1808 portrait of Hepzibah Swan painted by Gilbert Stuart. Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
introduction of Swan to both the Comte de Rochanbeau and the Marquis de Chastellux, which Washington did on February 28, 1785. Swan used these letters to help open doors to the upper strata of French society.
Before leaving for France later in 1787, Washington’ s thorough and detailed diary notes that Swan visited him at Mt. Vernon on January 17, 1787. Soon after his overnight stay there, Swan wrote to Washington, indicating he had left him a copy of his pamphlet on financial planning of the United States. Swan’ s pamphlet, a copy of which he also sent to Thomas Jefferson, was titled,“ National Arithmetick [ sic ]; or Observations on the Finances of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: with Some Hints respecting Financiering [ sic ] and Future Taxation in This State.”
Swan’ s financial adventures were just beginning. It was likely soon after his arrival in France in 1787 that either Rochambeau or Chastellux— or perhaps Lafayette— introduced Swan to an aristocrat named Pierre-Gilbert Leory D’ Allarde, who would prove a profitable partner prior to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Swan and D’ Allarde established a mercantile business under the name of Swan, D’ Allarde et Cie, which initially sold American food products, gunpowder and saltpeter used in making gunpowder to the French army.
By the late 1780s, France had suffered several years of harsh droughts and subsequent poor harvests, requiring the importation of fundamental food. Hunger suffered by both the rural and urban poor helped incite the French Revolution, including the bread riots led by women who marched from Paris to Versailles in protest.
Swan made formal proposals in French and English that he shared with the French government’ s leadership, as well as US Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. The proposals were written on July 7, 1788, just under a year before the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 24, 1789. Swan proposed to sell the French wheat, beef, sheep and other food with the following schedule of payment:
Payment to be made in specie, but in order to encourage the use of French articles in America … the contractors will hold themselves bound to take 15 % of their payment in wines, brandies, and French products in the first year, 25 % the second year, and each year afterward during the life of the contract an additional 2½ %, the amount of supplies to be augmented in similar manner by an additional 2½ % each year after the second year.
In 1789, Swan sold large shipments of wheat and other food from the United States to help mitigate the hunger in France. In the course of the multi-year revolution that unraveled into radical turmoil, Swan’ s partnership with D’ Allarde dissolved, as noblemen such as D’ Allarde became persona non grata. The revolution created an increased demand for alcohol in France, as well as an opportunity for the creative capitalist Swan to open a rum distillery outside of Paris in Passy.
By 1794, Swan’ s skills as a merchant and potential government liaison between the United States and France had become wellknown, as a letter from James Monroe to James Madison on September 20 attests. Monroe informed Madison that Swan had resided in France for“ some years” and noted that his return to the United States was impending. After almost seven years abroad, Swan returned home in late 1794.
Based on a series of memoranda Swan addressed to the French commission des subsistances at the Archives Nationales in Paris, Swan suggested the commission pay him not with specie the French could ill
26 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Fall 2017 | www. MoAF. org