Gaspee Virtual
Archives |
| Daniel Vaughan |
| The Gaspee Days Committee at www.gaspee.COM is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates many community events in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the famous Gaspee Days Parade each June. These events are all designed to commemorate the 1772 burning of the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, by Rhode Island patriots as America's 'First Blow for Freedom' TM. Our historical research center, the Gaspee Virtual Archives at www.gaspee.ORG , has presented these research notes as an attempt to gather further information on one who has been suspected of being associated with the the burning of the Gaspee. Please e-mail your comments or further questions to webmaster@gaspee.org. |
| Evidence implicating
Daniel
Vaughan: Well, of course, there is no information whatsoever implicating Daniel Vaughan in the burning of the Gaspee in 1772. He was apparently serving on a Rhode Island based cargo sloop shortly after the attack, and came to be involved in the subsequent investigation based on his testimony about what he saw of the treatment of the indentured servant Aaron Briggs aboard the Beaver. Excerpted from Staples' Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee. p 79: I, Daniel Vaughan,
of
Newport,
in the colony of Rhode Island, being of
lawful age, do depose and say: That sometime in the
summer last past,
being
in a sloop taking out some old iron from the wreck of
the Gaspee, and
afterwards
going down to Newport in said sloop in company with
Capt. Linzee, in
his
Majesty's ship the Beaver, one morning, not far from
the island of
Prudence,
I saw a small boat alongside the Beaver, and
immediately told the
people
on board the sloop, that somebody had gone on board
the Beaver that
night;
A few days afterwards, as the Beaver lay at Newport,
near the fort, I
was
ordered to haul the sloop I was in alongside a
schooner, which then lay
alongside the Beaver, in order to take out some sugar;
and going on
board
the Beaver, I saw a mulatto fellow under the
forecastle in irons. I
said
unto him, "so you are one of the rogues that have been
burning the
Gaspee;"
he replied, "he never saw her, nor knew anything about
her;'' I then
asked
him what he came there for; he answered, ' 'his master
had used him
badly,
and he was determined to leave him." Two or three days
afterwards,
being
on board said schooner, I heard Capt. Linzee order
said mulatto to be
carried
out of the Beaver on board said schooner, and then to
be tied up to the
mast and whipped; and after he was laid hold on, and
they were about to
tie him up to the mast, he began to declare he knew
some of the people
that burnt the Gaspee, and that Simeon Potter, John
Brown and others,
(whose
names I have forgot,) were concerned therein. Upon
this confession, he
was released from a whipping, sent on board the
Beaver, where I
afterwards
saw him in irons on the quarter deck.
DANIEL
VAUGHAN.
PROVIDENCE, sc.
PROVIDENCE,
Jan.
16th,
1773.
Daniel Vaughan
appeared in
person and made solemn oath to the truth of
the foregoing declaration, unto which he has
subscribed, before
DARIUS
SESSIONS.
Deputy Governor. PROVIDENCE,
Jan.
18,
1773.
SIR:—In consequence
of an
application made unto me in writing, signed
by
Barzillai Richmond, Joseph Brown and John Brown, I
summoned Daniel
Vaughan
and took his deposition relative to what he knew
respecting the
treatment
of the mulatto Aaron on board the Beaver, and I
herewith inclose it to
your honor.
I had not done it but our river is fast shut up, and it is very uncertain when Mr. Vaughan will reach Newport. I choose Mr. Vaughan should give his deposition before the commissioners, if he arrives in season for that purpose; but if he doth not, and you think proper to make use of what I now send, you have liberty to improve it in any way you think it may promote truth and justice. I am, sir, your humble servant, DARIUS
SESSIONS.
Gov. WANTON.
In summarizing the effect of the above, Robinson states in
Revolutionary
Fire that:Aaron
Briggs
appeared and gave his testimony. Previously refuted by
the Tompkins
family
and their servants, further doubt was now cast upon it
in a deposition
given to Governor Wanton by Daniel Vaughan. Vaughan
was a witness to
the
fact that Aaron claimed knowledge of the Gaspee
burning only
after
being whipped by Captain Linzee.
Thus, Daniel Vaughan was the pre-eminent witness to discredit the testimony of Aaron Briggs. It is very much of interest that Vaughan was discovered, perhaps recruited, as a material witness by none other than Dep. Gov. Darius Sessions, who led a deliberate effort to deceive and obstifrucate the Commission of Inquiry. We also note that while Daniel Vaughan lived in Newport, his business on the sloop probably often brought him up Narragansett Bay to Providence, where he most probably was well acquainted with many of those that took part in the attack on the Gaspee. It was also likely, then, that Darius Sessions recruited his testimony while he was in Providence. We first run into the name of Daniel Vaughan as testifying in a maritime case related to his service as a Lieutenant aboard the Prince Charles of Lorraine, commanded by Simeon Potter c1746-1748. He testified that Simeon Potter took seven Indians and three negroes from the Jesuit missionery, and intimidated over 20 crewmen to leave the ship before collected their share of the profits from privateering, which Potter then pocketed. [Howe, M. A. De Wolfe Bristol, Rhode Island : T own Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1930)] It is also very interesting that we next run across the name of Daniel Vaughan to be associated with an important insurrection in Newport. From the website of the Artillery Company of Newport: With the conclusion of the War in 1763, Britain began enforcing restrictions on trade and levying direct taxes on the Colonies. These were intended to pay for the cost of defending the Colonies, but nevertheless these actions were unpopular and were resisted. In 1764 crewmembers from HMS St. John got into trouble in Newport after they had stolen some chickens and hogs from the townsfolk. Others, while trying to apprehend a deserter, were assaulted by citizens of Newport. The ship attempted to sail, but two members of the Governor's Council ordered the Company to fire the guns at Fort George in an attempt to stop its departure. A gun under the command of Daniel Vaughan fired eight shots damaging the main sail. When asked why he did not sink the St. John, Vaughan replied that his orders did not allow him to do such an act, but that he could only fire to disable. We note that one of the Gaspee Commissioners, Frederick Smythe, attempted in vain to broaden the scope of the inquiry to included this shelling of the customs sloop St. John, but was turned back by Governor Wanton saying that the gunner of the fort "was in town and could fully explain the affair." (see Staples, p96). Perhaps, had he been subpoenaed to appear before the Commission, they would have recognized that Vaughan's previous testimony regarding Briggs would be more suspect, coming as it were from one who had previously fired on one of His Majesty's ships. Daniel Vaughan's name, however, reappears in a very curious place at the start of the Revolution. From: Congress and the Continental Navy, 1775-1783: Chronology and Documents at: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/revwar/chron.htm 22 December 1775 The Marine Committee appointed the following officers, with the approval of Congress:Thus, we see that the chief counterwitness to the potentially damaging testimony of Aaron Briggs had previous personal experience in attacking the British, and went on to distinguished service in the American cause during the Revolution, in the company of such notables as John Paul Jones. Was this definitely the same Daniel Vaughan? Probably. We know that all three instances were in Rhode Island, in the same decade, involved in maritime pursuits, and seemed to be playing on the same side.Commander-in-Chief: Esek Hopkins |
| Genealogical
Information: We're not quite sure where to turn in this case. The following candidates are extracted from LDS, Ancestry.com, and Google searches on Daniel Vaughan. We know he considered himself to be from Newport, but that doesn't tell us if he was born there.
|
| For
his role in giving questionable counter-testimony about
Aaron Briggs,
we recognize Daniel Vaughan as a co-conspiritor in the
Gaspee Affair |
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