Samuel Vaughan

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the Union Army officer, see Samuel K. Vaughan.

Samuel Vaughan, 1760 portrait by Robert Edge Pine

Samuel Vaughan (1720–1802) was an Anglo-Irish merchant, plantation owner, and political radical.

Early life

Vaughan was born in Ireland, the son of Benjamin Vaughan and Ann Wolf; he was the youngest of a family of 12.[1] He was a merchant and plantation owner, living largely in Jamaica, from 1736 to 1752, when he set up business as a merchant banker at Dunster's Court, Mincing Lane, in the City of London.[2][3]

Political activist

In politics Vaughan supported

Bill of Rights Society (Society of Gentlemen Supporters of the Bill of Rights).[9] It was a trust giving financial support to Wilkes, and the treasurers were Vaughan, Richard Oliver and John Trevanion (1740–1810). The Society set about dealing with Wilkes's tangled money affairs.[10]

Vaughan belonged to what Benjamin Franklin fondly called the Club of Honest Whigs, which met at St Paul's Coffee House in the cathedral churchyard[11] (see English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries). His support for the cause of Corsica in 1768 brought him the acquaintance of James Boswell through the Club.[12] Vaughan was a trustee of funds for Corsica, with William Beckford and Barlow Trecothick.[13]

In December 1774 Franklin and Josiah Quincy II stayed with Vaughan at Wanstead in Essex.[14] In the period 1781–2 the parliamentary reformer Christopher Wyvill met radical leaders at Vaughan's house.[15] There resulted a political pact for the following session of parliament, of mutual support between Wyvill and a radical group around Vaughan (including John Jebb, John Horne Tooke, and James Townsend).[16] Vaughan joined the Society for Constitutional Information in the 1780s.[17] Through William Beckford, he met the Earl of Shelburne. When Shelburne became Prime Minister, the Vaughan family influence reached foreign policy, trying to split the United States from their French allies in some ultimately unsuccessful moves of 1782.[18]

The Vaughan family was part of the Newington Green congregation of the dissenting minister Richard Price.[19] Samuel Vaughan was a friend of the elder William Hazlitt, the Unitarian minister.[20] Vaughan's religious views have been described as "free-thinking Unitarian".[21]

Jamaica and bribery scandal

Coat of Arms of Samuel Vaughan

Vaughan purchased in 1765 the post of Clerk to the

Supreme Court of Jamaica. In 1769 Vaughan then offered the Duke of Grafton, a government minister, a sum of £5000 to secure a reversion, to hold this official place in the family for three of his sons.[2] Grafton brought a King's Bench case against Vaughan, which resulted in embarrassment to both parties. The prominence of the issue led the campaigning writer Junius to expose a previous sale of office by Grafton. This was the post of Collector of Customs in Exeter, to a Mr. Hine, for which Grafton took £3,500; and the implication was that the money went to a card-sharp.[22]

Vaughan put his side of the case in An Appeal to the Public on Behalf of Samuel Vaughan, Esq. in a fall and impartial Narrative of his Negotiation with the Duke of Grafton;[2] and Grafton dropped the prosecution.[23] Even so, Vaughan's actions appeared to be a political gaffe to some of the political radicals, Vaughan's allies. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, a family friend, wrote a poem complimenting his wife Sarah as a gesture of support.[24]

Some of Vaughan's sons became involved in the

plantation business, and its London end Vaughan & Co. Benjamin visited the Colony of Jamaica in the early 1770s, and in parliament in the 1790s defended slavery on the island. William worked in the company, and became prominent in the London Society of West India Merchants.[21] Vaughan himself visited Jamaica again in 1775.[25] The Vaughan estates were Flamstead and Vaughansfield in Saint James Parish, slave-run sugar plantations.[26] Vaughansfield was involved in the Second Maroon War in the neighbouring Trelawny Parish.[27] Samuel Vaughan junior became proprietor of these estates.[21]

In the United States

After the end of the

American War of Independence Vaughan made several long stays in the United States. There were three separate visits.[28] Vaughan was accompanied by his family, but sent them home in 1786.[29] He wrote to Richard Price in 1785 of the American principles of government as being "the permanent security of the rights of mankind".[30]

Philadelphia and Virginia

Vaughan was on good terms with George Washington;[31] Washington wrote to him on 30 November 1785 about gifts of a pamphlet of Mirabeau on the Society of the Cincinnati, and Jamaican rum.[32] They had met in Philadelphia in December 1783. There Vaughan planned the planting of the State House garden, as well as laying out the gardens of Gray's Ferry Tavern in the English style.[33][34] In Philadelphia also, with Francis Hopkinson, he helped revive the American Philosophical Society, to which Vaughan was elected a member in 1784; and provided a sketch-plan for Philosophical Hall.[35][36][37]

As Vaughan explained to Humphry Marshall, he planned to plant the State House Yard with a representative collection of American trees and shrubs.[38] The ambition was a political statement, on the unity of the newly United States, and was shared by Washington and Thomas Jefferson as gardeners.[39] In Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1787, Vaughan paid a visit in July to William Bartram's nursery, from which he ordered 55 species of plants.[33][40] The State House project's greater scope was abandoned, but Vaughan saw to the publication of Marshall's Arbustum Americanum, in 1785.[41] He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1786.[42]

In 1787 also, Vaughan visited Mount Vernon, and drew a plan of the garden.[43] He gave Washington a marble mantelpiece for the house.[29]

