By Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
With an introduction and notes by
Homer Eaton Keyes, B.L.
Assistant Professor of Art in Dartmouth College
Crowded in the rank and narrow ship, -
Housed on the wild sea with wild usages, -
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals
Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,
Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.
Coleridge's Wallenstein.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Biographical Note
California and her Missions
Bibliographical References
Diagram of Ships
Explanation of Diagram
Two Years Before the Mast
Twenty-Four Years After
INTRODUCTION
Biographical Note
Two years before the mast were but an episode in the life of
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; yet the narrative in which he details the
experiences of that period is, perhaps, his chief claim to a wide
remembrance. His services in other than literary fields occupied
the greater part of his life, but they brought him comparatively
small recognition and many disappointments. His happiest
associations were literary, his pleasantest acquaintanceships
those which arose through his fame as the author of one book.
The story of his life is one of honest and competent effort,
of sincere purpose, of many thwarted hopes. The traditions
of his family forced him into a profession for which he was
intellectually but not temperamentally fitted: he should have
been a scholar, teacher, and author; instead he became a lawyer.
Born in Cambridge, Mass., August 1, 1815, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.,
came of a line of Colonial ancestors whose legal understanding and
patriotic zeal had won them distinction. His father, if possessed
of less vigor than his predecessors, was yet a man of culture and
ability. He was widely known as poet, critic, and lecturer; and
endowed his son with native qualities of intelligence, good breeding,
and honesty.
After somewhat varied and troublous school days, young Dana entered
Harvard University, where he took high rank in his classes and bid
fair to make a reputation as a scholar. But at the beginning of his
third year of college a severe attack of measles interrupted his
course, and so affected his eyes as to preclude, for a time at least,
all idea of study. The state of the family finances was not such as to
permit of foreign travel in search of health. Accordingly, prompted by
necessity and by a youthful love of adventure, he shipped as a common
sailor in the brig, Pilgrim, bound for the California coast. His
term of service lasted a trifle over two years - from August, 1834,
to September, 1836. The undertaking was one calculated to kill or cure.
Fortunately it had the latter effect; and, upon returning to his native
place, physically vigorous but intellectually starved, he reentered
Harvard and worked with such enthusiasm as to graduate in six months
with honor.
Then came the question of his life work. Though intensely religious,
he did not feel called to the ministry; business made no appeal;
his ancestors had been lawyers; it seemed best that he should follow
where they had led. Had conditions been those of to-day, he would
naturally have drifted into some field of scholarly research,
- political science or history. As it was, he entered law school,
which, in 1840, he left to take up the practice of his profession.
But Dana had not the tact, the personal magnetism, or the business
sagacity to make a brilliant success before the bar. Despite the
fact that he had become a master of legal theory, an authority upon
international questions, and a counsellor of unimpeachable integrity,
his progress was painfully slow and toilsome. Involved with his lack
of tact and magnetism there was, too, an admirable quality of sturdy
obstinacy that often worked him injury. Though far from sharing the
radical ideas of the Abolitionists, he was ardent in his anti-slavery
ideas and did not hesitate to espouse the unpopular doctrines of the
Free-Soil party of 1848, or to labor for the freedom of those Boston
negroes, who, under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, were in danger
of deportation to the South.
His activity in the latter direction resulted in pecuniary loss,
social ostracism and worse; for upon one occasion he was set upon
and nearly killed by a pair of thugs. But Dana was not a man to be
swerved from his purpose by considerations of policy or of personal
safety. He met his problems as they came to him, took the course
which he believed to be right and then stuck to it with indomitable
tenacity. Yet, curiously enough, with none of the characteristics
of the politician, he longed for political preferment. At the hands
of the people this came to him in smallest measure only. Though at
one time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, he was defeated
as candidate for the lower house of Congress, and in 1876 suffered
the bitterest disappointment of his life, when the libellous attacks
of enemies prevented the ratification of his nomination as Minister
to England.
Previous to this he had served his country as United States
District Attorney during the Civil War, a time when the office
demanded the highest type of ability and uprightness. That the
government appreciated this was shown in 1867 by its choice of
Dana as one of its counsel in the prosecution of Jefferson Davis
for treason. The position of legal representative before the
Halifax tribunal of 1877, which met to discuss fishery questions
at issue between the United States and Canada, was given him no
doubt in part because of his eminent fitness, in part as balm for
the wound of the preceding year.
But whatever satisfaction he may have found in such honors as time
and ripening years brought to him, his chief joy and relaxation lay
in travel. When worry and overwork began to tell upon him, he would
betake himself to shore or mountains. Upon several occasions he
visited Europe, and in 1859 made a tour of the world.
