The Journal of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.: Volume I The Journal of Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Volume I [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674599093, 9780674598515

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THE JOURNAL OF Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

T H E JOURNAL OF Richard Henry Dana, Jr. VOLUME I

Edited by Robert F. Lucid

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1968

© Copyright 1968 by the Massachusetts Historical Society © Copyright 1968 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-14264 Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments My work on this edition has extended over seven years, and my debts, personal and professional, are many. It is a pleasure to acknowledge them here. In many ways my greatest obligation is to Professor Walter Blair, of the University of Chicago. He not only read the Introduction, advised me on a variety of technical problems, and gave me encouragement when the magnitude of the enterprise seemed overwhelming, but as a teacher and friend in the years before I began this work, he was the man from whom I learned what I could of scholarly patience and responsibility. The staff of the Massachusetts Historical Society, particularly its director, Mr. Stephen T. Riley, and its librarian, Mr. John Cushing, have been unfailingly helpful. Mr. Cushing read the whole manuscript, and I am most grateful for his assistance. Mr. Thomas De Valcourt, of the Longfellow House, in Cambridge, gave me many hours of his time, and made available a great variety of crucial materials. Special assistance on various aspects of the planning, transcription and annotation of the edition was rendered by: Professor Martin Battestin, University of Virginia; the late Professor George Conklin, Wesleyan University; Professors Alfred R. Ferguson, Ohio Wesleyan and William H. Gilman, University of Rochester, editors of Emerson's Journals; Professor Norman Holmes Pearson, Yale University; and Professor Edward Williamson, Wesleyan University. Mrs. Mary Everett did the typescript, working from the editor's dictaphone bands. Among librarians and individuals to whom I am especially indebted for assistance are: Mrs. Christine H. Clondall, Hallowell, Maine; Clarkson A. Collins, 3rd, Rhode Island Historical Society; Elizabeth J. Dance, Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia; Τ. E. deDisse, Library of the United States Naval Academy; Alvin F. Gamage, Brattleboro, Vermont, Free Library; Miss Francine Gomberg, University of Pennsylvania; Elenora Gralow, Fisk Public Library, Natchez, Mississippi; Richard Harwell, Bowdoin College Library; Mrs. Lilla M. Hawes, Georgia Historical Society; John Melville Jennings, Virginia Historical Society; John D. Kilboume, Maryland Historical Society; Mrs. Mildred P. McKay, New Hampshire State Library; Campbell J. Miles, Natchez, Mississippi; Mrs. Lois S. Neal, North Carolina State Library; Mrs. Eugenia N. Powell, South Carolina Historical Society; L. Felix Ranlett, Bangor, Maine, Public Library; Margaret Rose, State Historical Society of North Dakota; Miss

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Acknowledgments

Olive Μ. Smythe, Bangor, Maine, Public Library; Nicholas B. Wainwright, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Margaret A. Whalen, Maine State Library; and Richard G. Wood, Vermont Historical Society. Recently published works which were of particular value during the course of the editing were: David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, i960); Martin B. Duberman, Charles Francis Adams, ι8ογ-ι886 (Boston, i960); John Haskell Kemble, editor, Two Years Before the Mast, A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (Los Angeles, 1964); Robert F. Metzdorf, editor, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., An Autobiographical Sketch, 1815-1842 (Hamden, Connecticut, 1953); Samuel Shapiro, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (East Lansing, Michigan, 1961). Dr. Metzdorf and Professors Kemble and Shapiro contributed personal encouragement as well. Thanks are also due to the staff members of the libraries of the University of Chicago, Wesleyan University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and Harvard Law School, Yale University, the Boston State House, and the cities of Boston, Cambridge, New York and Philadelphia. Special help was provided by the state library at Hartford, Connecticut, and by the Prints and Photographs division of the Library of Congress. Also helpful was the staff of the Boston Athenaeum. Advice and encouragement came from many friends and colleagues: Professors Robert E. Streeter, University of Chicago; Peter S. Boynton, George R. Creeger, Samuel M. Green, Ihab Hassan, John D. Maguire, Richard Ohmann, Joseph Reed, Clement E. Vose, and Richard Wilbur, of Wesleyan University; Professors Sculley Bradley, Hennig Cohen, Theodore Hornberger and Robert E. Spiller, University of Pennsylvania; Professor Carl Bode, University of Maryland; and Professor Reginald D. Archambault, Brown University. Subvention, without which it would have been difficult to complete this edition, came from the University of Chicago, Wesleyan University, and the University of Pennsylvania. My son, John Michael Lucid, II, variously aided and impeded my efforts. My wife, Joanne, should have a separate section devoted to the acknowledgment of her work, but her contribution has been so very great that little short of placing her name on the title page as co-editor — a gesture she will not permit — would really be adequate. I must conclude by saying that none of the people listed here bear any responsibility for the deficiencies of this edition. R.F.L.

Contents

V O L U M E ONE A Note on the Text Works Cited in Notes Editor's Introduction PART I.

BEGINNINGS: BOYHOOD, A MARRIAGE, A CAREER, AND A WAY OF L I F E - 1815-1844 1. 2. 3. 4.

PART Π.

xi xiii xv

An Autobiographical Sketch— 1815-1841 A Year of Initiation — 1841-1842 Washington Allston's Death — 1843 Pilgrimage to Mount Vernon — 1844

3 52 114 227

THE MIDDLE YEARS - 1845-1850 1. A Trip to Niagara Falls — 1845-1847 2. An Entry into Politics — 1848-1849 3. Defense of a Fugitive Slave — 1850-1851

303 342 394

V O L U M E TWO PART II.

THE MIDDLE YEARS - 1851-1853 3. Defense of a Fugitive Slave (continued) — 1851 4. The Death of Daniel Webster - 1852 5. The Massachusetts Constitutional Convention and a Trip to Canada — 1853

407 478 528

PART III. A LAWYER AT HOME AND ABROAD - 1 8 5 4 - 1 8 5 9 1. The Case of Anthony Burns — 1854 2. The Emergence of the Republican Party — January 1855-May 1856 3. A Trip to England — July-September 1856 4. Pressures of the Law — November 1856-July 1859

613 669 692 821

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Contents

VOLUME PART IV.

THREE

A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD - 1859-1860 1. Out to California 2. At Sea and Hawaii 3. California and to the Orient 4. China 5. Japan 6. China Again 7. The Voyage Back Genealogies Index

841 857 895 940 1001 1032 1065 1141 1155

Illustrations VOLUME ONE (Following Page 230) The first page of the Journal manuscript. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., about 1840. Richard Henry Dana, Sr. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Boston around 1840. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Philip Spencer, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, a cartoon of Spencer and Mackenzie, and the first page of the Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry. First reproduced from public sources in Hayford, The Somers Mutiny Affair. Charles Sumner in 1846, Charles Francis Adams, Sr., Edward Everett, and Joseph Story. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. The Anti-Slavery Society Meeting of 1843, from the painting by B. R. Haydon in the National Portrait Gallery. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Webster speaking at the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. Daniel Webster, from a photograph by Matthew B. Brady. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Explosion on board the U. S. S. Princeton, February 28, 1844, from a lithograph by N. Currier. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Washington Allston, from an engraving by John Sartain. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Washington Allston's "Belshazzar's Feast." Courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The house at Manchester. Courtesy of Longfellow House.

V O L U M E TWO (Following Page 636) A page of Dana's manuscript showing effects of Mrs. Dana's excisions. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., about 1849. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Sarah Watson Dana. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Hartford, Connecticut, about 1840. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. A view of downtown Boston. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

χ

Illustrations

George Ticknor, Rufus Choate, William M. Evarts, and James Dwight Dana. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Artist's impression of the Parkman murder, November 23, 1849. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Free Library. The "Five Points" in New York City about 1859. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. The Water Celebration on Boston Common, October 25, 1848. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Dana's first house in Cambridge. Courtesy of Longfellow House. William Wetmore Story. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Thomas Gold Appleton. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Queen Victoria, July 1856. From the Illustrated London News. Five of Dana's six children. Courtesy of Longfellow House.

VOLUME THREE (Following Page 1022) The last page of the last volume of the Journal manuscript. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., in 1879. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Sarah Watson Dana in 1876. Courtesy of Longfellow House. The Yosemite Valley, and Steamer Day in San Francisco. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. John C. Fremont. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, King Kamehameha IV, and Queen Emma, of Hawaii. The three Richard Henry Danas. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Hilo, Hawaii, and a view of Canton. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Drawing of Josiah Tattnall in action, from Harpers Illustrated Weekly. Two Oriental impressions of Westerners. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Sarah Watson Dana with Elizabeth Ellery Dana and Angela Henrietta Channing Dana. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Two views of the Journals author in later life. Courtesy of Longfellow House. Title page of first edition of Two Years Before the Mast. Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

A Note on the Text The Journal of Richard Henry Dana is formidable in magnitude, running to some six-hundred-thousand words. He kept it in a series of six leather-bound ledgers (except for the last volume, which is a file of letters assembled into a journal), prefacing the first volume with a long family history and an autobiographical sketch. Little attention was paid to the volumes after he discontinued them in i860, though both Dana and his children appear to have gone over them, adding a word or two of marginal comment from time to time. He had the Journal of his 1856 English vacation copied by a professional, evidently with the intention of publishing it, and it is probable that he was intending to publish his round-the-world Journal when the Civil War intervened. Nothing, however, was published during his lifetime. After Dana died, in 1882, the younger Charles Francis Adams drew upon the Journal for a Massachusetts Historical Society memoir, which grew, by 1890, into a two-volume biography. Adams used the Journal very freely (his pencil marks remain in the margin), excerpting whole sections and stringing them together with a brief commentary of his own. Overall, he may have reprinted close to one quarter of the total Journal, often silently changing Dana's text for stylistic and other reasons. Since 1890 the Journal has been visited in manuscript by a number of people: James D. Hart, in the 1930s, for some pioneer biographical research; Robert F. Metzdorf, in 1953, for an edition of the eighty-page autobiographical sketch with which Dana prefaced the first volume; and Samuel Shapiro for his 1961 biography of Dana. The Journal has been consulted occasionally by scholars whose interests were not in Dana himself but in his associations; it served, for example, as an important source for two recent distinguished biographies: Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886, by Martin B. Duberman, and Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, by David Donald. It would therefore be misleading to imply that the Journal had been buried for years, unsuspected, at the Massachusetts Historical Society where it resides. Yet when this editor encountered it in 1957, in connection with research concerning Two Years Before the Mast, it was a document which few scholars, from whatever field, had heard of, and it was plain that its scholarly importance required that it be made available in print. To ask why its publication has been delayed so long is perhaps to open the larger question of why the great wave of serious editorial scholarship of American primary documents in all fields was so long in coming. It is only in the past decade that we have begun

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A Note on the Text

to see systematic publication of the papers of Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, Emerson, and Whitman — to name just a few of the important projects now under way — and there is little doubt that Dana, who was so particular about his associates, would have been content to make his appearance in such company. This edition follows Dana's text as he wrote it, supplying only minor changes in punctuation, number, and tense. Substantive additions or substitutions are indicated by square brackets. Misspellings of most proper names have been corrected. R.F.L.

