - added to which , not a little one - that of having the previous connaisance, when Mrs. S. arrives. The Marqs. la Fayette is made lately, one of the Marine Council. He wrote me about a week ago a very polite letter, requesting to whom & where he might send me letters of introduction. I mentioned two or three, not that I am in want of more acquaintance, but to have the respect of the Marqu. Friendship, who is greatly esteemed in this Kingdom. He writes me that the Memorial I wrote upon the French & American trade, which Mr. De le Tombe translated, is forever gone from him, as the Minister who had it is now out of office. I have written to Mr. de le Tombe for another, or to Mr. La Prest who has one. To have it printed here would give me much respect thro' every part & from every rank, and I flatter myself that at this moment it might be of more use than at any other, as the Merchants & Manufacturers want to find a market for their goods, which are not accumulating upon [3] upon their hands by the destructive Treaty with England, & the plan I have proposed, would send their Mercht., and maintain a perfect safety from loss. Last night I return'd from Louviers, with Mr. Fontaigney [inserted: who [strikeout]] one of the first houses in this place, from visiting the Manufactures there. It is truly astonishing the magnitude of them. The one in which he is singly concerned, maintains three thousand people constantly. I was recommended to him. He proposes in a week hence carrying me to the Duke & Boulions, on Boullies, about 4 leagues from Louviers, and I am promised a letter to the Marquis Conflan, about one league from Louviers. In that place, as there is a good master a good society, & being much in the Country, I believe I shall stay, instead of going to Angoville in the neighbourhood of Havre, indeed it is but a day & a half past from Havre, & but [struck: half] a day from Paris. Wherever I be, & in whatever situation, if I cannot be acquainted with the first in the place, I make it a rule not to be acquainted at all. As I have said before, I find it much more agreeable & cheaper, and besides, is supporting a character & rank I maintained at home, & shall again after my return disencumbered from the shakles & perplexities of deranged business & a want of money, I feel my self collected, and quite another person, than almost you have ever seen me, [strikeout] [inserted: from] which character, nothing shall ever urge me to deviate. , Again permit me to ease a little, an over burthen'd heart, by declaring with how much affection & gratitude I am possessed towards you & your family. Present me with the best respects that can opperate in the heart or the head, to your good Lady. Remember me with much attachment to your brother, & say those things in my behalf which shall be most acceptable to Miss Lucy & your little ones. Ever I remain yours wholly, Jam. Swan, (Turn), , I recd. about a month ago a Letter from Mrs S mentioning [Jeffrey's] conduct. When I say at this time that I shall ever seek an opportunity to be revenged or to return his kindness, I mean [inserted: it] not to be understood, as the result of passion. I am cool and feel the sentiment too powerfull to cease operating on me until I am glutted. with a full gratification, or return of the obligation he has conferred upon me. He might have trusted to a Jackson and he did not chuse to trust a Hichborn. My engagt. to return shall not be an excuse to [illegible] him, and if the peace of a thousand old women is hazarded in the [event], it shall not in the least cool my design. Oh my heart! My dear family - thus abused - thus trampled upon by the dirty clerk of a bankrupt house, whom in justice I owe not ÂĢ1000! It is too much., , [docket] , James Swan 29 March, 1788 -, , [address] , The Honble. Major General Knox, Secretary at War, New York
A Life of Mary Wollenstonecraft: Vindication by Lyndall Gordon
page 220
One way to approach the elusive (Gilbert) Imlay is through American associates like RICHARD CODMAN who made fortunes in France during this decade. Imlay and Barlow had failed in massive schemes without losing their incorrigible self-confidence.It was common in their milhlieu for fortunes to
page 221
fluctuate and to have their shady aspect. The most prominent figure amongst them was JAMES SWAN, another who had speculated in Kentucky lands. Mired in debt in 1787, had come to France to recuperate his fortunes. He was unprincipled according to future President James Monroe, and was to spend his last twenty-two years in a debtors' prison. But in 1793-4 he flourished as a shipper, banker and dealer in art objects. His Boston firm was the official dealer in French objects d'art and furniture confiscated from the royal palaces after the fall of the monarchy and exported to the United States. Dallarde & Swan, his Paris branch at 63 rue Montmorency, was Barlow's business address. (Joel Barlow)
On July 14, 1790, the FÊte de la FÃĐdÃĐration was held in Paris to celebrate the new constitutional monarchy; during the event, a delegation of the United States of America, led by John Paul Jones, founder of the U.S. Navy, joined the feast. It also included Thomas Paine, James Swan, Georges Howell, Benjamin Jarvis, Samuel Blackden, Joel Barlow and William Henry Vernon. The delegation arrived at the Champ de Mars with its flag, the first instance ever of a U.S. flag flown outside of the USA, and was cheered by the people. At the time, the USA were thought in France as a "sister Republic" of enlightenment and liberty.
