This Jonathan Williams (d. 1780), Harvard 1772, had been a law clerk in JA's office. He was a cousin of the better-known Jonathan Williams (1750–1815), Benjamin Franklin's great-nephew, who a little later crossed JA's path when serving as American agent at Nantes and who became first superintendent of the military academy at West Point; see DAB . On JA's law clerk see “Suffolk Bar Book,” MHS, Procs. , 1st ser., 19 (1881–1882):151; Harvard Quinquennial Cat.; John Thaxter to JA, 7 Aug. 1780, Adams Papers.

William Law, author of A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, 1728, and other religious works, was an English disciple of the German mystic Jakob Boehme or Behmen; see DNB under Law.