WORKS CITED BY SHORT TITLE IN NOTES Adams, Charles Francis, Richard Henry Dana, A Biography (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890). Allison, James (ed.), "Five Dana Letters," The American Neptune, 13: 162-176 (July 1953). (ed.) "Journal of a Voyage from Boston to the Coast of California, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.," The Amencan "Neptune, 12:177185 (July 1952). Barrows, Chester L., William M. Evarts: Lawyer, Diplomat, Statesman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941). Burke, Edmund, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (Boston: Little, Brown, 1866). Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911). Dana, Richard Henry III (ed.), Speeches in Stirring Times and Letters to a Son (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910). Donald, David, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Knopf, i960). Duberman, Martin B., Charles Francis Adams, ι8ογ-ι886 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961). Everett, Edward, Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston: Little, Brown, 1890). Frothingham, Paul Revere, Edward Everett, Orator and Statesman (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925). Hayford, Harrison (ed.), The Somers Mutiny Affair (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959). Lucid, Robert F., "The Composition, Reception, Reputation and Influence of Two Years Before the Mast," unpub. diss., University of Chicago, 1958· Metzdorf, Robert F., "The Publishing History of Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast," Harvard Library Bulletin (Autumn 1953)· (ed ) Richard Henry Dana Jr.: An Autobiographical Sketch, (1815-1842) (Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, 1953). Mitford, William, The History of Greece, 4 vols. (London: Cadell & Davies, 1808). Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the State Convention (Boston: White and Potter, 1853). Payne, Edward F., Dickens' Days in Boston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927)·

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Works Cited in Notes

Seward, William H., The Works of William H. Seward, ed. George E. Baker (New York: Redfield, 1853). Shapiro, Samuel, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., 1815-1882 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1961). Sumner, Charles, The Works of Charles Sumner (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1875). Webster, Daniel, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, 1853)· Woodward, W. E., Lafayette (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1938).

Introduction It was the fortune of Richard Henry Dana, as it was his preference, to reside within inner circles, and no doubt the most obviously valuable thing about his Journal is that it contains records of the usually unrecorded. Socially, professionally, politically, and literarily, Dana provides a wide assortment of primary historical data, and if his Journal offered no more than this one would be grateful to have it. The fact is, however, that it does offer us more; very much like Samuel Sewall's, Dana's Journal offers the opportunity to confront a remarkable human being, whose personality — easy to stereotype, hard to understand, often enough difficult to appreciate — amply repays our careful examination. Dana would emphatically agree that his Journal does not rank with Boswell's or Pepys's as a document of self-revelation, but it reveals more than enough to identify him as a wonderfully attractive personality. This Introduction will probably fail to catch and reflect Dana's personal charm, but some of its flavor can be discovered in an accident — harmless, as it turned out — he had in Hawaii in 1859. Dana and a lofty company of white residents were riding out on a formal Victorian picnic when they came to a frail bridge, suspended some ten feet over a fast, deep river. They started across, but when they were halfway over, the bridge suddenly collapsed, transforming the group into a screaming, disorganized mob. Amid the chaos, however, one figure remained composed: Dana, feet planted in the stirrups, seat firm and back erect, posting his bewildered horse, hurtled through space, to be overturned only by the inevitable deluge. The moment could stand as a microcosm of his own life, as well as that of his Boston world, and in its flawless absurdity calls forth something more than admiration — it calls forth our affection. In everything but fortune, Dana's was one of the first families of New England, with prominent members going back to the original Bay Colony. He was born in 1815, grew up among the veterans of the War of 1812, took his famous voyage around Cape Horn to the coast of California in 1834, returned to Harvard undergraduate and law school life, and opened his law office in 1840, the same year he published Two Years Before the Mast. He began the Journal in 1841, shortly after his marriage, and although each year is not covered with the same detail, and some years are passed over entirely, it rims with fair consistency into i860, stopping just before Lincoln's election to the presidency. The Journats scope is very broad; it dwells in detail on the social, professional, political, and, to a certain extent, literary worlds of which Dana was a prominent inhabi-

xvi

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tant. Socially, Dana was a mint product of the upper-middle-class, and his exhaustively full descriptions of his own domestic sphere, as well as of the most inaccessible circles of Boston "society," are probably unmatched by any other available sources. Professionally, he was well known almost from the start of his practice (partly because of his social and literary reputation), and politically he soon became a member of the most influential councils in the rise of the northern antislavery movement. These are the dominant areas of topical importance in the Journal, along with a particularly well-kept set of travel notes from trips taken in America, Canada, England, and, in 1859, from a voyage round the world. Perhaps most important of all, though, is the fact that Dana's personality serves as an armature for everything that he writes, and generates a notice of its presence so insistently that the present Introduction has been designed to conclude with a specifically biographical section. But, before beginning a consideration of Dana's life and its relation to his times, it will be useful to illustrate in some detail the kinds of topical information which the Journal contains. II We most frequently encounter Dana's name today, of course, in the area of literary history. Since he wrote a famous book himself, and since he kept his Journal during a period of New England literary history which is variously known as the Flowering of New England and the American Renaissance, the reader of his Journal might reasonably expect a particular richness of information in this regard. To a certain extent such expectations will be disappointed. Dana was not a professional man of letters, though he once thought of being one, and the fact that he knew a good many writers does not mean that he knew them because they were writers. Dana felt about writers the way he felt about his colleagues at the bar — he preferred to associate with gentlemen who were engaged in the occupation of writing, rather than with writers merely. Thus, though he will occasionally thrust a title into parentheses after a name, like as not he leaves it to the reader to identify literary celebrities. He was far more interested in Francis Parkman's health than in his histories, and what he regarded as the absurd personality of William H. Prescott called forth more comment from him than did Ferdinand and Isabella. Literary figures outside his periphery, like Hawthorne, receive no mention at all, and though he read abundantly among the work of his contemporaries, he appears to have been more deeply engaged by the slightly less contemporary: Byron, Wordsworth, and Coleridge he knew thoroughly, and, in prose fiction, he inclined toward Bulwer-Lytton, Scott, and Dickens. When he wrote Two Years Before the Mast in 1838 and gave the

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xvii

manuscript to his father to place with a publisher, Dana began a brief flurry of literary activity. Bryant was active on his behalf, and certainly the experiences he suffered in his contractual relations with the New York house of Harper constitute relevant literary history of some kind. The massive success of the book also brought him in touch with a range of literary personalities far wider than would have been the case otherwise. This personal contact, in fact, gives the Journal a kind of importance in the area of literary personality, or biography. For a score of famous names in American and English literary history, the Journal provides some bits of otherwise unrecorded information. Some of it has been mined — much of the abundant material on Dickens' visit to Boston has been used — but most of the material has been too modest to attract attention in manuscript. Lowell and Longfellow, Alcott, Emerson, and Bryant, in this country, Macaulay, Thackeray, Clough, Macready, and Dickens in England, are only a few of the people about whom some scrap or other of biographical information is preserved in Dana's record. The journal of many socially prominent Boston gentlemen would, of course, contain a fair amount of such biographical small change, but Dana's record has special value just because of its unusually high yield. As one discovers these bits of information speckled throughout the work, however, what becomes most impressive is Dana's unfailing air of breezy condescension toward the literary work of his contemporaries. This attitude, from a man so sober about so many things, itself begins to take on a serious quality. Dana was rich in all the legacies of his New England ancestors, not excepting their limitations, and the traditional inability to regard mere story-telling as fit work for a man's adult life was unquestionably one of Dana's most serious handicaps. Its least serious consequence was to make the Journal irritatingly meager where we naturally expect abundance. Far more seriously, it could have served to tum Dana away from the very activity for which his own major talents suited him best. The most immediately apparent relevance of Dana's Journal, considered as a source of primary historical information, is to the area of social or cultural history. In 1840 Dana was a charming, talented young lawyer of excellent family, rapidly becoming celebrated because of Two Years Before the Mast, marked by such eminent patrons as George Ticknor, Joseph Story, and Washington Allston to rise to the top of his profession, and he was vigorously sought after by a Boston society whose proverbial exclusiveness was never to be more completely realized than during this period. Dana, with his pretty young wife, was on all the important guest lists, met all the visiting lions, attended all the dinners, apprehensively joined in attending the first socially accepted theatrical performance in Boston

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(made possible only through the combined reputations of Shakespeare, Macready, and George Ticknor), and through it all kept up his Journal, perfectly confident that his inner circles were important enough to deserve a scribe. At the professional bar, where his ascent to prominence was mercurial, he associated only with those whose politics, education, and antecedents assured him that they were not mere lawyers, but rather were gentlemen engaged in the practice of law. The small talk and gossip alone would make Dana's record valuable and entertaining — he wrote very well and had a nice eye for selection of detail in an anecdote — but real weight is given to the record by the fact that Dana was observing from the inner circle of the most powerful social establishment of his time. What he was preserving, apart from a reflection of his own personality, is an account of the workings of a major power-structure. Whether in the casual atmosphere of a Saturday Club dinner or in the consciously formidable atmosphere of a Church Board or Bank Directors' or Bar Committee meeting, Dana in reality is detailing how a class organizes itself, how it deals with other classes, and how it moves, sometimes with startling ruthlessness, toward self-perpetuation. Much of the comic effect of J. P. Marquand's The Late George Apley stems from the fact that the exclusive social circles in which Apley and his family move are powerless to affect the actual course of historical events around them. It is precisely to the point that Dana's social world, similar in its manners to Apley's, still held in its hands almost absolute power. It is true that the fathers and elders of Dana's generation, the Massachusetts Federalists, had lost national political power by opposing the War of 1812, but within the state their influence — under the Whig label — remained almost monolithic. Further, insofar as their influence was withdrawn from the national political scene, it was redirected toward other areas of cultural significance. Dana's class cultivated and controlled the colleges, and kept Harvard in the van; it controlled the churches and their ministers (in a sense it even controlled the schisms that arose, and tolerated no outside evangelizing); it controlled the schoolteachers on the secondary and primary levels, and it controlled the libraries, the charities, and the urban municipal politics (in spite of immigration); it brought forth the writers and philosophers and orators who directed cultural developments, and it packed the bench and the bar. In spite of their insistence upon gentle manners and their sentimental nostalgia about a lost age of chivalry, Dana's contemporaries were firmly practical, and did their sentimentalizing, as in the case of their treatment of Louis Kossuth, when the indulgence would cost them very little. This Introduction, however, is not the place to offer a comprehensive analysis of the social or cultural atmosphere in which Dana kept his

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Journal. That atmosphere is well enough known, and what is needed here is only an indication of how the Journal is relevant to that atmosphere. The Journal data are of two basic kinds: information about the inner workings of Dana's class, and information about the relations between that class and others — both here and abroad. In each area the range of information is broad — as a lawyer and traveler Dana moved outside his own social sphere perhaps more frequently than many of his friends — and the sampling of its varieties will be the reader's pleasure. But it may be useful to look briefly at an example of each of these basic kinds of data before we discuss the relevance of the Journal to history of other sorts. Nothing is more informative concerning the way Dana's class conducted its internal affairs than the Journal accounts of the cases of Professor John White Webster and Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, U.S.N. Both were matters of great popular interest, and both received Dana's particular attention. Webster and Mackenzie were Dana's peers, as much a part of the establishment as they could well have been. Both had written books, were well educated, had devoted their lives to respectable institutions (Webster to the Harvard Medical School, where he taught, Mackenzie to the Navy), and both of them were tried for willful murder. The cases were quite different. In 1850 Webster was tried in Boston, before Chief Justice Shaw, and the trial clearly proved that, despite his vehement denials, Webster had quarrelled with Boston physician George Parkman over an unpaid debt, and in anger struck the older man with a log of wood, causing his death. He followed the act with a panicky, botched attempt at concealment through dismemberment and incineration of the body. As a lawyer, Dana had been involved in many such cases and had seen the charge reduced to manslaughter for lack of evidence of premeditation. But he had encountered no cases where the principals were men such as these. His reaction, and, if he is to be believed, the reaction of his whole community, was instantaneous: the crime should be regarded as murder in the first degree. The question of premeditation seems scarcely to have arisen at all, so firmly was the attention of Webster's peers focused upon the enormity of his indiscretion. In the judge's charge to the jury, and clearly implicit in all of Dana's remarks about the case, was the principle that the more fortunate a man is in his social and intellectual circumstances, the more must he adhere to the highest standards of personal behavior. To be guilty of killing an equal in a vulgar quarrel over money was, quite simply, a mortal transgression. Dana's world turned on Webster — who at the end admitted his guilt and was fruitlessly pleading that he had acted in hot blood — and executed him with something very close to grim satisfaction. The spectacle was well calculated to impress upon an ever-faltering society the

