Of London, watch-maker, admitted on the 30th of August 1822. This
patient had been an inmate here before, and was discharged as cured, in
October last year. But as the derangements of his mind most probably
had their chief source in the nature of his occupation, his recurrence
to that occupation, after he was first restored to reason, had the
effect of renewing his malady: and the art of watch-making is the
leading subject of his illusions.
According to his own account, he is the greatest artist of his
profession in the universe. He can make a chronometer that will go for
a whole year, without varying in the thirtieth part of a second. He
has sent some thousands of them abroad, at prices from fifty to three
hundred guineas each. He boasts continually of his immense property,
and his professional excellence. He had forty of his chronometers at
Flamstead House, Greenwich Park, the residence of the Astronomer Royal,
for examination, and never had one returned as imperfect; and he talks
of his certificates from thence, always describing his work as the best
they had ever seen: nay, his chronometers had been sunk many fathoms
under water, for twenty-four hours together, without the slightest
variation or injury: and no weather or climate, hot or cold, wet or
dry, can affect them.
He says, by way of anecdote, that his late Majesty having accidentally
heard, one morning, that Mr. Swinden was walking in Kew Gardens,
sent his compliments to him, stating that His Majesty would be happy
if Mr. Swinden would honour him by his company to breakfast. Mr.
Swinden complied; and while His Majesty and he chatted together about
chronometers, Mr. Vulliamy, of Pall-Mall (the famous watch-maker) came
in, and wanted to wind up the King’s clock: but Mr. Swinden happening
to have the key in his breeches pocket with some watch-springs, and
as he had made this clock, which never varied in a single second, he
did not think proper to trust the winding up to another. Mr. Vulliamy,
however, demanded the right of winding, in rather an imperative tone
and manner; but Mr. Swinden instantly knocked him down; and when he got
up again seconded the motion. Mr. Vulliamy, not having any particular
relish for a repetition of the compliment, sneaked off: when His
Majesty highly applauded Mr. Swinden for his spirit. He then wound
up the clock, much to the satisfaction of his Majesty, who promised
him a patent; and so they shook hands and parted. Mr. Swinden was to
have not only the patent, but all the King’s work, if he had not been
maliciously brought in here as a madman.
Of his immense property in houses he frequently talks. Besides the
whole of Skinner Street, he owns many splendid mansions in various
parts of the country. His foreign trade is most extensive in every part
of the globe. The deaths of his relations all bring him astonishing
riches; and his wife, of whom he always spoke well (contrary to the
prevailing custom amongst his fellow-patients), he represents as
getting twenty, fifty, and sometimes a hundred guineas from ladies whom
she attends as a nurse.
During his sojournment in this hospital he says he has discovered a
perpetual motion (possibly it is his tongue, which appears to have that
quality, for it rarely ever stops or requires winding), and by this
discovery he is to make an immense fortune, when he gets out.
Previously to his last admission here he laboured under melancholy and
depression of spirits, and would stand for hours at the corner of a
court or street, quite lost in insensibility. It is probable that want
of employment and distress sometimes brought on his malady; but as soon
as his distresses were relieved, his imaginary wealth was renewed; and
he could earn, as he thought, a hundred guineas a day.
In his encomiums on his wife, he said he was not always in earnest. He
had his own views in speaking well of her, for he threatened, whenever
he got out, to cut her throat, and that of his brother Charles. He
was discharged from here as cured, on the 11th of April 1822. He was
quite harmless, and, in his lucid intervals, seemed a quiet, good sort
of man; and was said to be an excellent workman. But his enlargement
served to revive in him the exciting causes of his disorder, and he
has been re-admitted here by petition, at the date already mentioned.
He is in a very desponding state, and this is the third attack of his
disorder.