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The transmutation of subjects into citizens was part of what the American Revolution was fought about.

... which makes it especially peculiar, that you'd think the Founders would defer to the English law governing subjects of the king, when those men at the Philadelphia Convention were also quite familiar with Vattel.

As well they should have been, since it was Vattel who first coined the term "natural-born citizen," and provided the definition of the term that more than just a few Founders and even early Chief Justices of the Supreme Court cited.

Benjamin Franklin spoke glowingly of the value of Vattel's The Law Of Nations, as did John Jay, as did Samuel Adams much earlier, in the 1760's, and likewise did John Adams and also James Otis of Massachusetts.

Vattel's very definition of the term was cited, nearly verbatim, by John Jay, John Marshall, John Bingham ... I'd say the evidence is far more definitive for Vattel than English common law, as the source for "natural-born citizen."

Exactly. Both men's work was very influential on the framers/founders, no doubt about it.

However, only Vattel defines "Natural Born Citizen." There was simply no other source (known) from where they could have gotten that term defined from.

... which makes it especially peculiar, that you'd think the Founders would defer to the English law governing subjects of the king, when those men at the Philadelphia Convention were also quite familiar with Vattel.

English law was the foundation upon which was founded American Law. English law was familiar to the men in the Philadelphia Convention, and they considered it part of their legal heritage. Trial by jury, the presumption of evidence, many other features of American law are founded on the law that Blackstone wrote about. Blackstone defined the term natural born in the passages I quoted. That was the definition that the men in the Philadelphia Convention had in mind when they wrote natural born, not something written in a foreign language by some yodeling Switzer.

Or do you agree with Justice Ginzberg that we should refer to foreign law?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/us/12ginsburg.html?_r=1