Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/561

 to found in England a college for foreign missions and to find the means by begging in foreign countries. Having obtained at Rome the blessing of the pope, he sailed at the end of 1863 for the Caribbean Sea.

Landing at Colon, he crossed the isthmus to Panama, then part of the republic of New Granada. The town was suffering from small-pox, and the dead were counted in hundreds. At the same time, owing to the refusal of the clergy to accept a new constitution requiring what was regarded as an acknowledgment of the civil power in spiritual matters, all the churches had been closed, and priests were forbidden to say mass or administer the sacraments. Vaughan spent his days among the sufferers, saying mass, hearing confessions, and consoling the dying. He was summoned before the president of the republic and warned to desist. He had promised to say mass in the room of a woman sick of the small-pox. and he did so. Taken before the prefect of the city and committed for trial, he escaped by boarding a ship bound for San Francisco. After spending five months travelling up and down California with varying success he determined to try his fortune in South America. His plan was to beg his way through Peru and Chili, and then to ride across the Andes into Brazil, and to sail from Rio, either for Australia or home. This plan he carried out except that instead of riding across the Andes he sailed round the Horn in H.M.S. Charybdis. These wanderings, during which his begging exposed him to varied risks, lasted nearly two years.

The work was suddenly cut short by a letter of recall from Manning. Vaughan reached England in the last week of July 1865, bringing with him 11,000l. in cash and holding promises for a considerably larger sum. Friends now came to his help, and a house and land were purchased at Mill Hill without his having to touch the money collected in the Americas. That was to be assigned to the maintenance of the students. The college, called St. Joseph's College, was opened in a very humble way on 1 March 1866. The most rigid economy was practised in all household arrangements. The progress was rapid; additional accommodation became necessary, the foundations of the present college were laid, and in March 1871 the new buildings opened, free from debt, with a community of thirty-four. In the autumn Vaughan saw the first fruits of his labours when the Holy See assigned to St. Joseph's missionaries the task of working among the coloured population of the United States. In November he sailed with the first four missioners, and after settling them in Baltimore started on a journey of discovery and inquiry through the southern states, in the course of which he visited St. Louis, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and Charleston. All his life he continued to take the deepest interest in the development of the Mill Hill college, and he remained president of St. Joseph's Missionary Society till his death. The college which he had built has now three affiliated seminaries. His missionaries are at work in the Phihppines, in Uganda, in Madras, in New Zealand, in Borneo, in Labuan, in the basin of the Congo, in Kashmir, and Kafiristan. In 1911 they gave baptism to nearly 15,391 pagans.

Vaughan's first visit to America convinced him of the power of the press. In November 1868 he bought 'The Tablet,' which was founded by Frederick Lucas [q. v.] in 1840, and for nearly three years he was its acting editor. It was the time of the controversy about the papal infallibility. A disciple of Manning and W. G. Ward, Vaughan advocated uncompromisingly in 'The Tablet' the Ultramontane cause.

After the death of Dr. Turner, bishop of Salford, in July 1872, Vaughan, largely through Manning's influence, was chosen as his successor. He was consecrated at St. John's Cathedral, Salford, on 26 Oct. 1872. The catholic diocese of Salford, although geographically small, was estimated to contain 196,000 souls and was rapidly increasing. The new bishop was soon in love with Lancashire and its people, and, wrote of Salford as 'the grandest place in England for popular energy and devotion.' After his first survey of the wants of his diocese the bishop saw the need of a pastoral seminary, where newly ordained priests might spend together their first year. A sum of 18,000l. was collected, and the Pastoral Seminary was opened within three years. The bishop's second project was St. Bede's College, a catholic school of his own in Manchester, mainly for commercial education. Two houses facing Alexandra Park were purchased close to the Manchester Aquarium, which had hitherto been associated with high scientific and philanthropic ideals. The news that the Aquarium Company was near to bankruptcy and might be converted into a music hall, led the bishop to secure it summarily for 6800l. With the support of the leading catholics of Manchester the