John Lawrence was the eldest son of John Lawrence of Newtown, Long Island. He became a successful merchant and privateer during the French and Indian War. He was part owner of the privateer Charming Sally (26 guns) and the Harlequin (18 guns). In 1758 he owned the Catherine and applied for a commission for Nathaniel Lawrence as her commander. Later he joined his father-in-law, Philip Livingston, as co-owner of the Tartar and applied for a commission for his brother Thomas Lawrence to command that vessel.

John Lawrence died in 1764. The revivalist George Whitefield preached his funeral sermon in the Presbyterian meeting-house, and he was interred in Lord Stirling’s vault in Trinity Churchyard, New York. A later historical novel by James Otis Kaler, The Charming Sally: Privateer Schooner of New York: A Tale of 1765 (1898), drew upon the history of the vessel in which John Lawrence held an interest. Some writers have suggested that this earlier Charming Sally may have been the same vessel that later served during the American Revolution and was destroyed in the Penobscot Expedition, but the identification is not certain.