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necessity of remembering one's station and its duties; and such was the moral tone of Dana's remarks. The Mackenzie case, which receives even more careful attention in the Journal, took place in 1843. Commander Mackenzie, on a cruise far from home, hanged three of his men from the yardarm to prevent what he had decided was an incipient mutiny. At his court-martial in New York it quickly became clear that one of the executed men had had a remarkable taste for histrionics, had played at plotting a mutiny, and that Mackenzie had been grossly incorrect in his judgment of the seriousness of the situation. But Dana and most of his circle, never hesitating in their enthusiastic and unqualified support of Mackenzie's action, bombarded the press with letters (of which Dana's was easily the longest and, because of his experience at sea, the most authoritative), tempestuously applauded the court's verdict of exoneration, and, in Boston, voted Mackenzie an elaborate testimonial in gratitude for his defense of duly constituted authority. A comparison of the case with Webster's is irresistible, and leads to what may be a genuine insight into the code of Dana's world: position and authority in that world were inseparable partners, carrying with them responsibilities which overshadowed all other considerations. To a member of that fraternity who erred while attempting to protect his station, all the support of a powerful class was to be rallied; but for one who sinned on the side of undisciplined passion, at the expense of station and duty, no punishment was too severe. The granite foundation of conservatism, asserting the transcendence of institution over individual, could hardly be more overwhelmingly apparent. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Dana's discussion of both cases is the air of immediate and unquestioning assurance with which he and his class supported good and attacked evil. The innocence of Mackenzie was taken as self-evident long before the trial's end; the justice of Webster's sentence was supported as a matter of basic principle. It is significant, if statistically improbable, that in both cases Dana reports that he failed to meet a single person in Boston who disagreed with the decisions of the respective tribunals. The accounts of the Webster and Mackenzie cases are good, if stark, examples of what the Journal can provide in illuminating the internal structure of Dana's class; and the conclusions these cases suggest are supported by what the Journal contains concerning the relation of Dana's class with others — both at home and abroad. Under less pressure, however, Dana's world could demonstrate its essential conservatism in far gentler, more attractive patterns — one of the most attractive of which, as well as one of the most widespread, was a comprehensive love for England and the English. Though Dana's favorite dinner table conversations were as filled with anecdotes of American victories at sea in 1812 as they

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were of the parliamentary "hits" scored in the Golden Age of Pitt and Fox, and Dana was typical in his enthusiastic patriotism concerning the Revolutionary War (he made an annual pilgrimage to the Bunker Hill Monument), there remained in his generation more than a touch of the Anglophile-Federalist tradition. The Federalists had denounced the War of 1812 as an act of base ingratitude toward the mother-country, and "mother-country" England remained to Dana's Boston. In its relations with the English upper classes, Dana's class made sure that there was always respect on both sides — sycophancy was not a Boston vice — but it was easy to see which party was the more anxious to be pleased. Dana could glory in the fact that he had entered into a genuine walled town, or that he was eating real English mutton from real English pewter, in a way that was infrequently duplicated by British aristocrats visiting America. Though Tory England admired Dana and his class, its admiration was based on the Bostonians' ability to set themselves off from other classes in America — indeed, on their ability to look like conservative English gentlemen. If, on the British side, this was a kind of pride in one's heirs, one could argue that American enthusiasm for Victoria's England rested upon something more substantial than inheritance. Victoria — especially in the two decades covered by the Journal — was giving the world a lesson in how to maintain a status quo. The Journal notes, with unfailing enthusiasm, how insurrections in China and Afghanistan, Canada and India, are regularly put down, and Dana's praise for the heroes of the Crimea is unstinting. His record makes it obvious that the Empire's repeated victories were a source of deep gratification to a class so firmly committed to the preservation of an establishment. Even the revival of the Episcopalian Church in Boston, which Dana records in such detail, can properly be seen as connected with this tribute to England. Victoria was proving that it was possible to preserve traditions and institutions from radical change, and Dana's class, acutely aware of the fact that Jacksonian democracy was on the march all around it, responded to the demonstration with affectionate enthusiasm toward everything English — down to the very grass. The Journal is alive with the sentiment, and it was shared by inhabitants of Dana's world who often found it difficult to share much else. While it is diverting to note that mutual English friends saw little difference between the personalities of Dana, Sumner, and Emerson, it is also significant that three such markedly different individuals could share as unanimously as they did in a virtually uncritical love for England. The Journal is rich in detail concerning Dana's relations with the classes of other countries besides England. In his indefatigable travels Dana toured all the continents of the globe — unless one acknowledges

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Australia as a continent (which, as Dana says, one should not). But the Journal is also filled with illustrations of the relationship between Dana's and other American classes. Much of this, of course, shows a predictable condescension. Dana's class cared, or attempted to care, for the lower classes through a system of private charities and missions, to which all were expected to contribute. But since noblesse oblige is not a motive likely to draw classes closer together, it is not surprising that prior to the Fugitive Slave trials Dana knew only one Negro (his bootblack), had a quite active dislike for the lower-class Irish, regularly identified Jews as such — as if the identification were self-explanatory — and always made a point of patronizing people who were actively engaged in trade, regardless of the size or success of their enterprise. In these respects, from all one can gather, his sentiments were quite representative of his class. Two other groups, though, either in spite of or because of their dissimilarity, exercised a genuine attraction for Dana and his class. The first of these was composed of professional outdoorsmen — hunters, trappers, guides, and frontiersmen, whether keeping a line of traps in Maine or moving westward into the territories. Not only Dana, but an impressively large number of his peers, often found themselves among these people, and the stiff Boston formalism seemed to melt into genuine warmth whenever it happened. The feeling on Dana's part was that people like George C. Yount, the California pioneer, or Old Man Crawford, the sage of the White Mountains, represented something peculiarly and definitively American — and, what was more, something that Boston had permanently lost. Another group, similar to this last in its remoteness from Dana's world, also seems to have had its attraction: the urban underworld. The Journal devotes a good deal of space to "reports" of Dana's visit to brothels and dance-halls in New York, Halifax, and elsewhere. Much of this material is more relevant to the peculiarities of Dana's personality than to the character of his class, but there is little to indicate that the underworld inhabitants he met regarded his visits as epecially unusual. It seems clear that quite regular emissaries from above visited these regions, not necessarily to participate actively in its vices, though no doubt this was common enough, but to verify, with whatever emotions the confirmation induced, that a world existed in which social responsibility had been altogether abandoned. Ignoring for the moment the question of the great mixture of individual personalities within Dana's class, and passing over most of its internal conflicts and external misalliances — all realities which the Journal abundantly substantiates — this discussion thus far has represented that class in rather a simple way, giving it a thick and readily identifiable solidity.

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But when we turn to the question of the political development of Dana's world during the two decades in question, illusions of simplicity and solidity are harder to produce. It was, of course, the period of national expansion in the Southwest, of growing alienation from the South, of the reconstitution of the major American political parties, and of preparation for civil war. The Journal is particularly graphic in this area of history, just because, for its first few years, one would be unable to tell that it was not being written in the thirties, or even the twenties. Dana, at the age of twentyfive, was, like his father and his father's friends, a Federalist in disguise, hoping for and even expecting a revival of the principles of that party — he reassured nervous visitors from England that "there was a sound conservatism in the people" — and was contemptuous of abolitionists for their irreverent attitude toward the institutions of society. When he visited the South, as he did at length in 1844, it was to find slave-owning gentlemen of Federalist politics whose manners, habits, and ideas were in gratifying accord with his own. He felt about the actual business of slave-trading very much the way he might have felt about junk-dealing in Boston: that it produced low wealth for low people, and society ought not to admit those who engaged in it. In short, Dana belonged to that fraternity of gentlemen which, in its membership, transcended regional or even national boundaries, which submerged political differences in a common foundation of conservatism, and which had as its common denominator — besides property and education — something it liked to call breeding. But while Dana was touring the South, noting with approval the respectful affection with which the Randolph and Lee families were treated by their slaves, other gentlemen of his station in New England were surveying the national situation with less satisfaction, and recorded that they were beginning, as conservative Whig gentlemen, to have trouble with their consciences. The "Conscience Whig" movement, as it came to be called (in contrast to the "Cotton Whigs" who favored some kind of compromise with the South on slavery) was pioneered in Massachusetts by Charles Francis Adams, John G. Palfrey, Charles Sumner, and a few others, as early as 1844. The annexation of Texas sparked the first disagreements, as the question of whether Texas was to be slave or free-soil was resolved in favor of the "slave oligarchy." The Mexican War which followed — obviously designed to acquire more territory and thus raise the free-soil question again — fanned the flame; and, when in 1847 the Cotton Whigs managed the presidential nomination of Zachary Taylor — a man who was a hero of the despised Mexican War and a slave-holder in the bargain — the Whigs separated totally, and the militant antislavery wing

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went in search of new political identity. Seeking responsible representatives to a three-party (Conscience Whig, Liberty Party, New York Democrat Barnburner) convention in Buffalo in 1848, Adams and his friends asked Dana to consent to serve as a delegate. He agreed, and the Journal's political information, from this point on, becomes one of its major assets. At first Dana was able to maintain his position of political deviation without disturbing his associations in the city's conservative social circles. After all, no Massachusetts Whigs approved of slavery; the Cotton Whigs only claimed that compromise, for the sake of the Union, was required by the situation. The Conscience Whigs replied that there was a disgraceful coincidence between this concern for the Union and concern for the sake of a protective tariff covering New England manufactured goods and controlled by the Southern majority in congress. This analysis of the Cotton Whigs' motives contained the seeds of personal animosity, to be sure, and some of the sharper tempered on each side had already broken off what Adams called "the ordinary relations of private life," but, in the main, the common ties between gentlemen in such a community were sufficient to withstand the cutting edge of political disagreement. Dana, like many others, had always trusted to Webster, Robert C. Winthrop, and similarly proven gentlemen, to take care that compromise did not go too far, and that Whig principles were respected. When Taylor was nominated, it appeared that Webster and Winthrop had not been adequate to their task, and Dana thought he perceived in Adams' invitation the familiar voice of duty. Such, at least, was a reasonable way to explain his position, and Bostonians who disagreed with him and were, however reluctantly, supporting the Taylor nomination, did not consider the disagreement to be a personal matter. Dana's account of his first convention makes up in faithfulness to spectacle, sound, and atmosphere what it lacks in perception concerning the motives of politicians when three different parties are trying to effect a coalition. The delegates seemed to him to be, to a man, generous, whole-souled fellows, gentlemen all, united in a selfless effort to establish the principle of Free Soil — a slogan from which they took the name for their new party. The party nominated Martin Van Buren for president — a compromise only slightly less awkward than the Taylor nomination had been for the Whigs — Charles Francis Adams for vice-president, and selected a slate of congressional candidates. In the campaign that followed, the Free-Soilers elected nine people to congress, but Taylor took the presidency. The Journal, during the year following the election, traces the break-up of the original Free-Soil party, as the Barnburners returned to the New York Democratic fold, and an inner-party struggle began between those

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who wished to form further coalitions with other Democrats, and those who, like Dana, wished to keep the new party pure of such defilement. The exclusiveness to which Dana had been brought up, the fact that he regarded himself as a conservative in spite of his antislavery politics, and the fact that the Free-Soilers had already been betrayed by Democratic associations, guided his policy on the question. But he was defeated, and in September of 1850, without Dana's support, a coalition slate of candidates from the Massachusetts Democratic and Free-Soil parties entered the field. While Dana was being labeled a conservative within the Free-Soil party, however, outside that party he was coming more and more to be regarded as a radical. The once unbreakable ranks of Boston gentlemen were being wedged apart by politics, and the easy tolerance extended toward Dana in 1848 was wearing thin under the pressure of Free-Soil attacks upon the great Daniel Webster — still the bulwark of the Massachusetts Whigs. When Webster came out in favor of Clay's proposed compromises on free soil and a stronger Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, the denunciations from Dana's camp — pro coalitionist and con — became far more than political. Ugly insinuations of an earlier season turned to outright accusations of bribery and betrayal for the sake of public office. One can trace the full curve of such sentiment in the Journal, which at its start simply identifies Webster as the great man of the age, and by 1851 is discussing him as a drunken derelict, unworthy of serious political consideration. What Dana concluded in private he and his associates were also publishing abroad, and the inevitable finally came about: Massachusetts gentlemen, classmates at Harvard College and associates at the bar, members of families which had colonized the state, began to attack each other's character in the public press. Instead of the customary warm invitation to dine with a company of friends, in May of 1851 Dana received a note from the autocrat of Beacon Street, George Ticknor, informing him that they were never again to meet (only the year before, the Ticknors had rented the Dana summer home at Manchester for the season — partly for convenience, partly because Dana needed the money.) Thus Dana, attempting to be a good Free-Soil man within and outside of his party, found himself alienated almost simultaneously from the party — if by his own choice — and from that social establishment which had up to then been able to ignore his political affiliations. Vigorously defending himself in the Journal, Dana turned to his law practice in what he thought was a measure of retirement from public affairs; but, unexpectedly, he found that it was just in the role of practicing attorney that he was to make his outstanding mark in the political developments of the day.

