I’m new to this forum; I just had to get in my 2 cents regarding our founders and Vattel - I hope I’m posting correctly per posting rules.
“Another founder of our nation and framer of our Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, was also quite familiar and well versed with the writings of Vattel. He had his own personal copy prior to the advent of the Revolution. And in 1775 he wrote to Charles Dumas an editor and journalist in the Netherlands and thanked him for sending Franklin 3 copies of the newest edition of Vattel (published in French). Franklin commented to Dumas that his personal copy was in heavy demand by the other delegates to the Continental Congress meeting in 1775.”
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/04/benjamin-franklin-in-1775-thanks.html
And here’s an excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s “thank you” to Charles Dumas from December 9, 1775:
“I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript “Idee sur le Gouvernement et la Royaute” is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel. “
Thanks for posting the connection between Dumas, the Law of Nations and the Founders.