Now I ask you, what other evidence is necessary to prove that the Founding Fathers were reading Vattel?
How about one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, saying so?
Charles W.F. Dumas, an ardent supporter of the American cause, printed an edition of {The Law of Nations} in 1774, with his own notes illustrating how the book applied to the American situation.
In 1770, Dumas had met Franklin in Holland, and was one of Franklin's key collaborators in his European diplomacy. He sent three copies to Franklin, instructing him to send one to Harvard University, and to put one in the Philadelphia library.
Franklin sent Dumas a letter, Dec. 9, 1775, thanking him for the gift. Franklin stated, ``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, has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting ...|.''