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Clay's hated Compromise had become law (though only after Taylor's death had enabled President Fillmore to pass the measures) and a new Fugitive Slave Law, designed to prove to the South that the North would cooperate with slavery, awaited testing in that stronghold of Abolition and Free Soil — Boston. Webster was now Fillmore's Secretary of State, and had publicly served notice that Massachusetts would have to live with the fact of slavery and that defiance of the new law would not be tolerated. One fugitive, "Shadrack," had already been rescued by a Negro mob from a Boston jail in February of 1851, and the federal officers of the town were the laughingstock of Dana's political friends. Dana was active in defending some of those accused of aiding in the rescue, and it was clear that the government prosecutor had little chance of gaining a conviction. Dana's political faction was not in the majority around Boston but, as the election of Charles Sumner to the Senate would demonstrate, it had considerable backing. An opportunity to confront Webster's Whigs over the Fugitive Slave Law came in March of 1851, when a fugitive named Thomas Sims was arrested by federal marshals and arraigned before a United States Commissioner for return to his owners. Dana's considerable share in the defense is given full coverage in the Journal, and needs no recapitulation here. It was unsuccessful, as it had to be under the circumstances (there were loopholes in the law and in its administration, but the commissioners who sat on the cases were, by definition, committed to the political goals for which the law was designed); but, more directly relevant to this discussion, it seemed to complete the estrangement from the establishment of Dana and his faction. Men he had known all his life passed him on the street without speaking. When he made a disparaging remark about Webster in a speech a week or so after the trial, newspaper pleas appeared calling for Whigs to boycott Dana's law office. On the other hand, he received gratifying tributes for his services in the fugitive and rescue trials from all quarters — including people who had been, like himself, once firmly entrenched at the highest places above the salt at George Ticknor's table. Josiah Quincy and William Wetmore Story joined with country parsons and earnest abolitionists in acclaiming Dana's devotion to the cause of liberty. Dana kept careful account of those who were for him and those who were opposed, and as one checks through the Journal it becomes apparent that not only Dana and a handful of political affiliates had departed the pale of conservative Boston but so large and heterogeneous is the group which offers him support, finally, that a change clearly must have taken place in Boston's social firmament. In Dana's social world, brother had been set against brother, in civil strife.

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Nothing illustrates the chaotic disunity of Dana's world more effectively than the Journal account of the 1853 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. Dana had been elected a delegate, and in his Journal he devotes a very great deal of space to the event, partly because he regarded it as an important activity for the political community to be engaged upon, partly because he considered constitutional conventions in Massachusetts to be the best forum for testing the state's public men. He frequently remarks that in the convention of 1821 Webster had effectively launched his great career (Dana's personal attitude toward Webster had softened since the Whig leader's death the previous year), and he regarded the new convention as a prime opportunity to display his own skills as a forensic leader and thinker, as well as to examine the strengths and weaknesses of his leading contemporaries. He was entirely correct in believing that the convention would present a rare opportunity to watch the various political factions and their leaders at close quarters in extended public debate, but the previous five years of political history in the state had perhaps inured him to the fantastic realignments which had taken place since the Buffalo convention. The Federalist mind of Washington Allston (mercifully dead), which had so often met with Dana's on the subject of American politics, might well have been unseated at the spectacle. As a Free-soiler, Dana — grandson of a chief justice and long sworn enemy of Jacksonian plots to make the sacred judiciary dependent upon regular popular elections — found himself set against men who shared his conservative faith — such men as Rufus Choate, George S. Hillard, and Sidney Bartlett. Instead, his allies were men like Lowell's Ben Butler, a damn-their-damned-aristocratic-eyes Democrat who was loudly in favor of placing the judiciary (and everything else) in the common hands of the common people. Dana, the Boston urbanite, with important financial investments in city lands, found himself lined up against the city's representatives — all Whigs — and allied with rural Democratic forces which were attempting to shove through manifestly unfair revisions concerning the representation of towns and cities in the state legislature. Only by accident, as it were, was Dana able occasionally to support both his party and his principles. As a result, he found himself a truly outstanding figure in the convention; but much of his fame came from the manner in which he had to race about the political terrain, supporting first this group, then that, each in flat opposition to the other. Quite justly, Dana's reputation as an independent, nonpartisan citizen was increased, but as one reads his record of the convention's proceedings, it is perhaps even more impressive to see how unmoored this once solid conservative had become.

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Things reached the point at which the question of personalities was permitted to come into the debating, and Dana rhetorically annihilated one of his oldest and closest acquaintances, George S. Hillard, over the question of loyalty to Boston and her interests. Twelve years before, when they were dining together with Dickens, if anyone present had told these young conservatives that they would one day be attacking each other in public over such a question, they would have regarded him as insane. And, indeed, from the point of view of 1840 and the Federalist establishment at the Journal's start, it seemed as if the world had gone quite mad. The movement out of the established order and into the chaos of 1853 may be said to have begun in 1844. By 1854 it was in a fashion completed, and an order, however different from the original one, was at last established. It was one based upon a virtually unanimous agreement within the old establishment that compromise was hopeless, that the gentlemen of the South were not trustworthy, and that, hard though it was to swallow, the original Conscience Whigs had diagnosed the moral illness of the nation correctly. Dana thought the change of heart had come about because Webster was no longer alive to blunt the moral sensibilities of New England with his rhetoric. Whigs like George Hillard and Rufus Choate, and even Robert C. Winthrop, thought it was because the South had broken its word over supporting the Missouri Compromise and had switched instead to support of the Kansas-Nebraska acts of 1854, introduced by Senator Stephen Douglas and designed to prejudice the hitherto guaranteed free-soil status of those territories. Others said that it was not so much the fact of a broken promise which disillusioned the Cotton Whigs of State Street, as of the investment of too much Northern cash in those territories, as free-soil areas, to permit their being risked now in a slave-worked agrarian economy. But whether because of moral conviction or economic self-interest, the social establishment of Boston found itself once again in almost total political agreement — and in the hour of this reunion, the federal marshals arrested another fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, on a warrant from his Kentucky owner, Colonel Suttle, and Dana successfully volunteered to conduct the defense. Boston's reaction to the arrest was remarkable. Young Thomas Wentworth Higginson descended from his pulpit to lead a rescue assault on the room where the prisoner was being held, and though his followers were hurled back, they sabered a guard to death and caused an alarmed President Pierce to declare a three-state military alert. "Men," Dana says in the Journal, "who would not speak to me in 1850 & 1851, & who enrolled themselves as special policemen in the Sims affair, stop me on the street & talk treason." State Street Whigs who had been horrified at the Shad-

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rack rescue, were now raising money for the defense of Burns, were trying to buy his freedom from Colonel Suttle, and were searching — unsuccessfully as it turned out —for a prominent Whig lawyer to help Dana with the defense, just to show whose side they were on. With some bewilderment and more than a little irony, Dana nevertheless welcomed the change, and set about Burns' defense. Once again, however, it was the story of "a tyrannical statute and a weak judge," and Burns was ordered returned to Kentucky. Dana's descriptions of the public demonstrations against the return offer an exciting measure of just how radically the community was capable of reversing itself. Only three years before, the same community, faced with almost the same situation, viewed the return of Thomas Sims with relative equanimity. Now, despite a massive display of federal military power to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, the officers were just barely able to get Burns out of town. The path that Dana had taken, after Adams, Sumner, and the rest, was now being followed by the rest of the old establishment, and the mass of the community was fully in support. It would take a few more years of tortured political realignment for an effective leadership to be developed, but those mobbed Boston streets and the "perfect howl of 'Shame!'" that greeted the appearance of the chained slave told clearly that the once supreme and unifying code of gentility was dead. During the hearing, Colonel Suttle had to be constantly escorted for his own safety, and his guard consisted of a group of young Harvard students from the South. It was precisely from such a group that Dana, as an undergraduate, had selected his closest friends. In 1854, however, the chances of a young Bostonian of similar background doing the same were almost nonexistent. Dana's political entries become sparser after 1854; indeed the whole Journal becomes increasingly telegraphic, hurried and harried, except for the elaborate English vacation record in 1856, and the long, detailed account of his 1859-1860 round-the-world voyage. The last major political notes are in 1855, when Dana actively participated in the formation of what was to be the Massachusetts Republican party, but for the moment the hold of the transitory Know-Nothing party was unbreakable, and Dana was discouraged by the weak showing of his new party at the polls. He was comparatively inactive during the energetic political organizing of the next few years, contenting himself with a passive interest in the progress of the Republicans. Their policy of coalitions and multiple alliances remained distasteful to him and, in fact, the controlling group in the new antislavery party was not sympathetically inclined toward leaders of the old Free-Soil group. Men like Adams and Dana were appealed to for financial contributions more often than for leadership — at least until 1858. By that time the tide began to turn back strongly in their direction

Introduction — in the fall of 1859 Adams took a seat in Congress under the Republican standard —but it was too late for Dana, even if his party had wished him to serve. His overburdened constitution failed him in 1859, and he was forced to leave the country for his health just as the work of electing a Republican president was beginning. The format of Dana's Journal, to a fanciful imagination, could stand as a symbol of the events which the Journal traces. The record begins with elaborate formality: besides the eighty-page autobiographical sketch, there is a long family history. Day-by-day entries are made in detail, neatly and promptly. Nearly twenty years later, as the Journal draws to a close, the entries are ragged; there are yawning time gaps between them, and even the handwriting has become tremulous, sometimes all but indecipherable. The solid, self-assured beginning of the Journal resembles the power structure of Boston and Cambridge in 1841: gravely powerful, politically supreme, culturally central — above all, sure of its future. The hectic, disorganized, haphazardly reconstituted world of 1859, where one associated with men who, as Dana once put it, could not detect fraud except by an intellectual process, is reflected in the last volume of the Journal. The sheets are pinned together — it is constructed mostly of letters from abroad — and seem to have been written under constant pressure. When they stop they stop abruptly. The very act of keeping a Journal, which seemed to Dana like a self-evident necessity in 1841, had at last become too much of a formalistic luxury in a world which had been whirled off into such a maze of new associations, divisions, and regroupings. Returning from abroad, he found himself campaigning for a backwoods Illinois lawyer, from whose hands he was happy to accept the relatively minor patronage of the United States District Attorneyship for Massachusetts. Interesting though his analyses of these changes would have been, it is perhaps a more eloquent commentary that he stopped keeping a Journal altogether. Ill Since the publication in 1890 of Charles Francis Adams Jr.'s Richard Henry Dana, it has become the fashion for commentators upon Dana's life to explore comparisons with the life of Henry Adams. Adams' celebrated analysis of his own upbringing, in The Education, where he describes himself as a man being educated for the eighteenth century instead of trained for the twentieth, certainly calls Dana's education to mind; and, actually, Dana was in Adams' mind during the composition of The Education. He recalls how Dana would visit the library of the elder Charles Francis Adams with Sumner and Palfrey and discuss the affairs of the day, while young Henry sat listening at a secluded writing desk.

