Daniel Leonard

author

Daniel Leonard

1740–1829

A sharp colonial lawyer who became one of the best-known Loyalist voices of the American Revolution, he is still remembered for the lively public debate he carried on with John Adams. His life later took him from Massachusetts exile to the chief justiceship of Bermuda.

1 Audiobook

Novanglus, and Massachusettensis or, Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies

Novanglus, and Massachusettensis or, Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies

by John Adams, Daniel Leonard

About the author

Born in Norton, Massachusetts, in 1740, he grew up in a prominent family with ties to the iron industry, graduated from Harvard in 1760, and built a successful legal career in Taunton and Boston. In the years before the Revolution, he became well known for his political writing as well as his work at the bar.

He is most often remembered for the "Massachusettensis" essays, a series defending the British imperial position that drew a famous answer from John Adams in the "Novanglus" papers. That exchange made him one of the most recognizable Loyalist writers in Massachusetts and helped secure his place in early American political history.

When the Revolution turned against Loyalists, he left Massachusetts and eventually settled in Bermuda, where he served as chief justice. He died in London in 1829, after a life that crossed the worlds of colonial law, revolutionary politics, and imperial service.