Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Vaughan, 14 June 1783

From Samuel Vaughan

ALS: American Philosophical Society

London 14th. June 1783

My dear Sir,

Well knowing Your engagements, I have hitherto declined encroaching upon Your important time, but as I shortly embark with my family for Philadelphia,5 I could not refrain returning You my very sincere and affectionate thanks, for your repeated friendly & affectionate attention to each of my sons when on the continent, and which (if possible) has added to that respect affection, and I may say reverence I have retained for You, ever since I have had the pleasure of Your acquaintance, and I rest with pleasing expectation of renewing and perpetuating an intercourse with You in America, which I shall esteem as the most valuable of the many advantages I expect to derive in that new World, being with perfect regard, My dear Sir, Your affectionate and obliged hble Servt.

Saml Vaughan

Honble. Benjn. Franklin Esqr.

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

5Vaughan began making preparations to emigrate as soon as the peace was declared. By March, 1783, his household effects were packed, his country home was for sale, and he anticipated a departure in April or May: XXXIX, 293. His son John had gone to Philadelphia to look for property the previous year, and after a brief return to England was sailing back to Philadelphia in advance of the family: BF to John Vaughan, June 3; John Vaughan to BF, June 10. The youngest son, Samuel, Jr. (21 years old), was on his way to Germany: BF to Ingenhousz, June 1. Benjamin and William, the two eldest, stayed in London. The remaining children were Ann (1757–1847), Charles (1759–1839), Sarah (1761–1818), Barbara (b. 1764), and Rebecca (1766–1851): John H. Sheppard, “Reminiscences and Genealogy of the Vaughan Family,” New England Hist. & Geneal. Register, XIX (1865), 355. The family sailed on July 9: William Vaughan to WTF, Aug. 8, 1783 (APS). For this final chapter in Vaughan’s life see Sarah P. Stetson, “The Philadelphia Sojourn of Samuel Vaughan,” PMHB, LXXIII (1949), 459–74.

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