Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 2
1788-07-09
Doctor Leonard1 came here in the morning: this gentleman came as a passenger with Callahan. He underwent a violent prosecution two or three years ago in England, for endeavouring to come to America with some models of manufacturing machines. But after being two years in prison he was released and immediately resumed his original intentions; but he is now come over without his models; and he rather purposes at present to practice in his original profession as a physician and surgeon.
I bath'd in the Sea, this afternoon; the first time I have done so this Summer; indeed it is rather troublesome here, on account of insects which are almost innumerable.2
William Leonard practiced medicine in Newburyport and later in Ohio (S. P. Hildreth, “Biographical Sketches of the Early Physicians of Marietta, Ohio,”
NEHGR
, 3:137–138 [April 1849]; same, 5:357 [July 1851]).
In his line-a-day entry JQA adds, between notes on Leonard and bathing, that he “Read a little” (D/JQA/13, Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 16).