Introduction But Adams' characterization of Dana as a fastidious eighteenth-centuiy aristocrat by temperament, deliberately toughening himself for the jolting encounters of nineteenth-century public and professional life, is more revealing of Adams' personality than it is of Dana's. As he grew up, Henry Adams saw many journalistic caricatures of Dana (who conducted and lost his political campaigns hopelessly, like a gentleman) and may have been more influenced than he realized by cartoons that depicted a haughty, aristocratic, eighteenth-century Anglophile, antidemocratic in his deepest feelings. Certainly Dana, however strongly eighteenth-century influences were at work in his life, was almost fatally a man of his own time. An engaging, intelligent, talented nineteenth-century American, he embodied in his thinking, in his personal habits, and even in his constitution, the contradictions of that century to an arresting degree. It was Dana's pride to be a pillar of the New England establishment, a Harvard Overseer, a Warden of the Church of the Advent, and an intimate in the social and professional circles of the great. He had another pride, though, which set him apart from these circles, and even placed him in opposition to them: he was proud of having been able to walk out on the establishment; of having made his own way among men who had never heard of his family or his church or his college — and who would have been suspicious of him if they had. He understood the attitude of such outsiders, because some part of him shared their suspicion. The autobiographical sketch with which he begins the Journal makes it clear that, by the time of an 1832 rustication from Harvard, Dana had had close to his fill of the world that was trying to educate him. The schools he had attended, the values he had seen espoused, the standards he had heard invoked throughout his education, he had accurately identified as being of another time, and he wanted no more of them. He returned to Harvard from rustication — where, for a wonder, he had found an intelligent teacher — "like a slave whipped to his dungeon." The next year, when the measles brought on his family eye ailment — one which appeared whenever the Danas felt pressure bearing too heavily upon them — he made his decision to ship before the mast. If he was acting in a tradition at all it was the romantic rather than the rationalistic one, but he had lived in a seaport long enough to have few romantic illusions about forecastle life. Certainly there was nothing romantic in the way he prepared for the voyage: his letters and personal memoranda of the period show that he stocked up for the trip with a clear understanding of the fact that he was going on a long, uncomfortable, dangerous adventure, and that once launched he could expect nothing in the way of assistance from anyone. The notion that he was following some land of

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Brahmin tradition by "knocking about" in an unventilated, blasphemous, venereal forecastle, is quite unsound. In Two Years Before the Mast Dana proved that it was possible for a sufficiently sturdy fugitive from his class to survive the experience, and something like a tradition formed in the wake of his book, but his original decision and the voyage itself inspired with horror almost everyone who heard of it. And that was just the way he intended it should inspire them. The duality in Dana's personality suggested by what has been said thus far was not just a youthful phase: throughout his whole life he would display these contradictory attitudes, which stamped him indelibly as a product, not of some anachronistic eighteenth-century establishment, but of his similarly polarized time and country. Even as the analogy between Dana's personality and the age in which he lived suggests itself, however, one must qualify the comparison. A country moves toward some kind of synthesis of its apparent contradictions, and, over generations, emerges into new, dynamically charted directions. An individual, on the other hand,· moves through his life growing older and less capable of precisely that synthesis which a country, charged by the youth of its succeeding generations, is able constantly to approach. If Dana's life invites comparison to the life of his times, then, it does so as representing a frozen moment rather than a microcosmic pattern in his country's history. He lived his life partially immobilized between his two centers of attraction, unable to bring forth in either area the power which he possessed over-all. In 1873, at the age of fifty-seven, Dana wrote to his son: "My life has been a failure compared with what I might and ought to have done. My great success — my book — was a boy's work, done before I came to the Bar." He goes on to explain that the cause of his relative failure was anxiety and care brought on by financial insecurity. It could not have been easy for Dana to pass such a judgment on his life, but he had never been easy on himself, and we must credit him with insight as well as candor in this instance, for in fact he never did achieve the kind of selfrealization of which his remarkable powers gave early promise. Despite his belief that better financial management of his early (Journal) years would have permitted him to succeed in a "parliamentary" career when the Republican party took power, there is much to indicate that Dana's best possibilities for genuine self-realization started to go awry considerably earlier than that. It is proper that he should have marked off his book, Two Years Before the Mast, as his "great success," for it is quite simply true that while Dana, by anybody's standards, was a first-rate writer, he may have been only a second-rate lawyer. Such a remark should not be misconstrued: a "first-rate" lawyer, by the highest

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standards, would be a great one, a lawyer whose legal career either produced a canon to be preserved and studied as a distinguished accomplishment, or launched a major subsequent career of public service. Dana was, of course, an excellent second-rate lawyer; there were only a handful in Boston who could surpass his long-range professional record, and before he was through he had succeeded in making a very comfortable living from the law. It afforded him the opportunity to develop some of his most pronounced minor talents — such as his skill at oratory, and quickness at debate — but it was not an activity suitably designed to engage his major natural gifts — indeed, it may have been almost ideally suited to dissipate them. In the first place, Dana was endowed with a truly incredible store of physical vitality. He began his law practice fairly radiating energetic optimism. He still wore his hair long, sailor-fashion, and contemporaries recorded that he rolled a little in his gait, by no means unconscious of exuding the same air of outdoor hardiness which he had brought back from Cape Horn five years before. His law office completed the picture; it even smelled of tar from the steady procession of burly, tongue-tied sailors who trooped in to ask about a recovery of wages, or hoped to get even with a captain who had flogged them, or, often enough, sought defense following a brawl with a shipmate or girl friend. Dana was the seaman's champion then — he even published a manual called The Seaman's Friend — and amazingly won all of the blizzard of small cases he handled for the first eighteen months of his practice. More important, the way he won them tells us a great deal about what kind of experience he was preparing for himself in the law. He attacked the law as he would a mainsail reef in a high wind, hurling himself on it and wrestling it into submission, getting the thing done "out of hand and shipshape." A case handled by Dana was smothered with his attention. He examined every fact, interviewed all witnesses, took his own depositions, memorized interminable opening and closing speeches, and then doubled back in a hunt for precedents to support his original argument — and he did it all with a single-minded vigor that few of his colleagues at the bar had either the inclination or the constitution to match. He was similarly unwilling to let a case go, once he had argued it, and some of his appeals to higher courts became almost legendary, so long did he keep them alive. The result of such a way of life was not long in making itself felt. Dana began to buckle under the nervous strain, the almost total lack of exercise, the inattention to sleep and diet. When he attempted to get in shape by taking boxing lessons at a local gymnasium, he found that the strain of this addition to his already overcrowded schedule created more anxiety than the exercise relieved.

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Within only a few years Dana had dropped into a pattern of working himself to the brink of nervous collapse, and then breaking suddenly off for a rugged, outdoor vacation. The change such trips made in him is remarkable to observe; within hours of leaving Boston, especially if he were going by sea, he would become completely rejuvenated. His appetite would triple, he would engage in and win mountain-climbing contests with experts. His system seemed to thrive on the most taxing physical regimen he could devise, and he rapidly acquired the reputation, among the outdoorsmen he vacationed with, of being a physical phenomenon. And along with this change in activity came a change in attitude. People Dana would not be seen speaking to as equals in Boston — trappers, hunters, rustics of all sorts — became his boon companions, and he loved to sit and "yarn" around a campfire or a barroom. Significantly, he always compared these refreshing interludes to his days as a sailor. Interludes of refreshment, however, were not adequate substitutes for a genuinely healthy life, and Dana's physical deterioration is a central strand in the Journal's progress, impossible to miss. Gradually he finds himself developing fainting and black-out spells, sudden, unaccountable attacks of nausea, and his eye trouble returns. Sometimes, too, he loses even his "recruiting" vacations. Instead, he attends the fashionable spas with Sarah and spends weeks sitting on piazzas making polite conversation. Not that Dan^ did not enjoy such experiences — he decidedly did — but insofar as they were simply extensions of his Boston life they offered him no opportunity to shore up his system against the next wave of calls to duty. His summer-long vacation trip to England in 1856 at least served the purpose of getting him to sea, cut off from the immediate demands of office and home, and his long-cultivated Anglophilia makes his record both interesting and amusing. Yet the endless round of drawing-rooms, country houses, and sight-seeing was a further drain on his physical resources. After that summer the Journal begins to show neglect, as Dana found it more and more of an exhausting task merely to keep up with the swarm of duties attending his fife. Even his precious vacations had to be put aside, and by 1859 he has pushed himself too far. Following his complete and public collapse, Dana is shipped off by his doctors on a trip round the world. The relentless dissipation of Dana's vast physical vitality was not the only effect upon him of a Boston professional and domestic regimen. As he moved on up the ladder of professional eminence, the great brilliance, the finely discriminative judgment of his earliest years, began, just perceptibly, to fade. As a young lawyer he had accepted every case that came his way; but later, when his partnership with Francis E. Parker developed into one of the city's foremost legal firms, Dana had to make

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many choices about which cases should occupy that omniverous attention of his. Far more often than any of his original patrons in the law would have predicted, Dana chose badly. He began to waste enormous amounts of energy on sensational divorce and criminal trials, which brought him little money and less contact with serious legal questions. Simultaneously, on the other hand, he would be engaged upon some of the state's leading actions, and the resulting jumbled atmosphere that surrounded his practice led both friends and critics to suggest that he was throwing himself away. Dana often shared this feeling, but he consistently found it difficult to tell in advance which cases he ought to accept. In later years his practice defined itself more clearly — corporation, maritime, and international law — but such definition was long overdue when it finally arrived. To a lawyer like Dana, who hoped to make an outstanding name for himself through his practice, this was an ominous sign. It gave support to the warning signs sent out by his protesting constitution, that the profession he had chosen as a life's work was not the one to which he was best suited. In seeking to understand the pattern of Dana's fortunes, especially as they are charted in the Journal, one might do worse than to follow his own lead, in the letter to his son, and go back to his youth and to his "great success," Two Years Before the Mast. The initial success of the book was great indeed, far greater than its stunned young author could ever have anticipated. In its little forty-five-cent edition it must positively have revitalized the house of Harper (which had deftly lifted the copyright), bringing it fifty thousand dollars during the twenty-year proprietorship. In an age dominated by fictional melodrama, its tautly understated prose bit into the literary imagination and forced most readers back to Defoe to find a style of comparable quality. Most impressive of all, to a generation which thought fiction's most definitive quality to be the fact that it was untrue, was the unfailing air of verisimilitude which pervaded the narrative. Dana's success in creating such atmosphere was so great that, in a way, he received little credit for it. The work was treated by many as a kind of Dead Sea Scroll of the forecastle, unaccountably washed up on the Boston shore. Few knew that Two Years was not a journal, kept at the time of the voyage, but a narrative (rolled out at a single draft in six months, while its author was settling into Law School) which artfully reconstructed the actual historical events, shaping them into a form of memorable power. People like Melville, of course, saw the artistry at once — he studied the book carefully, and used it in his composition of both Redburn and White Jacket — but the notion that it was a major artistic achievement remained a minority view. Art it was, nevertheless, and art of a power to make one look twice at the burgeoning

xxxvi

Introduction

young talent that produced it. Few first books anywhere in American letters can be compared with this — certainly not Melville's Typee — and when one contemplates what the cultivation of such a talent might have produced, compared with the painful frustration that Dana's ordeal in the courtrooms of Massachusetts actually did produce, it is hard to avoid an overwhelming sense of loss. Plain curiosity about how Dana was able to divert that talent into oratory and confine that vitality within a State Street frock-coat, prompts one to further inquiry. Once he had returned from the sea and re-entered Harvard, Dana thought of himself as a man faced with many responsibilities. His father was unable to live in sufficient comfort on his small inheritance, and there was a younger brother and an older sister to be looked after as well. In such a world the literary life was one that gentlemen of property retired into, not a career which produced a living of itself. For Dana to have continued the plans for testing his literary powers which he had mapped out while at sea, he would almost automatically have had to give up his ambitions to retrieve, single-handedly, the depleted fortunes of the Dana family. The law, as such, held no charms for him —he was positively chilled at the idea of entering law school —but he felt that through it he might be able to develop fairly quickly an income adequate to his needs (law work was distributed by the wealthy as patronage, and the Danas had many friends). And the law was a traditional entrance into public life, for which he had genuine ambition. In the face of this situation Dana tried to go both ways. He wrote Two Years Before the Mast during his first year in law school, characteristically dividing his energies and attention so as to engage both areas of his interest. The book was published almost simultaneously with the opening of his first law office, and Dana was able to view the prospects for his two possible careers from virtually the same vantage point. One might have thought that the blazing success of the book, far overshadowing the modest briskness of his beginning practice, would have turned him directly toward the literary life. The royalties from Two Years were passing him by, of course, but he was still in a position to know that a work from his pen was selling widely and bringing its owner rich financial returns — a reassurance denied to most young writers. In any case, he had lived without money before, and both he and his relatives had survived the period in good health. By 1840, however, a new factor had to be taken into consideration: Dana was taking a wife. Sarah Watson, daughter of a Wethersfield, Connecticut, widow of no fortune, was an unusual combination of hard-rock New England realist and fashionably superficial sentimentalist, who saw in her marriage to Dana a long-awaited opportunity for independence. In her elaborate vision of herself as a prominent young Boston matron, perhaps most

