To swindle and abscond. Swartwouter. An absconding swindler or embezzler. In 1820, Gen. Robert Swartwout, Federal naval agent, defaulted for $68,000. The government obtained satisfaction by taking a mortgage of $75,000 on his property. He was a member of “Tammany.” (N.Y. Evening Post, Nov. 1, 1909). Eighteen years later Samuel Swartwout was appointed by Andrew Jackson, Collector of Customs for the Port of New York. He embezzled more than $1,000,000, and was removed by Martin Van Buren. (See The Jeffersonian, Albany, Dec. 1, 1838). Reference may be made to the Congressional Globe, 1838, pp. 16–21, 31–5, &c. Appendix.
1839. Swartwout took steam for England in two days afterwards, Aug. 16th. If this was speed, “go it, ye terrapins!”—The Jeffersonian, Feb. 2. (This paper, Feb. 2 and 9, contains several columns concerning him).
1839. Considerable excitement prevailed at Cincinnati, in consequence of the real or supposed Swartwouting [of a bank cashier].—New-Bedford Daily Mercury, Sept. 18.
1839.
| True farmers all, we earn our bread, | |
| No Priceing or Swartwouting, | |
| Save pricing beeves so much a head, &c. | |
Farmers’ Monthly Visitor, i. 173 (Concord, N.H.). |
1840. I am only an hundred and twenty-five dollars worse than nothing, and live in daily fear of being compelled to ‘absquatulate,’ or ‘Swartwout,’ or whatever else the reader may choose to call it.—Knick. Mag., xvi. 480 (Dec.).
1841. [Mr. Howard] talked to us about the land officers Swartwouting, and all that.—Mr. Kennedy of Indiana, House of Representatives, June 30: Cong. Globe, p. 132.
1841. All the Swartwoutings, peculations, and defalcations which had taken place under the late administration.—Mr. Henry Clay, U.S. Senate, July 12: id., p. 183.
1844. “An English Swartwouter.”—W.S.W., clerk in a Birmingham bank, absconded.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, Aug. 22.
