Benjamin VaughanMDFRSE LLD (19 April 1751 – 8 December 1835)[1] was a British political radical. He was a commissioner in the negotiations between Britain and the United States at the drafting of the Treaty of Paris.[citation needed]
Vaughan was born in JamaicatoSamuel Vaughan, a British banker and West India merchant planter of Irish Protestant descent, and his Anglo-American wife, Sarah Hallowell, daughter of shipbuilder, Benjamin Hallowell.[2]
His broader long-term interest was in politics and sciences, the latter leading to his friendship with Benjamin Franklin.[5] In 1786, Vaughan was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, to which his father, Samuel Vaughan, had been elected a member two years prior.[6]
Vaughan was a political economist, merchant and medical doctor. Through Benjamin Horne, brother of John Horne, he met the politician Lord Shelburne.[7] Shelburne then used Vaughan in a diplomatic role, to try to bring peace between Great Britain and the United States, towards the end of the American War of Independence. He was also a middleman in reconciling Franklin and Shelburne.
He was elected at a by-election in 1792 as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the borough of CalneinWiltshire, and held the seat until the 1796 general election (he was absent from 1794). He spoke in parliament in strong defence of slavery in Jamaica, in his maiden speech. However, in February 1794, he came out in favour of the abolition of the slave trade.[3] He felt that since slaves could no longer be repressed by ignorance and fear, they should be given inducements not to rebel.[3] During his period in London he lived in Finsbury Square. He was arrested in 1794 on grounds of treason, regarding the supposed invasion of England by the French.[8]
After 1794, Vaughan left France for Switzerland and later to America. His interest in republicanism lead to his permanent departure from Britain. He settled in Boston and then on a farm in Hallowell, Maine in 1797.
He is thought to be the builder (or related to the builder) of Hallowell House in Boston, and it is possible his Jamaican links give rise to the district being called Jamaica Plain.[9]
Vaughan married in 1781 to Sarah Manning, daughter of William Manning (died 1791), and sister of William Manning.[12] They had several children, including:
Harriet Manning Vaughan (1782–1798)
William Oliver Vaughan (1784–1826), who married Mary Argy (1786–1856)
Sarah Vaughan (1785–1847)
Henry Vaughan (1786–1806)
Petty Vaughan (1788–1854)
Lucy Vaughan (1790–1869), who married William Emmons (1784–1855)
Elizabeth Frances Vaughan (1793–1855), who married Samuel Clinton Grant (1796–1853)
The family and their descendants remained in Maine after Vaughan settled in Hallowell in 1797[13] and continue to reside in the town today.[14]