Introduction

xxxvii

clearly of all she had projected the personality of the man who would be by her side —he needed to be (apart from financially dependable) a God-fearing, Rome-fearing Protestant, impressed deeply with an understanding of the fallen nature of human flesh, and ambitious to achieve a union leading toward full spiritual consciousness. Such a description hardly fits the young Dana of the California coast, who enjoyed a round of rum and then a breakneck horse race over the plains, and who kept an Indian girl in his hut for companionship when he was on shore. But in this respect, especially, Dana was almost literally of two minds. Dana the Bostonian was sometimes so afflicted by the contemplation of his own concupiscence that he would experience perfect transports of self-loathing. He was initially attracted to Sarah because of her striking resemblance to his mother, who died when Dana was six, and much of the courtship consisted of intense examinations of the suitor's character, the discovery of its defects, and the construction of plans to improve it. To a degree, of course, it was a game, but it was a dangerous one for a man of Dana's tendencies. From early childhood he had been subject to moods of anxiety, followed by deep melancholy. The experiences ceased while he was at sea, but when he returned to Boston, so did his periods of disturbance — induced at first by the melodramatic death-bed scene of a young girl he had known. At times, as the Journal testifies, he was all but incapacitated by these emotional disturbances, and it seems clear that he began forming his life in an attempt to cope with their source, employing as his main device affiliation with structures of powerful external authority. Never abandoning the strict morality of his early Congregational upbringing, he soon moved to the Episcopalian church, anxious for a more formal liturgy and system of "outward signs." He treated his family as an institution, with traditions and patterns of behavior which were authoritative in the extreme — he felt he had personally to live up to the accomplishments of his paternal grandfather, the Massachusetts chief justice. The relationship which Dana finally developed with the law could not be better illustrated than by the incident, detailed in the Journal, when a "professional confidence" informed him of a murder which had been committed. Rather than compromise the rules of his profession by passing the information on, Dana stood by and watched the killer go free, remarking that he was "merely unfortunate in possessing this painful knowledge." His marriage to Sarah Watson was perfectly in accord with the rest of these commitments. Sarah was a moral bulwark, of unquestionably great strength, on whom Dana could depend for strict and regular reminders regarding his station and its duties. Some part of him needed and wanted this kind of relationship as much, if not more, than another part of him wanted independence, excitement, and artistic

xxxviii

Introduction

expression. So numerous and powerful were Dana's commitments to the conservative, established life by 1840, that not even the incredible success of his book could break him loose. "We must bend to the wind, and live by rule," he was fond of saying, and such was the course he adopted. He continued to write a little — a good many essays, the Seaman's Friend, and a travel book in 1859 called To Cuba and Back — but the effective sources of his inspiration obviously lay outside of Boston and his massively institutionalized life there. In spite of his adjustments, the original concupiscence which had caused Dana so much internal struggle and was so great a factor in many of his decisions, never really left him. His life required that it take a strange turn, however. Almost as soon as he married and committed himself to an institutionalized life, he began toying with the idea of leading a double life, sexually speaking. Whenever he got the chance, usually while away from Boston on his frequent trips, Dana would slip into a sailor's disguise — varnished cap, loose trousers, and a pea-coat — and "cruise," ae he put it, the brothels and dives of the town. Often the evening would conclude with him alone with a prostitute. But, according to the Journal — and the probability is that Dana is telling the truth — these encounters never resulted in sexual intercourse. On the contrary, just at the crucial moment Dana would reveal himself as a gentleman (sometimes he just wore a cloak over a respectable suit of clothes, and would fling it open) and begin exhorting the girl to abandon her depraved ways. He realized how dangerous to his position such excursions were, but he persisted for years, as if unconsciously seeking to undermine his association with the respectable world. He never was apprehended, as it happens, and toward the end of the Journal he seems to have grown more circumspect. At least he refused to visit a Chinese "pleasure-boat" until he was accompanied by a group of men whose reputations were established, and whose presence made it unlikely that anyone should "mistake his intentions." It was impossible for Dana to do what he seems originally to have planned —to maintain a badly needed relationship with the institutions of Boston, but also to develop his individual genius as a writer. Inevitably, Boston claimed him. In this respect, the twenty years of his Journal present us with the spectacle of a man's crystallization. When the Journal ends, in i860, the process is complete, and we should not be surprised to find that thereafter Dana's life became considerably easier for him. Here is a brief recapitulation of the post-Journal years. IV By the time Dana wrote his son, passing that dim judgment upon his own life, the Civil War had been over for nine years, and it had been

Introduction

ocococtoc

thirteen years since he had written in the permanently discontinued Journal. He and Sarah had had six children, his daughters were marrying, and his financial situation was becoming really secure. During the war years he had been Lincoln's District Attorney in Massachusetts — higher patronage having passed him by because of his absence abroad during most of the presidential campaign — and he had acquired both a reputation for efficiency in office and a tidy financial remuneration through his handling of war-prize cases. He achieved international distinction for his successful argument in the Amy Warwick case before the United States Supreme Court in 1862, by which the Federal blockade of Southern shipping was given urgently needed legal ratification. In many ways Dana prospered steadily from this period on. His legal practice in Boston flourished after 1866, when he resigned from office. He was even elected for two terms to the state legislature, where he worked very hard to launch a new political career. But his continued interest in politics, and hopes for either a "parliamentary" or high administrative career in public service, were to cause him pain until the end of his life. When he served in the legislature his bearing among the petty political figures surrounding him offended many, and he was popularly called "the Duke of Cambridge." This aristocratic characterization was the one that Henry Adams remembered, and it brought Dana real trouble in 1868, when he accepted a splinter-group Republican nomination to run for congress against the regular Republican incumbent from Essex, "Beast" Butler. Butler's red galluses and free-whiskey campaigning among the mercantile workers of the county was humiliatingly successful, and his lampoons of Dana were so stinging that the contest deteriorated into a rout. Dana received less than ten per cent of the vote cast, felt himself a fool, and, more importantly, managed to gain the lasting enmity of Butler, who always made his political opponents his lifelong foes. At about the same time, and through somewhat similar tactics, Dana had gained still another important enemy. William Beach Lawrence, a Rhode Island millionaire and amateur legal scholar, had published two annotated editions of Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law, padding out the work of Dana's old friend with a voluminous editorial apparatus. In 1863 Dana had been asked by Wheaton's widow, who was dissatisfied with Lawrence's work, to take over the editing of a third edition, and Dana, already interested in the subject, agreed. His appointment infuriated Lawrence, who indignantly called upon him and recited a story of grievances against the widow and the publisher. He concluded by asking Dana to withdraw from the editorial role. Dana could be at his worst in such situations, and in this case his hauteur was especially ill-advised. When he showed Lawrence the door and coolly dismissed the older man's fourteen year's labor without anything approaching ade-

xl

Introduction

quate acknowledgment, he earned Lawrence's absolute hatred. When Dana's edition was published in 1866, Lawrence initiated a suit for gross plagiary, an action that lasted three years and resulted in an equivocal decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. By his own lights, needless to say, Dana had plagiarized nothing, but his careless method of citation, combined with an unnecessarily high-handed treatment of Lawrence personally, proved to be a costly mistake. Between 1868 and 1871, Dana's personal fortunes prospered so richly, from a combination of legal fees, successful land speculations, and inheritance, that he was able to forget financial problems. He sold his beloved Cambridge house, moved to a fashionable Beacon Hill address, and it seemed was about to be invited to head the American Legation at the 1871 treaty conferences in Geneva. But Lawrence and Butler, by reckless use of the plagiary suit controversy, had the choice shifted to Charles Francis Adams — and even managed to have Dana excluded from the post of Legation attorney. Great though Dana's disappointment was, it was only a prelude to a greater one five years later. In 1876, three years after the letter to his son, and after he had long given up serious hope of achieving marked public distinction, Dana saw the second Grant Administration rocked by fresh revelations of scandal. One of the most flagrantly involved figures was the American Ambassador to Great Britain, Robert Schenck, and Grant, along with his Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, decided to appoint Dana as Schenck's replacement, on the grounds that Dana's reputation for honesty would help offset the effect of the scandals. Disarmed by the unsolicited and unexpected appointment, and delighted at the idea of taking a post which would give him precedence over the whole nobility of a country he loved, Dana was built up for the reversal of his life. His old enemies Butler and Lawrence combined with Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania (who wanted preference for his own son) to oppose the appointment, and, aided as usual by the unfavorable impression Dana's haughty attitude created, they succeeded in preventing senatorial confirmation of the appointment. Dana was passed over. Furious at what he finally realized was a piece of political jobbing, Dana re-entered the political arena briefly, this time as head of a delegation to the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati. Here he was instrumental in directing some important votes toward the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes, and when Hayes was elected and appointed Dana's old friend William M. Evarts as Secretary of State, Dana began to hope for the reopening of the ambassadorial question. What he received, however, was the post of United States Attorney at the Halifax Fishery arbitrations, where he worked hard for five months trying to establish a case before an arbitration board which had secretly committed itself

Introduction

xli

against his case from the beginning. It was the end of Dana's career of public service. In 1878 Dana's son Richard married Longfellow's daughter Edith, and as a wedding present Dana turned over the remains of his law practice. He then packed up and left the country. After four years of semiretirement in Paris, from which he returned only to bury his ninety-two year old father in 1879, Dana, with Sarah, moved his headquarters to Rome. They were not at all discontent as Americans abroad — Sarah thrived on it, and Dana enjoyed it too, though he kept up a screen of false starts on the "last great work" of his life, a treatise on international law. In Rome he felt particularly at home, and called his residence there "a dream of life." The dream ended in January of 1882, with pneumonia, and Sarah buried him in the same Protestant cemetery that contained the graves of Keats and Shelley. The ghost of his once great vigor came back to him at the end, and during the last few hallucinated days of his illness, he struggled constantly to get out of bed and strike out upon some long, painful journey. R.F.L. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

PART 1

Beginnings: Boyhood3 a Marriage, a Career, and a Way of Life 1815Ί844

/. An Autobiographical

Sketch*

1 8 1 5 - 1 8 4 1 A distinguished divine once said that after keeping a private journal in which he intended to be faithful with himself & set down all his acts & feelings, he burnt it up & abandoned the practice, being sensible that all the time he had been keeping up a sort of "solemn lying", as he termed it. He thought it impossible for a man (at least, it was so for him) to put anything in so lasting a form without some lurking reference to its being seen by others, or without being, perhaps unconsciously, somewhat influenced, while writing, by a sense that some chance might put it before the eyes of some creature when he himself should be removed from an opportunity to explain or qualify. Any such intruding feelings will make the work seeming, & more or less deceptive to others, &, which is worse, a self deception upon the writer. His reasons referred rather to the influence of such a practice upon the writer's own mind: there have been numerous instances in literary autobiographies of something looking more like an intentional imposition upon the public; a sort of masquerading; a quiet hatching of an egg in secret, which the layer knows will at some future time break & come out a living & speaking thing. Many instances might be cited, if one were disposed to exhibit the weaknesses of noted men, where journals, professing to be strictly private & never intended for any eye but that of the writer, have contained passages or turns of expression betraying a consciousness in the writer that there were other persons in the world to whom a note of explanation would be necessary. In order, therefore, to be honest with myself & with any into whose hands this may come, I shall not profess to myself or pretend to them that it is a faithful transcript of the acts, feelings & thoughts of my life. I shall set down nothing here which is untrue. There will be no fiction & no dressing up of anything; but our Maker knows & each man's own soul knows that there are thoughts & intents of the heart, sometimes put forth in act, which no man would be willing or need or ought to open to all observers; which will form part of the revelation of the Great Day when *The first 80 pages of Dana's manuscript have been published in an earlier version, edited by Robert F. Metzdorf, under the title Richard Henry Dana, Jr., An Autobiographical Sketch ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 4 2 ) , Introduction by Norman Holmes Pearson (Hamden, Connecticut: Shoestring Press, 1 9 5 3 ) . Though the present version constitutes an entirely new edition, it was inevitable that the editorial commentary of Mr. Metzdorf should sometimes overlap that of the present editor. When this occurs, I have acknowledged the fact in my notes.