In the 1790s, the French, under a new post-revolutionary government, accused the United States of collaborating with the British and proceeded to impound UK-bound U.S. merchant ships. Attempts at diplomacy led to the 1797 XYZ Affair in which three French agents approached American delegates requesting a tribute of $250,000. This led to a state of Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1801. Relations deepened after the rise of Napoleon and the election of Thomas Jefferson, but improved after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. This 828,000 square mile purchase nearly doubled the size of the nascent American republic and is the second largest single expansion of United States territory after the original Thirteen Colonies of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. After the Anglo-American War of 1812, during which British military forces burnt the White House in Washington, France became a main ally of the United States.
American State Papers
By Walter Lowrie
pg 272
Extract of a letter from James Swan, Esq to the Secretary of the Treasury dated Boston, September 30, 1796
My friends Messrs Harrison and Sterrett forwarded me a copy of an account sales of 100 BARS OF SILVER SOLD BY MESSRS VAN STAPHORST & HUBBARD, and MESSRS WILLINKS, said to be that paid by my house to MR MONROE for the bill you had of me for $130,000. Those friends will show you the original receipt of MR MONROE, dated 25th December last, and which is expressly for the $120,000 and which exonerated me from every expense, risk, or trouble in getting the money from Paris to Holland. The every correspondence of MR MONROE with you, I believe, proves that he took all these himself.
Records and briefs of the United States Supreme Court
By United States. Supreme Court
page 1052
land titles in Kentucky in the 1790's to James Swan
To the people of the United States
By William Maclure, United States. Board of Commissioners for the Adjustment of French Spoliation Claim
It also appears by official acts of the French Government that the said JAMES SWAN was at various periods of the FRENCH REVOLUTION THE AGENT OF THE SAID GOVERNMENT
An Exposition of the Pretended Claims of William Vans on the ..., Volume 2 By John Codman, Charles Russell Codman, Francis Codman
Richard Codman to John Codman letter dated Paris, 21st April 1798 involved James Swan
Letter from John Quincy Adams to his brother Thomas Boylston Adams dated London, England 26 Dec 1795The non-payment of the bill on Dallarde & Swan, is a circumstance that mortifies and suprizes me. But as to the causes of the failure neither you nor I can be responsible; the business was put entirely into other hands, and had I been disposed to meddle with it, you remember that the bankers informed me they were in correspondence with Mr: Monroe on the subject, which I considered as a sufficient intimation to me, that it was not a concern of mine. Since then however I have interfered as far as was in my power to secure the payment for them, and regret as much as they can, that any difficulties should yet intercept the remittance.
10 Notable Members of the Bavarian Illuminati
5. Johann Caspar [Jean Gaspard] Schweizer (1754-1811)
Schweizer32 was a Swiss merchant and banker, a member of the Helvetian Society, made a Mason at the Zurich Lodge "Bescheidenheit und Freiheit" (Modestia cum Libertate) in 1782, was initiated into the Illuminati in 1785, and became a Jacobin.33
Late in the summer of 1794 the "Commission de commerce et approvisionnements" appointed Johann-Gaspard Schweizer, a rich Zurich banker then living in Paris, as Swan's associate. The firm of Swan & Schweizer (known in official correspondence as Jones & Gaspard) was ordered by the commission to arrange in America for the purchase of food, merchandise, naval munitions, and whatever the commission might designate as necessary to the republic. The goods were to be paid for with bullion, a quantity of which they were authorized to export, and with the large credit from the American sales of the confiscated goods, including wine which had been captured from British cargoes. Jones & Gaspard was further empowered to provision French vessels in American waters.
