Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/111

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OUTLAWS AND CONSPIRATORS.
91

Shelburne's speech. But politics did not wholly absorb him. He fell in love with Miss Sarah Manning, but her father withheld his consent to the marriage on the ground that Vaughan had no profession. Thereupon Vaughan went and studied medicine at Edinburgh, married on his return in 1781, and became partner with Manning & Son, merchants, in Billiter Square. He acted as confidential messenger and unpaid mediator in negotiations with America, and in 1782 was four times sent to Paris by Shelburne, then Prime Minister, to confer with Franklin. His brother-in-law Manning docked him of a year's profits of the business, on the plea of his having wasted seven months in diplomatic missions.

For thirty years the friend and correspondent of Franklin, Vaughan edited a London edition of his works (1779), and assisted long afterwards from America in the new edition of 1806. He also wrote a treatise on international trade, which was translated into French in 1789. In 1790 he was in Paris, and in a letter to Shelburne (now Marquis of Lansdowne) described France as in a fever of enthusiasm. He went on to Nantes, where on the 24th November he made a speech at a meeting where Nantes delegates described the honours which had been rendered them in London. It was probably during this absence that Colonel Barré, owing to a quarrel with Lansdowne, resigned his seat for