DANIEL LEONARD.
The Leonard family was established in this country in 1652, by three sons of Thomas Leonard, who remained in England. The three sons were James, Henry, and Philip, all of whom have left many descendants. The Leonards were interested in the first iron works established in this country at Lynn, Braintree, Rowley Village, and Taunton, and at a later date at Canton, so that the observation "where you can find iron works there you will find a Leonard" has been almost literally verified. They were probably interested in most, if not all the iron works established in this country within the first century after its settlement, and it is a remarkable fact that the iron manufacture has continued successively, and generally very successfully, in the hand of the Leonards or their descendants, down to the present day.
James was the progenitor of the Leonards of Taunton, Raynham and Norton. He and his sons often traded with the Indians, and were on such terms of friendship with them, that when war broke out King Philip gave strict orders to his men never to hurt the Leonards. Philip resided in winter at Mount Hope, but his summer residence was at Raynham, about a mile from the forge. The family was noted throughout Plymouth County in Colonial times for its wealth, and the number of able men it produced in successive generations, who were entrusted by the public with offices of honor and importance. To this family belonged Daniel Leonard, the third Taunton lawyer, a man who was no unconspicuous actor in the affairs of his time. He was the only son of Ephraim Leonard, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, a colonel in the militia, and the possessor of a large property, who resided on a homestead of five hundred acres connected with which were extensive iron works, situated in that part of the town of Norton now known as Mansfield. There, in a house on this estate the subject of this sketch was born May 29, 1740. His boyhood was passed tranquilly amid comforts which usually wait on an only child of wealthy and influential parents. Entering Harvard College at an early age, he graduated in 1760 in the class of John Lowell, the celebrated lawyer. He took up law as a profession, and had not been long at the bar before he was engaged in a fair practice, his generous disposition and affable manners having established his popularity, while his acquirements won for him reputation as an orator and a scholar. In 1770 he received from Yale College the degree of M. A.; in 1769 he was appointed as King's Attorney of Bristol County. Having become possessed of a fortune by a Boston heiress, he adopted what for that age and vicinity was considered great style, and display of dress, and mode of living. He set up a chariot, and pair of horses with which he travelled to Boston several times a week, something no lawyer in the Province had ever ventured to do before. In 1769 he began his political career by entering the Legislature where he represented Taunton during the year's of 1770-71-73 and 74. At first he made the most ardent speeches, which had been up to that time delivered in the House against Great Britain in favor of the colonists, but in the latter years of his service as a representative, he, like many more of his countrymen, became alarmed at the mob outrages, and the drifting of the country towards rebellion, he slowly changed his opinions and became a Loyalist and a supporter of the government that represented law, and authority. The revolutionists attributed this change to the influence of Governor Hutchinson and Attorney-General Sewall with whom he was on terms of intimacy, although this friendship formed some cause of distrust; the change in his views was not known publicly, or with certainty until the summer of 1774, as is evidenced by his being a member of the Committee of Nine on the state of the Province in the Legislature of that year, a committee made up of those only who were believed to be against the government. In June of that year he became an "addresser" to Governor Hutchinson. A few weeks later he was appointed Mandamus Councellor by the King. When it became known that he had taken the oath for qualifications for this office a mob of upward of two thousand men gathered on the "green" near his home, uttering oaths and angry threats and menacing him with personal indignities, which they would undoubtedly have proceeded to put into execution if they could have found him, but being informed by his father that he had gone to Boston and that he would use his influence to induce his son to resign his office, they were mollified for the time and refrained from pulling the house down, and gradually dispersed. They, however, assembled again the following evening, and seeing a light in the south chamber where Mrs. Leonard lay sick in bed, and thinking that Leonard was there, they fired through the window into the room; the bullets passed through the upper sash and shutter, and lodged in the partition of the next chamber.[216] Friends had acquainted Mr. Leonard of the mob's intention to attack his home. He therefore went to Boston where his family soon joined him, and was protected from further violence by the presence of the troops. This outrage upon his home greatly embittered him against the revolutionists and their cause, and was undoubtedly the cause of his writing his celebrated letters, which so ably championed those principles of civil liberty, for which the loyalists so nobly contended.