4

Beginnings

all that is hid shall be made known, & when i t will be seen plainly that the greatest saint of earth unless whitened by redemption & forgiveness would be as scarlet, & red like crimson. And the holiest apostles, called to the office of teaching & exhorting, though they stated in particulars & item & by item the sins of the world or of a certain portion or community to which they wrote, that each man might find his own secret sin therein named, yet confessed their own sins, though with all humility & self abasement, in general terms, except such as were obvious or common among all. There are also matters of delicate sentiment & things concerning others as well as ourselves which cannot or ought not to be fully set forth. If a man wishes to put such matters upon paper, or wishes to deal faithfully with his heart by pen & ink, let him first, (or he will lie in secret) make sure that no eye can see it but his own. If he puts anything in a permanent & intelligible shape, & knows that it may possibly be seen by some whose opinion he regards, let him write over it — "A correct account of all such my acts, thoughts & feelings as I am willing to have known to anyone into whose hands this may come", and he will neither deceive himself nor others. It is in the year 1842, & in my 27th year, that I am beginning to write this journal. Up to this time it will, of course, be a history of past life, & will therefore, until it becomes bona fide a journal, be written in the past tense. The first day of August 1815 was the day, & the town of Cambridge in Massachusetts, near Boston, in which my ancestors had lived for five generations, the place of my birth. 1 After many efforts at recollections of early life, the very earliest I have been able to summon up, is, upon recovery from the croup, being held up at the window & having the hens & chickens pointed out to me as they were walking about apparently in perfect health, bare-footed, in the open air. I am sure this is the earliest recollection, because it is the only one I have of the house in which I was born & from which I was soon after removed. My next is of a table laid & a pitcher of a remarkably rich blue color, which betokened to my mind something uncommonly nice, & which the simple water it contained did not answer to. I then remember looking through a small side window to watch my father 2 as he went off to Court at Concord. 'In the margin, added later, is: "House in Green St Camb, first lived in by Ε. T. Dana afterward, per R.C.D." The note refers to Dana's paternal uncle Edmund Trowbridge Dana, and to Dana's sister Ruth Charlotte Dana, both of whom will be mentioned frequently in the Journal. A genealogy of the Dana family and associated families may be found at the end of the Journal, and will henceforth be cited as "Genealogy." 2 Dana's father, Richard Henry Dana, Sr., practiced law briefly, but derived his reputation primarily from his work as a poet and Literary critic. He will receive further annotation during the course of the Journal. See Genealogy.

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

5

After these, my recollections are of the usual experiences of boys in my situation. I went where I was told not to go, played with boys whom I was warned against as vulgar, was always found out & wondered how people got their knowledge of my doings; went whortle berry-ing & ate all before I got home; followed soldiers, droves of cattle, showmen, & anything else that was attractive & noisy; was imposed upon by larger boys, had my hat run away with, which I thought was a grievous loss to the whole family as well as myself. I was a noted wanderer; was frequently picked up at incredible distances from home, & once, when only seven years old, walked fourteen miles, & showed no signs of unusual fatigue. I was active & hardy for my sise & shape, though not stout built; & my father always adopted the course with me of allowing me to knock about for myself & get into such dangers as I dared to. I have since heard him say that he frequently gave me leave to go swimming, boating, skating, & fishing, or into the woods, with other boys, when it required great effort in his own mind to get over a sense of the dangers I might be in; for he felt that habits of self reliance & self-help, & familiarity with exposure & risks, to a boy not foolhardy, are a greater protection than all the guardings & watchings of the most careful parents, beside being a far better preparation for manhood. He used also to encourage me in being out of doors & at play on half holidays, for he was always afraid of precosity in learning & of over studious habits in boys, & felt that a good constitution, a strong & active body, & elasticity of mind & spirits, if the ordinary & necessary school drilling & general information were secured & the moral & religious character impressed, would be of far more value than that little advance in learning that might be got by time taken from play & exercise. I was six years old when my mother3 died. This event made a deep & solemn impression upon me. The effect of it was aided by other causes, among wh. was the sacredness attached to it & to her memory by us all, so great that up to this time, a period of 20 years, her name has never been mentioned among us or anything nearly connected with her alluded to, except in the most perfect privacy, & then with a solemnity & awe like that with which we should have gone down into her tomb. My sister4 has once or twice spoken of her in letters to me, in most serious connexions, but never more than once, I believe, directly to me in conversation, & then it was in a moment of great confidence & feeling, & with a struggle which showed the depth of the impression on her own heart. When we were mere children, our father used to take us upon his

3 Ruth Charlotte (Smith) Dana, of a Rhode Island family, gave Dana two sisters and a brother. See Genealogy. 4 Ruth Charlotte Dana. Dana's other sister, Susan, died early. See Genealogy.

6

Beginnings

knees of a Sunday afternoon, after church, & having first read some passage of scripture & talked a little upon religion & God & our Saviour, then speak to us of our mother, her character, her dying words, her wishes & prayers for us. This was always a time of full hearts & of tears among us. As we grew older our absences from home & probably a feeling in our father that prevented his opening his heart to older minds as he did to children, broke up this weekly practice. We knew too well & too well respected his sufferings ever to touch upon the subject first ourselves. No one has ever alluded to her in his presence, as it is known that his feelings are not only sensitive but sore, & time has made sacred & binding what began in a natural deference. The subject is now the sanctum sanctorum with us all; entered, indeed, but only by two or three at a time, & with much solemnity, (never before strangers), always with some preparation or fitness of circumstances, & I trust never without profit. Another cause wh. may have contributed to elevate & sanctify our mother's memory may be that we remember her only or chiefly as in sickness, in her religious conversations, & in her last parting words. During the last year of her life she was constantly suffering from ill health, & the discipline & management & all the unpleasant dealings with her children fell upon others. Consequently our associations with her are all pleasant or solemn, & we have none of those things to remember which they must have who have grown up with even the best of parents. Her death, leaving so many young children, was looked upon as a sad & mournful event by a large circle of friends, & my father's grief was well known, so that all who spoke to us of it did so with peculiar feeling & tenderness. To us who saw our father's grief, which no description we have read of agony short of madness has equalled, & who remember something of the events attending the death, & with whom it was followed up by so many causes continuing the impression, it might well be a peculiar, lasting & sacred thing, though without any unusually deep feeling on our part upon other subjects. For myself, for two or three years after her death, until going away to school dissipated my habits of serious self communion, I connected her constantly with some notion of a rising from the dead. The resurrection of our Saviour, the raising of Lasarus, & other instances of miraculous restorations of life haunted my imagination, & I spent hours in picturing to myself her coming to life, & went into the minutest details of the manner (always supernatural & by divine interposition) in wh. it would be done. So possessed was I with this notion that I used to look from the window often to see something portending her return, & the graveyard, the church-bell, the sexton, the hearse & all the trappings of a funeral were peculiar things to me, as connected with her death, & I

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

7

imagined them all as changed & banished from our thoughts by her coming again to life. I did not imagine her as again in the domestic circle & returning to the common duties of life, for death & probable intercourse with blessed spirits had made her too sacred for this; my thoughts were only of coming to life & breaking away from [the] power of the grave, the church-yard, the tomb, the coffin & the grave-cloths, & coming among us pure, holy & giving life & spreading joy. The going to a large school, away from home, broke up in a great measure my habits of day dreaming & also many of my religious habits, which would make me ridiculous among the boys. I believe I never said my prayers, which I had done from earliest recollection, after I went to this school, except in times of alarm or of peculiar religious impression until I had reached to man's estate. Yet I would not avoid large schools, on the contrary they are a good discipline if the boy is not too young, & no man who has to meet the world can be kept good & useful by reason of avoiding while a boy the trials & temptations usual in life. The first man's school I went to was that of the Rev. Samuel Barrett,5 afterwards a Unitarian clergyman in Boston, at Cambridgeport. I was then seven years old, & with him began the Latin grammar. My recollections of this school are far from being pleasant. I am told there are great improvements in the art of school-keeping & that school houses & school going are much more attractive than formerly. Certainly from my own experience there was abundant room for improvement. This school house was a long low dark room, with wooden benches well cut up, walls nearly black, & a close hot atmosphere, for it was winter & there was a tight sheet iron stove with a long pipe to warm the room. I had been told that the master was very severe, & I knew that flogging was the punishment for every offence. All these things, added to the dismal & repulsive appearance of the room, made my entrance one of gloomy forebodings. The master was a thin, dark complexioned, dark haired & dark eyed man, with a very austere look, & by the side of the door stood a chest in which I knew was kept the long pine ferrule with wh. all punishment was inflicted. Every misdemeanour, a bad recitation from carelessness or willfulness, laughing, playing, leaving seats without leave, was noted down, & for every note some punishment was to be inflicted. It was very rarely that a note was forgiven, & some punishment, if it were but one or two blows of the ferrule upon the hand, must follow each misdemeanour. The punishing was done at the close of school, & if a boy had a note early in the day there was the anticipation of the punishment before him the rest of school hours. When the time came for dismissing school, the books were put away, & the names of all the 5

( 1801-1877); Harvard, 1820.

8

Beginnings

delinquents called over, the chest unlocked & the long pine ferrule produced. How often did our hearts sicken at the sight of that chest & that ferrule! The boys were then called out, one at a time, & the blows given upon the flat of their hands, from two or four up to one or two dosen, according to the nature of the offence & the sise of the boys. A few of the older boys never cried, but only changed colour violently as the blows fell; but the other boys always cried & some lustily & with good reason. No sooner were the boys released from this official flogging than they began to try the strength & endurance of one another. Fightings were very frequent both among the boys of the school, & between our boys & those of the town school. A boy's fighting qualities were as much talked about & prised as his strength or swiftness, & far more than his capacity as a scholar, which last, indeed, I do not think was ever mentioned among us. When I joined the school I was a good deal younger & smaller than any other boy, & was not pitted against any of them in a fight, as was usually done by way of a reception to a new boy, & to settle his grade; but after I had been about a week in the school a boy came who was just about my age & sise. He had not been an hour in the school before the boys who sat next to him had taunted him by telling him that every boy there could flog him & got from him a defiance to me, who was his proper match. This was soon communicated to me & assurance obtained that I thought myself fully capable of giving him a bloody nose or a black eye. I was soon informed [that] he had said he could flog me with one hand, wh. was corroborated by his holding up one fist at me in a threatening manner, while the other was put in his trousers' pocket. To this I answered by holding [up] the little finger of my left hand, to intimate that I could flog him with that. By this exchange of telegraphs across the school room a challenge had been intelligibly given & received, & as soon as school was out we went to settle the contest under a cherry tree wh. grew behind the building. The new boy was backed by a large boy who lived in his street & who promised great things of him, but the battle was soon over. My opponent did not show half the fight I supposed he would, & soon gave in. This was a favourable event for me & was my last & only battle at that school. Our master had a mode of punishment rather peculiar to himself; that of pulling the ears of the boys, & dragging them about by their ears. He sometimes dragged boys a good part of the way across the school room, & over the benches in this manner. One of the scholars, John Allston,6 6 This boy, as Robert F. Metzdorf, in his edition of this early section of the Journal surmises, was probably John E. Allston, third child of Washington Allston's brother, William Moore Allston. Washington Allston married Dana's paternal aunt, Martha Dana, in 1830. Both of them figure prominently in the Journal. See Genealogy.

