the study so roused his best feelings and resolutions that he dedicated his life to the Abolition cause. Thus soon did Benezet obtain a successor, as
The champion of an injured race,
Among the great and good.
It appears that John Stephen Benezet had a brother, who settled in England. James Benezet, Esq., married Elizabeth Frances, daughter of Claude Fonnereau, Esq., of Christ Church Park, in Suffolk. Elizabeth Francoise Fonnereau was baptized by M. Doules, in the French Church of St. Martin-Orgars, London, on Thursday, 14th May 1702; she was married at St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, on 13th May 1729, to Jaques Benezet, merchant.
The annotator of the Countess of Huntingdon’s life says, as to James Benezet :
“His descendant, the late Major Benezet, was a resident in Margate for many years, where he acquired considerable property, a great part of the new town having been built on land belonging to him. The name is now (1841) nearly extinct, only one person remaining, an old bachelor, upwards of seventy years of age.”
III. Ancestors of American Presidents.
Before the year 1789, when George Washington inaugurated the office of President of the United States, the president of the legislature was called The President of the Congress of the United States. Among those early presidents there were descendants of the Huguenot Refugees. A few notes regarding them may be appropriate.
(1.) Laurens. There were refugees of this surname in England in 1682. In that year John Laurens, his wife Anne, and two daughters were naturalised (see List IV.). Laurent was probably the same name. Simon-Peter and Mark Laurent were naturalised in 1688 (see List XIV.). And on 3d May 1691, “Simon Pierre Laurens” married Anne Chicot, in London, within the French Church in the Savoy. There were other Laurents, also refugees, called Lauran and Laurans; but these I need not specify, because the president’s ancestors may have emigrated from France to British America. Indeed, it is said that they settled “first” at New York, and then removed to Charlestown, in South Carolina.
Henry Laurens was born in Charlestown in 1724. He made his fortune as a merchant under the sway of Great Britain. With regard to the quarrel with the mother country he afterwards said:—
“For many years, at the peril of my life and fortune, I evidently laboured to preserve and strengthen the ancient friendship between Great Britain and the colonies; in no instance did I ever excite on either side the discussions which separated them. The commencement of the present war was a subject of great grief to me, inasmuch as I foresaw, and foretold in letters now extant, the distresses which both countries experience at this day. In the rise and progress of the war I have extended every act of kindness in my power to persons called Loyalists and Quietists, as well as to British prisoners of war.”
His abilities and character commanded universal respect; and on the 1st November 1777 he was elected President of Congress on the resignation of Mr. John Hancock. The next year he signed the reply of Congress to the King’s Commissioners, which concluded thus:—
“Congress are inclined to peace, notwithstanding the unjust claims from which this war originated, and the savage manner in which it hath been conducted. They will therefore be ready to enter upon the consideration of a treaty of peace and commerce not inconsistent with treaties already subsisting, when the King of Great Britain shall demonstrate a sincere disposition for that purpose. The only solid proof of this disposition will be an explicit acknowledgment of these States, or the withdrawing of his fleets and armies.
“Signed by order of the unanimous voice of Congress at York-town, June 17, 1778.
On the 6th August he publicly received at Philadelphia the French Ambassador, who made a friendly speech, and “the President answered it with ease and dignity.” After filling the presidential chair for a year or upwards, he was succeeded by Mr. Jay. In 1780, Mr. Laurens was sent as an extraordinary envoy to negotiate a treaty with Holland, and sailed for the Hague in the Congress packet Mercury. On 3d September the ship was taken by a British cruiser off the Banks of Newfoundland. This box of papers, which he was observed to throw overboard, was recovered by a British sailor. Himself and papers were examined in London by the Privy Council; he was committed close prisoner to the Tower, and not released until the 31st