Daniel Leonard was the author of the famous letters signed Massachusettensis, mis-attributed by the first President Adams to Jonathan Sewall. These letters that appeared in the Massachusetts Gazette "reviewed with much ingenuity with the purpose of showing that the course of the government was founded in law and reason; that the colonies had no substantial grievance; that they were a part of the British Empire and properly subject to its authority." From the great skill in which they were written they were attributed to Jonathan Sewall, a man of much talent. It was more than a generation before the authorship was assigned to Daniel Leonard. John Adams answered these papers as "Novanglus." "Massachusettensis" bears dates between December, 1774, and April, 1775, and was published three times in a single year: first, in the "Massachusetts Gazette and Post Boy," next in a pamphlet form; and last, by Rivington, in New York. Still another edition appeared in Boston in 1776. The replies were numerous. "Novanglus" bears dates between January and April, 1775. Both were printed in 1819, with a preface, by Mr. Adams, who remarks of "Massachusettensis," that "these papers were well written, abounded with wit, discovered good information, and were conducted with a subtlety of art and address wonderfully calculated to keep up the spirits of their party, to depress ours," etc., etc.
The following are a few brief extracts from these letters.
"The press when opened to all parties and influenced by none, is a salutary engine in a free state, to preserve the freedom of that state, but when a party has gained the ascendancy, so far as to become the licensers of the press, either by act of government, or by playing off the resentment of the populace against printers, and authors, the press itself becomes an engine of oppression or licentiousness, and is as pernicious to society as otherwise it would be beneficial. It is too true that ever since the origin of our controversy with Great Britain, the press of this town have been indulged in publishing what they pleased, while little has been published on the part of the government. The effect this must have had upon the minds of the people in general is obvious. In short, the changes have been so often rung upon oppression, tyranny, and slavery, that, whether sleeping or waking, they are continually vibrating in our ears, and it is now high time to ask ourselves whether we have not been deluded by sound only. Should you be told that acts of high treason are flagrant through the country, that a great part of the province is in actual rebellion, would you believe it true? Nay, you would spurn it with indignation. Be calm, my friends, it is necessary to know the worst of a disease, to enable us to provide an effectual remedy. Are not the bands of society cut asunder and the sanctions that hold man to man trampled upon? Can any of us recover a debt, or obtain compensation for an injury by law? Are not many persons, whom once we respected, and revered, driven from their homes, and families, and forced to fly to the army for protection, for no other reason but their having accepted commissions under our king? Is not civil government dissolved?
"Reader, apply to an honest lawyer (if such a one can be found) and inquire what kind of an offence it is for a number of armed men to assemble, and forcibly to obstruct the courts of justice, to pass governmental acts, to take the militia out of the hands of the king's representatives to form a new militia, to raise men and appoint officers for public purposes, without order or permission of the king or his representatives, or for a number of men to take to their arms, and march with a professed design of opposing the king's troops. Ask, reader, of such a lawyer, what is the crime, and what the punishment, and if, perchance, thou art one that has been active in these things, and art not insensibility itself, his answer will harrow up thy soul.
"The shaft is already sped, and the utmost exertion is necessary to prevent the blow. We already feel the effects of anarchy, mutual confidence, affection, and tranquility, those sweeteners of human life are succeeded by distrust, hatred, and wild uproar; the useful arts of agriculture and commerce are neglected for caballing, mobbing this or the other man, because he acts, speaks or is suspected of thinking different from the prevailing sentiment of the times, in purchasing arms, and forming a militia. O height of madness! Can you indulge the thought one moment that Great Britain will consent to this? For what has she protected and defended the colonies against the maritime powers of Europe, from their first British settlement to this day? For what did she purchase New York of the Dutch? For what was she so lavish of her best blood and treasure in the conquest of Canada, and other territories in America? Was it to raise up a rival state, or to enlarge her own empire? I mention these things, my friends, that you may know how people reason upon this subject in England, and to convince you that you are deceived, if you imagine, that Great Britain will accede to the claims of the colonies. And now, in God's name, what is it that has brought us to this brink of destruction? Has not the government of Great Britain been as mild and equitable in the colonies, as in any part of her extensive domains? Has she not been a nursing mother to us from the days of our infancy to this time. Has she not been indulgent almost to a fault?
"I have as yet said nothing of the difference in sentiment among ourselves. Upon a superficial view we might imagine that this province was nearly unanimous; but the case is far different. A very considerable body of men of property in this province are at this day firmly attached to the cause of government, bodies of men compelling persons to disavow their sentiments, to resign commissions or to subscribe leagues, and covenants, has wrought no change in their sentiments. It has only attached them more closely to government and pray more devoutly for its restoration.