Philosophical Hall, Philadelphia today

Maine

Vaughan also spent time in

Brattle Square Church.[45][46][47] Two of the Vaughan sons (Benjamin and Charles) settled there, and another (John, a business partner of Robert Morris) at Philadelphia.[48][49] Samuel Vaughan in fact intended a religious project in the area, which was put in the hands of Charles, who became a "Kennebeck Proprietor"; but the original aim became muted as Charles's lack of business acumen showed through.[47]

Later life

In 1790 Vaughan attended the funeral of his friend Benjamin Franklin. Shortly afterwards he returned to London.[29] In 1792 he went to Paris to attend debates of the National Assembly.[50] In 1795 he bought the "Vaughan portrait", one of many portraits of Washington by Gilbert Stuart.[51]

George Washington, the Vaughan Portrait (1795)

Vaughan died in

Hackney, in 1802.[52]

Family

Vaughan married Sarah Hallowell (1727–1809), daughter of Benjamin Hallowell. They had 11 children in all.[3] Ten lived to be adults. Their sons were:

Sarah Hallowell Vaughan

Their daughters were

References

  • Jenny Graham (2000), The Nation, the Law, and the King: Reform Politics in England, 1789–1799, 2 volumes

Notes

  1. ^ Cultural Landscape Foundation, Biography of Samuel Vaughan.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7486-0810-2
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-87249-385-8
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  4. ISBN 978-0-19-820544-9
    . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  5. ^ Ben, 1766–73; William, 1766–69; John, 1772–74; Charles, 1775–77; Samuel, 1777–79. (Dissenting Academies Online: http://dissacad.english.qmul.ac.uk).
  6. ^ Graham, p. 103.
  7. ISBN 978-0-8018-9016-1
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  8. ^ Graham, p. 98 note 229.
  9. ISBN 978-0-520-01778-8
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  10. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73620. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  11. ISBN 978-0-271-04624-2
    . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  12. ^ Verner W. Crane, The Club of Honest Whigs: Friends of Science and Liberty, The William and Mary Quarterly Third Series, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Apr. 1966), pp. 210–233, at p. 228. Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1922508
  13. ISBN 978-0-8018-9016-1
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  14. ISBN 978-1-4290-1688-9
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  15. ISBN 978-0-674-05000-6
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  16. ^ John M. Norris (1963). Shelburne and Reform. Macmillan. p. 162.
  17. ^ Graham, p. 43 note 39.
  18. ^ John M. Norris (1963). Shelburne and Reform. Macmillan. pp. 58 and 165.
  19. ^ amphilsoc.org, John Vaughan papers, 1768 – Circa 1936.
  20. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/95498. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  21. ^
    ISBN 9780521486590
    .
  22. ^ Bernard Falk (1950). The Royal Fitz Roys. Hutchinson. p. 108.
  23. ISBN 978-1-4653-4479-3
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  24. ISBN 978-0-226-31052-7
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  25. ISBN 978-1-4223-7123-7
    . Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  26. ISBN 978-976-640-128-3
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  27. ISBN 978-0-8014-7528-3
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  28. ^ John Hannibal Sheppard (1865). Reminiscences of the Vaughan Family: And More Particularly of Benjamin Vaughan, LL.D. D. Clapp & son, printers. p. 31. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  29. ^ a b c Graham, p. 60.
  30. ^ Graham, p. 51.
  31. ISBN 978-0-8139-1900-3
    . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  32. ^ John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson (editors), The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799; prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission and published by authority of Congress vol. 28 (1931), pp. 326–328; archive.org.
  33. ^
    ISBN 978-0-09-952562-2
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  34. ISBN 978-0-8032-7247-7
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  35. ISBN 978-0-87169-938-1
    . Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  36. ISBN 978-1-4223-7123-7
    . Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  37. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  38. ^ specialcollections.nal.usda.gov, Vaughan to Marshall, May 28, 1785, USDA History Collection.
  39. ISBN 978-0-09-952562-2
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  40. ISBN 978-0-09-952562-2
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  41. ^ Joseph Ewan, Seeds and Ships and Healing Herbs, Encouragers and Kings, Bartonia No. 45 (1978), pp. 28–29. Published by: Philadelphia Botanical Club. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41609821
  42. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter V" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  43. ISBN 978-0-09-952562-2
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  44. ISBN 978-1-4068-4830-4
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  45. ^ Properly, one of The Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase from the late Colony of New-Plymouth.
  46. ISBN 978-0912274492
    .
  47. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8078-4282-9
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  48. ^ a b Arlington and Mount Vernon 1856. As Described in a Letter of Augusta Blanche Berard, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 57, No. 2 (Apr. 1949), pp. 140–175, at p. 169. Published by: Virginia Historical Society. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4245617
  49. ISBN 978-1-4165-7286-2
    . Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  50. ^ Graham, p. 344 note 10.
  51. ^ nga.gov, George Washington (Vaughan portrait).
  52. ^ John Towill Rutt (1831). Life and correspondence of Joseph Priestley, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. R. Hunter. p. 59 note. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  53. ISBN 978-0-8078-4282-9
    . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  54. ISBN 978-1-4223-7123-7
    . Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  55. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7141. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  56. ^ Daniel Raynes Goodwin (1862). Memoir of John Merrick, Esq. Henry B. Ashmead, book and job printer. p. 7. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  57. ISBN 978-0-403-09950-4
    . Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  58. ^ masshist.org, Vaughan Family Papers 1768–1950, Guide to the Collection.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Samuel_Vaughan&oldid=1175283975"