Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/203

 and flung the Irish into the sea (, Civil War, i. 337). In the following summer he was again afloat, but in August was, on some charges which seemingly could not be sustained, superseded by Robert Moulton. On investigation it was determined to reinstate Richard Swanley, and he was accordingly appointed to the Lion, in which he continued, still on the same station and on similar service, till towards the end of 1647. He was afloat in July, but in November had left the sea, and in the following January was petitioning to have his accounts passed. For the next few years he resided at Limehouse, where he died in September 1650. He was buried in the churchyard of Stepney (, Environs of London, iii. 434, Suppl. 1811, p. 441). In his will (in Somerset House: Pembroke 149), dated 28 May 1649, and proved on 11 Sept. 1650, he mentions his wife Elizabeth, a daughter Mary, and two sons John and Richard, the latter of whom may probably be identified with the Richard Swanley bound apprentice to the East India Company in December 1633, who served afterwards in the navy, and was master of the Revenge in 1669.

[Calendars of State Papers, East Indies and Dom.; Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir William Penn, vol. i.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. i.; notes kindly furnished by William Foster, esq.]  SWANSEA,. [See, 1821-1894.]

SWEET, ROBERT (1783–1835), horticulturist, the son of William Sweet and his wife Mary, was born in 1783 at Cockington, near Torquay, Devonshire. When sixteen years old he was placed under his half-brother, James Sweet, at that time gardener to Richard Bright of Ham Green, near Bristol, with whom he remained nine years. He subsequently had charge of the collection of plants at Woodlands, the residence of John Julius Angerstein [q. v.]

In 1810 Sweet entered as a partner in the Stockwell nursery, and when that was dissolved in 1815, became foreman to Messrs. Whitley, Brames, & Milne, nurserymen, of Fulham, till 1819, when he entered the service of Messrs. Colvill. While in their employ he was charged with having received a box of plants knowing them to have been stolen from the royal gardens, Kew, but was acquitted after trial at the Old Bailey on 24 Feb. 1824. In 1826 he left the Colvills, and till 1831 occupied himself almost wholly in the production of botanical works, while still cultivating a limited number of plants in his garden at Parson's Green, Fulham. In 1830 he moved to Chelsea, where he had a larger garden and cultivated for sale to his friends.

In June 1831 his brain gave way. He died on 20 Jan. 1835, leaving a widow but no family. He had been elected a fellow of the Linnean Society on 14 Feb. 1812. The botanical genus Sweetia was named in his honour by De Candolle in 1825.

Sweet was author of: 1. ‘Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis,’ 8vo, London, 1818. 2. ‘Geraniaceæ,’ 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1820–1830. 3. ‘The Botanical Cultivator,’ 8vo, London, 1821; 2nd edit. entitled ‘The Hothouse and Greenhouse Manual,’ 12mo, 1825; 5th edit., 8vo, 1831. 4. ‘The British Warblers,’ 8vo, London, 1823. 5. ‘The British Flower Garden,’ 8vo, London, 1823–9; 2nd series, 1831–8. 6. ‘Cistineæ,’ 8vo, London, 1825–30. 7. ‘Sweet's Hortus Britannicus,’ 4to, London (1826)–7; 2nd edit. 1830; 3rd edit. 1839. 8. ‘Flora Australasica,’ 8vo, London, 1827–8; the original drawings for which, by E. D. Smith, are in the botanical department of the Natural History Museum. 9. ‘The Florist's Guide and Cultivator's Directory,’ 2 vols. 4to, London, 1827–32. 10. In conjunction with H. Weddell, ‘British Botany,’ No. 1, 4to, London, 1831.

[Gardeners' Mag. xi. 159, with bibliography; Mag. Nat. Hist. viii. 410; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  SWEETMAN, JOHN (1752–1826), United Irishman, was born of Roman catholic parents in Dublin in 1752. The family had for more than a century conducted in that city an extensive brewery, to which Sweetman succeeded on the death of his father. He became identified with the movement for the removal of the civil and religious disabilities of the catholics, and was one of the chief supporters of the vigorous policy initiated by John Keogh (1740–1817) [q. v.] in 1791, which led to the secession of most of the catholic gentry. He was also a delegate at the catholic convention which assembled in Dublin on 3 Dec. 1792. In the same year a secret committee of the House of Lords accused certain ‘ill-disposed members’ of the Roman catholic church of contributing money in support of the ‘defenders,’ a secret agrarian society. They founded this assertion upon the discovery of a letter by Sweetman, enclosing money to defend a peasant accused of ‘defenderism.’ Sweetman immediately published ‘A Refutation,’ in which he denied the accusation, and stated that he had offered assistance because he believed the man to be innocent. He described himself