"A new, and until lately unheard of mode of opposition, has been devised, said to be the invention of the fertile brain of one of our party agents, called a committee of correspondence. This is the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent that ever issued from the eggs of sedition. These committees when once established, think themselves amenable to none, they assume a dictatorial style, and have an opportunity under the apparent sanction of their several towns, of clandestinely wreaking private revenge on individuals by traducing their characters, and holding them up as enemies of their country, wherever they go, also of misrepresenting facts and propagating sedition through the country. Thus a man of principle and property in travelling through the country would be insulted by persons whose faces he had never seen before. He would feel the smart without suspecting the hand that administered the blow. These committees, as they are not known in law, and can derive no authority from thence. They frequently erect themselves into a tribunal where the same persons are at once legislators, accusers, witnesses, judges, and jurors and the mob the executioners. The accused has no day in court, and the execution of the sentence is the first notice he receives. It is chiefly owning to these committees, that so many respectable persons have been abused and forced to sign recantations and resignation though so many persons, to avoid such reiterated insults, as are more to be deprecated by a man of sentiment than death itself, have been obliged to quit their houses, families and business, and fly to the army for protection. That husband has been separated from wife, father from son, brother from brother, and the unfortunate refugee forced to abandon all the comforts of domestic life. Have not these people that are thus insulted, as good a right to think and act for themselves in matters of the last importance. Why then, do you suffer them to be cruelly treated for differing in sentiment from you? Perhaps by this time some of you may inquire who it is, that suffers his pen to run so freely. I will tell you; it is a native of this province that knew it before many that are now basking in the rays of political sunshine, had a being. He was favored not by whigs, or tories, but the people. He is now repaying your favors, if he knows his own heart, from the purest gratitude. I saw the small seed of sedition when it was implanted; it was as a grain of mustard. I have watched the plant until it has become a great tree; the vilest reptiles that crawl upon the earth are concealed at the root, the foulest birds of the air rest upon its branches.
"At the conclusion of the late war Great Britain found that the national debt amounted to almost one hundred and fifty million, and heavy taxes and duties were laid. She knew that the colonies were as much benefited as any part of the empire, and indeed more so, she thought it reasonable that the colonies should bear a part of the national burden, as that they should share in the national benefit. For this purpose the stamp act was passed. At first we did not dream of denying the authority of parliament to tax us, much less legislate for us. We had paid for establishing a post office, duties imposed for regulating trade, and even for raising a revenue to the crown without questioning the right. Some resolves in Virginia denying the right of parliament made their appearance. We read them with wonder, they savoured of independence. It now became unpopular to suggest the contrary, his life would be in danger that asserted it. The newspapers were open to but one side of the question and the inflammatory pieces that issued weekly from the press, worked up the populace to a fit temper to commit the outrages that ensued. It has been said that several thousands were expended in England, to ferment the disturbance there. However that may be, opposition to the ministry was then gaining ground, from circumstances foreign to this. The ministry was changed and the stamp act repealed. When the statute was made imposing duties upon glass, paper, India teas, etc. imported into the colonies, it was said this was another instance of taxation. We obtained a partial repeal of this statute which took off the duties from all articles except teas. We could not complain of the three-penny duty on tea as burdensome, for a shilling which had been laid upon it for the purpose of regulating trade, and therefore was allowed to be constitutional, was taken off; so that we were, in fact, gainers nine pence on the pound by the new regulation. The people were told weekly that the ministry had formed a plan to enslave them that the duty upon tea was only a prelude to a window tax, hearth tax, land tax and poll tax, etc. What was it natural to expect from a people bred under a free constitution, jealous of their liberty, credulous, even to a proverb when told their privileges were in danger. I answer outrages, disgraceful to humanity itself. What mischief was not an artful man, who had obtained the confidence and guidance of such an enraged multitude, capable of doing? He had only to point out this or that man, as an enemy of his country, and no character or station, age or merit could protect the proscribed from their fury. Happy was it for him, if he could secrete his person, and subject his property only to their lawless rage. By such means acts of public violence has been committed as will blacken many a page in the history of our country. They have engrossed all the power of the province into their own hands. A democracy or republic it has been called, but it does not deserve the name of either. It was, however, a despotism cruelly carried into execution by mobs, and riots, and more incompatible with the rights of mankind than the enormous monarchies of the East. The government under the British Constitution consisting of kings, lords, and commons, is allowed both by Englishmen and foreigners to be the most perfect system that the wisdom of ages has produced. The distributions of power are so just, and the proportions so exact, as at once to support and control each other. An Englishman glories in being subject to and protected by such a government.
