VAUGHAN, Benjamin.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Letters, on the Subject of the Concert of Princes, and the Dismemberment of Poland and France. First edition of these 13 letters assessing high politics at the close of the 18th century. A friend of Franklin and Priestley, Vaughan emerged through these letters as a prominent critic of the Pitt government's declaration of war on revolutionary France.Benjamin Vaughan (1751-1835) emerged from a career in trade to undertake a prominent role in international diplomacy, eventually serving as a mediator at the talks which led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. His reformist sympathies extended to revolutionary France, where he fled the year after publishing these Letters. Among much else, they offer a defence of revolutionary rights, condemn the recent annexation of Poland, and outline a pressing case for making peace with the French.

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