To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Vaughan, Jr., [14 February 1783]
From Samuel Vaughan, Jr.
AL: American Philosophical Society
Friday morning. Hotel de Vauban Rue de Richelieu
[February 14, 1783]3
Mr Vaughan has the honor to present his respectful comps. to Dr Franklin. Inclosed is a letter from Mr Hodgson, which Mr V received this morning,4 & forwards early, as he imagines Dr Franklin may wish to answer it by Mr Storer, who sets off tonight at 10 oClock for London.5
Respecting News, Mr Vaughan has the pleasure to inform Dr Franklin, that Lord Surry is talked of as Ambassador to America;6 That the ratifications were not arrived in Town the 8th Inst:,7 & that the subject was not to be discussed by parliament before they were arrived; And, that by letters from Mr Laurens to Mr Manning, Mr L proposed being in Paris by the 11th: Inst., however the latest letters do not speak of his arrival even in London.8
Addressed: A son Excellence / Monsieur Franklin, / Ministre plenipotentiare des Etats Unis &c &c, / a Passy.
Notation: Vauhan
3. Dated on the basis of Vaughan’s letter of Feb. 13.
4. Probably Hodgson’s Jan. 26 letter to BF, above; Hodgson wrote Vaughan the same day.
5. Storer took with him the Ridleys’ servant Mary Mingey, whom Anne Ridley was not sorry to see leave: Anne Ridley to Matthew Ridley, Feb. 14, 1783, Mass. Hist. Soc. In a note to BF dated only “Thursday morning,” undoubtedly written on Feb. 13, Anne Ridley requested a passport for Mingey, who would leave for London the following evening. APS.
6. In December Shelburne offered the post to Charles Howard, Earl of Surrey and later Duke of Norfolk (ODNB, under Howard), but Surrey declined: Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 644–5.
7. The ratifications of the British-French treaty; see Vergennes to BF, Feb. 2.
8. Laurens wrote William Manning from Bath on Feb. 5 about his plans to go to London (S.C. Hist. Soc.). He was in London from Feb. 8 to 11 before returning to Bath: Laurens Papers, XVI, 144–5.