"Let us now suppose the colonies united and moulded into some form of government, in order to render government operative and salutary, subordination is necessary. This our patriots need not be told of, and when once they had mounted the steed and found themselves so well seated as to run no risk of being thrown from the saddle, the severity of their discipline to restore subordination would be in proportion to their former treachery in destroying it. We have already seen specimens of their tyranny, in the inhuman treatment of persons guilty of no crime except that of differing in sentiment. What then must we expect from such scourges of mankind when supported by imperial powers?
"I do not address myself to whigs or tories, but to the whole people. I know you well, you are loyal at heart, friends to good order, and do violence to yourselves in harboring one moment, disrespectful sentiments towards Great Britain, the land of our forefathers' nativity, and sacred repository of their bones, but you have been most insidiously induced to believe that Britain is rapacious, cruel and vindictive, and envies us the inheritance purchased by the sweat and blood of our ancestors. Could that thick mist be but once dispelled that you might see our Sovereign, the provident father of all his people, and Great Britain a nursing mother to the colonies, as they really are. Long live our gracious king, and happiness to Britain would resound from one end of the province to the other."[217]
In February, 1775, Daniel Leonard was appointed Solicitor General of the Commission of Customs with a salary of £200 sterling, a body exercising powers similar to those of a court of admiralty. Thirteen months after this time, March, 1776, he accompanied the British Army to Halifax with his family of eight persons and thence to London, where he practiced as a barrister in the Courts of Westminster.
In 1780, William Knox, Under Secretary of State for the American Department suggested the division of Maine, and a province of the territory between the Penobscot and St. Croix rivers, with Thomas Oliver for Governor, and Daniel Leonard for Chief Justice. The plan was approved by the King and Ministry, but was abandoned because Wederburne, the Attorney-General, gave the opinion that the whole of Maine was included in the charter of Massachusetts.
Mr. Leonard was in Massachusetts in 1799 and again in 1808. He was included in the Banishment Act of 1778 and the Conspiracy Act of 1779. He received the appointment of Chief Justice to Bermuda. After filling this office for many years, he again in his last days took up his residence in London, where he died June 27, 1829, aged 89. His death was the result of an accident while withdrawing the charge from a pistol, he accidentally discharging it so as to cause almost instant death.
The generous temper and affable manners of Mr. Leonard seemed to have fascinated those who were in his household. The nurse who was entrusted with the care of the infant daughter of his first wife, would never leave him. She went with his family in all their wanderings, first to Boston, then to Halifax, London, and Bermuda, then to the United States, back again to the West Indies, then to London, and died in their service. His Deputy Sheriff, who had been a Captain in the Provincial service, a person of great address, wit, and accomplishments, followed his fortunes and was killed in the battle of Germantown, then a Major in the British Army. A young gentleman educated at Harvard College, and in his office, went with him to London where he died.
Daniel Leonard married twice. His first wife was Anna, daughter of Hon. Samuel White of Taunton, his second Sarah Hammock of Boston, who died on the passage from Bermuda to Providence, R. I., aged 78. He left a daughter Anna, who married a Mr. Smith of Antigua, Harriet who died in London in 1849, Sarah who married John Stewart, a captain in British army and afterwards Collector of the Port of Bermuda. Sarah had four children. The eldest Duncan Stewart, on the death of an uncle who died childless, succeeded to an ancient Lairdship in Scotland. His brother, Leonard Stewart, was an eminent physician in London. His sister Emily married a Captain in the service of the East India Company, the other sister, Sarah, married a Mr. Winslow, descended from the ancient governor of Plymouth, and a relative of Lord Lyndhurst, (Copley) whose private Secretary he was during his Chancellorship.[218] Mr. Leonard had an only son Charles, who was born when the mob attacked his house, and was feeble-minded. He entered Harvard College in 1791, but did not graduate. He was subsequently under the guardianship of Judge Wheaton, and was found dead in the road in Barrowsville, near Taunton in 1831. Col. Ephraim Leonard, who lived till the close of the Revolution devised his large estate to his grandson Charles. It was understood, however, that the father and sisters of Charles were to participate in the enjoyment of the property. Had Daniel Leonard returned from banishment and taken the oath of naturalization and allegiance to the new government, he would have inherited this large estate, but this he would not do, nothing could swerve him from his loyalty to the old flag.