Doctor Small, his biographer, tells us that he lived in a little cell in the prison, and was treated with great respect by the other prisoners, they putting aside their little furnaces with which they cooked, that he might have more room for exercise. Not a day passed without some kind act on his part, and he was known to have been the cause of the liberation of many poor debtors. When the jailor introduced his pretended creditor, he would politely salute him, and say to the former: "My friend, return me to my chamber."
With funds sent by his wife, Swan hired apartments in the Rue de la Clif, opposite St. Pélagie, which he caused to be fitted up at great expense. Here were dining and drawing rooms, coaches, and stables, and outhouses, and here he invited his guests and lodged his servants, putting at the disposal of the former his carriages, in which they drove to the promenade, the ball, the theatre—everywhere in his name. At this Parisian home he gave great dinners to his constant but bewildered friends. He seemed happy in thus braving his creditors and judges, we are told, allowed his beard to grow, dressed à la mode, and was cheerful to the last day of his confinement.
His wife died in 1825, and five years later the Revolution of July threw open his doors in the very last hour of his twenty-second year of captivity. His one desire upon being released was to embrace his friend Lafayette, and this he did on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville. Then he returned, July 31, to reinstate himself in prison—for St. Pélagie had after twenty-two years come to stand to him for home. He was seized almost immediately upon his second entrance into confinement with a hemorrhage, and died suddenly in the Rue d'Échiquier, aged seventy-six. In his will, he donated large sums of money to his four children, and to the city of Boston to found an institution to be called the Swan Orphan Academy. But the estate was found to be hopelessly insolvent, and the public legacy was never paid. The colonel's name lives, however, in the Maine island he purchased in 1786, for the purpose of improving and settling,—a project which, but for one of his periodic failures, he would probably have successfully accomplished.
THE WOMAN VETERAN OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY
DEBORAH SAMPSON GANNETT.
Deborah Sampson Gannett, of Sharon, has the unique distinction of presenting the only authenticated case of a woman's enlistment and service as a regular soldier in the Revolutionary army.
The proof of her claim's validity can be found in the resolutions of the General Court of Massachusetts, where, under date of January 20, 1792, those who take the trouble may find this entry: "On the petition of Deborah Gannett, praying compensation for services performed in the late army of the United States.