He was the father of Massachusetts Attorney General James Treacothie Austin.
[1] When the war started Austin became a Major in Langdon's Regiment, and later an aid to General John Sullivan.
[1] Austin was the secretary to the Massachusetts Board of War until October 1777,[1] when he was sent to Paris by Massachusetts to announce to Benjamin Franklin and his associates the news of John Burgoyne's surrender at the Battle of Saratoga.
[6] Franklin soon afterwards sent him on a secret mission to England, where he met many members of the opposition and furnished them with much information concerning American affairs.
The trip was full of incident, and, says one of Franklin's biographers (Morse), "brings to mind some of the Jacobite tales of Sir Walter Scott's novels."