Identifier: dayswaysinoldbos00ross_0 (find matches)
Title: Days and ways in old Boston
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Rossiter, William Sidney, 1861-1929
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston : R. H. Stearns and company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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Jeffries, against whose treatmenthe expressed himself most bitterly. He went toHavre and Rouen in France, where he investig-ated French manufactures. On his arrival inFrance he advanced the interests of the Statesand in 1790 published in French six letters ad-dressed to Lafayette on the causes of the opposi-tion to commerce between France and the States.In 1790 Swan attempted to negotiate a loan of$2,000,000 for the States from some citizens inGenoa. As an American whose country was arefuge he assisted many royalist refugees to Amer-ica and also shipped the household effects ofothers. As many of these people were unfortu-nate enough to lose their lives, a Boston wit ofthe last century observed The guillotine tooktheir heads and Swan took their trunks. After the horrors of the Revolution, Mrs. Swanjoined her husband in his house in the Rue Croixde Petit Champs, and in 1793 he was able tosay that he had paid his debts and re-estrblishedhis ancient fortune and would return,—which he114
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Days and Ways in Old Boston did in 1794. In the following year he visitedPhiladelphia with a project to go to Spain in anofficial capacity. About this time he became possessed of 25,000acres in Hardin County, Kentucky, and in 1796he purchased the Greenleaf estate and placedit in his wifes name and also some lots bought atauction from the town, a part of the site of thefuture Colonnade Row. At this time his financesagain became involved and he sailed in 1797 toFrance, once more to recoup his fortunes. He wasnot as successful as during the days of the FrenchRevolution, for ten years later, in 1808, Swan wasarrested for a debt due, unjustly as he claimed, toJean Claud Picquet, a Paris merchant. He wasimprisoned for this debt in St. Pelagie prison andstayed there until the Revolution in 1830 openedhis prison door. He did not long survive his liber-ation and died the 18th of March, 1831. Swanswife had died at their Dorchester house in 1825.Her death invited an attempt by the French cred-it

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