The head of the Commission de Commerce, Jean-Claude Picquet, knew that Swan was an expert financier, but he was entirely aware of Swan's reputation. For this reason, Picquet dispatched Schweizer to accompany the colonel on his American mission, charging him to follow Swan's every step.57
Swan, a most interesting character, had an "uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time."58 An immigrant from Scotland, he arrived in Boston in 1765 and was initiated into the famous St. Andrews Masonic Lodge in 1777,59 which met at the Green Dragon Tavern (referred to by subsequent historians as the "headquarters of the revolution"). The Sons of Liberty gathered there as well. Swan joined them, and together, along with the tavern's fellow-Masons, planned and executed the Boston Tea Party.60 He worked in a counting house alongside "Count Rumford," served in the revolutionary army, was appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, and married heiress Hepzibah Clarke â thus linking him with the gentry and gaining ample opportunities to benefit financially. After the war of independence, Swan "launched a wide variety of commercial ventures, including speculation in Maine lands, Boston real estate, and confiscated loyalist property."61 The economic depression of 1786 affected his fortune, and in late-1787 he set out for France looking for new schemes. With letters of introduction from prominent French officers (Lafayette among them), Swan succeeded in insinuating himself among the financial elite, and in 1791 "entered into partnership with a French firm, rechristened Dallarde, Swan & Cie."62 His wife Hepzibah joined him in 1790 and they lived in luxury on the rue de Lille across the river from the Tuileries Gardens. "Casting all shame aside," Eleanor Pearson DeLorme cites historian Yvon Bizardel, "Swan was inviting influential Frenchmen and distinguished Americans to dinner with shady traffickers, including âa Persian from Damascus' and two pirates who pillaged American cargoes and sold their crews into slavery."63
The gold bullion was obtained from melting down confiscated ecclesiastical ornaments while the large caches of luxury goods were looted from aristocrats and the royal family. An example of the latter still exists today in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts â a âVase Bachelier,' "decorated in polychrome enamels and gold," from the ChÃĒteau of Versailles.
Rice writes:
Swan reached America in December, 1794, and with the new year the "commercial agency" of Swan & Schweizer began doing business. Schweizer, incidentally, had been delayed on the way, but his absence or presence never greatly concerned his partner. Headquarters were established at Philadelphia, then the seat of the federal government. Sub agents were appointed in all the principal ports: John Vaughan, at Philadelphia; John Murray, at New York; Mason & Fenwick, at Georgetown; Samuel & Joseph Sterett, at Baltimore; W. & J. Thayer, at Charleston; Caleb Gardner, at Newport; Elias Derby, at Salem; Myers, at Norfolk; William Armistead & Company, at Alexandria; N. & J. Cuslie at Petersburg; and Henry Jackson, at Boston. All these firms could be "depended upon" as true friends to France and liberty. If their political principles were suspected, the business was entrusted to some one else, as the case of Messrs. Sterett of Baltimore, who found the agency taken from them in September, 1795.64
Swan & Schweizer closed its books in 1796. France had negotiated treaties with its enemies and was fortunate to have had a good crop year. But due to the political situation in Europe and deteriorating relations between the United States and France, Schweizer stayed in America, with the Swan family in Philadelphia, until 1801. Schweizer occupied himself with tutoring Swan's three daughters, composing poems to his wife, land speculation, as well as writing a book called Critique de la civilisation.
Hepzibah Clarke Swan
James Swan
France, 1787â1830
After various ventures in finance and real estate, and years of living in high style, in 1787 or 1788 the indebted Swan moved to France. En route, he stayed at Mt. Vernon as a guest of George Washington. In France his social circle included Lafayette. Swan was successful in his business activities related to the millions of dollars owed by the United States to France. While in France, Swan acquired furniture, now held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Swan returned to the U.S. in 1794 or 1795. He travelled to Philadelphia and while there posed for portraitist Gilbert Stuart; the finished painting is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Around 1796 he built a summer home in Dorchester, possibly designed by Charles Bulfinch.
He again went to France in 1798. He was imprisoned in Paris for debt in 1808, and released ca.1830. He died in Paris in 1830
Genealogy of James Swan