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

9

nephew of Mr. Wn. Allston had an ear so sore that he could not sleep on that side of his head for several nights. This mode of punishment however came to a stop with me. I had been standing up in my class reciting, when a boy made me laugh, a thing I was very prone to do in school. The master rebuked me, but the command and the necessity of preserving my sobriety only made the temptation to laugh stronger, & I laughed again. The master then pulled my ears pretty severely. This sobered me for a time, but the mischievous boy made up the same face again, & my natural propensity to laugh added perhaps to a little desire not to seem intimidated set me agoing again. This provoked the master & he seised me by the ear & dragged me across the room to my seat. I sat for some time feeling no little pain, but the mischievous boy wd. not leave me alone & I laughed again. This time the master seised me & dragged me by one ear over the bench & back again. I sat in some pain through school hours, & when we were dismissed the other boys saw that my ear was bloody & that the skin behind, where the ear joined the head, was torn. I was taken home by a procession of boys, & afterwards taken by my father before a committee of the school proprietors. The whole resulted in a vote of the committee requesting the master not to pull boys' ears for the future. Accordingly the ferrule resumed its full sway. This master was succeeded, in about a year, by the Rev. Mr. Gage,7 who was more mild, but yet governed by force & fear & used the ferrule. He was succeeded by Mr. John Frost,8 afterwards of Philad., who was a good master but severe in corporal chastisement. Hardly a day passed without flogging of some kind. During the reign of Mr. Frost I left the school & spent a few weeks under the care of Rev. Geo. Ripley, who afterwards married my cousin Sophia W. Dana,9 studying at home & reciting to him at his private room. I was, however, too young for that mode of studying & needed the stimulus of a school. The reason of my leaving Mr. Frost was the distance I was obliged to walk in the summer & a fever (bilious) by which I had been attacked, every summer. My father resolved to send me into the 'Nathaniel Gage (1800-1861), Harvard, B.A., 1822; D.D., 1825. 8 (1800-1859); Harvard, 1822. Metzdorf notes that in a career of teaching later at Boston and Philadelphia Mr. Frost completed more than three hundred volumes of history and biography, and "is reputed to have dragooned his students into assisting him in his literary and financial endeavors." When Dana was attempting to find a publisher for Two Years Before the Mast, Frost corresponded with the family, offering his services as an agent to deal with Philadelphia publishers. 9 George Ripley (1802-1880); Harvard, 1823, and Sophia Willard Dana (daughter of Dana's paternal Uncle Francis, see Genealogy,) figure prominently in the Journal. As Dana writes, Ripley was beginning his activities in the Brook Farm experiment. He will appear later as an editor of the New York Tribune.

10

Beginnings

country for my health, & accordingly it was arranged that I should go to Westford, a small country town, about 25 miles from Cambridge, where there was an academy under the charge of Mr. John Wright, 10 a graduate of Cambridge. In pursuance of this plan, I left home, for the first time in my life (except for a visit of a day or two among friends), to pass the summer at Westford. This was in May 1824, & when I was only eight years old. I boarded with Mr. Levi Parker, who was a Deputy Sheriff of the County & had one of the best houses in the place. Still, everything was different from what I had been used to. The house & furniture was different, the manners & language of the people different, & my own position & treatment different. The people of the house were kind to me, & the master was not severe, & there was no flogging or ferruling, except once or twice in extreme cases; yet for many weeks I suffered very much from home-sickness. As well as I can recollect myself I was a boy of tender feelings. I well remember shedding tears alone at imaginary cases of suffering suggested by something I had accidentally seen. I cried over books & over actual cases of misfortune. One holiday I heard a little black boy complaining that a big white boy had taken his money from him, & I was so much overcome by thinking of it that my father was obliged to turn back, walk a long distance, hunt the boy up & give him some money, before I could be comforted. This tenderness as to the feelings of others too often leaves us as we grow up. A great deal of it is incompatible with the business of life, or we find it easier to think so. In this respect "Heaven lies about us in our infancy". 11 While I was at Westford I studied but little. As I was young & well advanced for my years, my father was not very anxious that I should be a close student. Geography I had a great taste for, & I spent half my time in school hours in poring over maps & descriptive tables. This was my recreation, & I stole time for it from my other studies. I also laid a foundation for geographical & statistical knowledge which has been a great assistance to me in after life. It fixed in my mind a map with the outlines of natural & political divisions which I could always refer to as we do to the recollection of a scene wh. has been often before our eyes. This pursuit fostered in me, & perhaps in part sprang from, a strong desire to travel & see new & strange places, a passion from which I never became free. 10 ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 6 7 ) ; Harvard, 1843. Metzdorf notes that Mr. Wright taught two years at the Westford Academy which Dana attended, went on to a career in law and business, and eventually became a trustee of Westford Academy. n

T h e line is from William Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality from Recol-

lections of Early Childhood" ( 1 8 0 7 ) , a poem to which Dana refers frequently.

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

11

During the summer my father came to Westford & passed a few weeks. I was almost constantly with him when out of school, & we took long walks together. As the time came for him to leave, my heart over-flowed. In the course of our last walk, he accidentally took up a little, singularly formed stick & dropped it again while talking. On returning alone over the same ground I saw the stick & the sight of it started my grief afresh. I picked it up & carried it home, & for a week or two afterwards, this stick was a source of much secret sad or pleasant melancholy. While in school I could barely keep my mind to my studies. Of the six hours a day wh. we spent at school, I doubt if I averaged more than one of actual study, excepting my recreations upon geography & the pieces in the American First Class Book. Of the latter my favorite piece was "The Son", 12 though I did not know until a year or two afterwards that it was written by my father, his name not being put against it in the book. The master used to call me the "Day-dreamer", & often did I hear my name called by him & start from a reverie. As I can recollect the work my mind was upon, I was carrying out imaginary scenes of one kind or another. They were not plans for what I was about to do, or for what would be likely to occur, but improbable if not impossible things. I believe this absence from home & from constant intercourse with persons who occupied my mind, was a good thing for me. It made me thoughtful & left me to draw naturally from things about me. Most of my schoolmates were older than myself; some of them 10 or 12 years older. One, Oliver Prescott, a Westford boy, is now Judge of Probate in N. Bedford. He entered college the year I joined the school. Another, a class-mate of his, is Horatio Shipley, a lawyer in Boston. One year later, & a favourite of the whole school was Wm. Prescott, son of Judge Prescott of Groton, & Gr. [grandson] of "Prescott of Pepperell", the hero of Bunker Hill. He died during his Sophomore year at Cambridge. 13 It was during my first quarter here that Mr. Everett delivered his celebrated oration at Concord, on the 19 April, the anniversary of the 12 "The Son," a prose sketch, originally appeared in The Idle Man (New York, 1821-1822), a publication which Dana's father edited and from whose tide he drew his literary nickname. The piece deals with a young man at his mother's deathbed, and, as Metzdorf notes, may well have recalled to Dana his own mother's death. 1 3 01iver Prescott (1806-1890), Harvard, 1828. Horatio Shipley (1804-1872), Harvard, 1828. His legal career was not a conventionally respectable one. William Oliver Prescott (c. 1808-1827) was a member of the Class of 1829 at Harvard and was a cousin of William Hickling Prescott, the historian. "Prescott of Pepperell" was William Prescott (1726-1795) who, with his brother Oliver, achieved distinction during the Revolutionary War.

12

Beginnings

battle. 14 I well remember the noise it made over the country, though I was too young to understand fully the nature of the applause. T h e event, added to the arrival of L a Fayette & his progress through the country, & the anniversary of Bunker Hill battle, with Webster's oration & the laying the corner stone of the monument, all occurring so near each other, 15 turned the attention of every one to our revolutionary history, & made us all ardent patriots. During the vacation wh. I spent at home the following August, 1 6 L a Fayette was in Boston & its neighborhood. I saw his entry into the city, his visit to Charlestown, & the grand review upon Boston Common. These great events made a deep impression upon my young mind & for a long time turned the current of my thoughts to American history, war & military biography. I read Thacher's Journal & Heath's Memoirs of the Revolutionary W a r , 1 7 & I do [not] know how many little lives of Washington & L a Fayette. The Commencement day at Harvard College & the Phi Beta day which followed, were triumphant displays of the civil, literary & military forces before L a Fayette, & on the latter day Everett delivered another famous oration. 18 T h e laying of the comer-stone of Bunker Hill monument, June 17, 1825, took place during term time, & I lost the sight. But how the country 14

The oration was entitled "The First Battles of the Revolutionary War" and served as the dedication to a monument unveiled on the occasion. See Edward Everett, Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston: Little & Brown, 1890), I, 73-102. 15 Lafayette arrived in New York August 15, 1824, and, beginning with a Harvard Commencement on the 24th of that month, toured a madly enthusiastic United States until the following June 17, when he attended the laying of the cornerstone at Bunker Hill, and heard Webster's speech. See Daniel Webster, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, 1853), I, 57-82, for an account of the scene and the text of the speech. Lafayette returned to France on September 8, 1825. See W. E. Woodward, Lafayette (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1938), pp. 417-433. 1β ι824. 17 James Thacher (1754-1844), A Military Journal During the Revolutionary War ( 1 8 2 3 ) ; William Heath ( 1 7 3 7 - 1 8 1 4 ) , Memoirs of Major-General Heath (1798). 18 This was the Harvard Commencement which Lafayette attended shortly after his arrival in New York. He arrived in Boston on August 24, 1824. For Everett it was a key speech — he called it "The Circumstances Favorable to the Progress of Literature in America" — since it launched his political career. See Everett, Orations and Speeches I, 1-44; Woodward, Lafayette, p. 423; Paul Revere Frothingham, Edward Everett, Orator and Statesman (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), pp. 82-86. Metzdorf's note adds the following: "Forty-one years later, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., composed and delivered An Address upon the Life and Services of Edward Everett; Delivered before the Municipal Authorities of Cambridge, February 22, 1863 (Cambridge, 1865). Dana wrote: 'In 1824, he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa oration; and in that it is that I discover the convictions and purposes with which he returned to his native Land. [Everett had been studying in Europe.] I find in that the keynote of his subsequent life.'"

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An Autobiographical Sketch

13

was awake about it! Several of the Revolutionary soldiers stopped at our house on their way to & from the scene, & with what speechless admiration did I look at the men who had actually fought at Bunker Hill, & at other battles of our great war! In August 1825, I left Westford, Mr. Wright having resigned his preceptorship, & returned to Cambridge. It is now 17 years since I have seen the place in which I spent a year & a quarter of that time of life when a month is as long as some years of after life, & I have a distinct recollection of its minutest localities. The houses, with their shapes & colours, the names of the owners, the fences, where the board fence ended & the stone wall began, all are as clear to my mind's eye as a picture. I should enjoy much the visiting of the place again. I lately dreamed of doing so.19 Upon returning to Cambridge I again joined the grammar school at Cambridge-Port, under two successive teachers, Mr. Tyler & Mr. Perkins, graduates of Yale College.20 Soon afterwards a school was opened in the old town under the charge of Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson,21 since known as a writer & lecturer upon what is called the transcendental philosophy. We had a school of about 20 boys, all of us engaged in those studies wh. would prepare us for college; & a very pleasant instructor we had in Mr. E., although he had not system or discipline enough to ensure regular & vigorous study. I have always considered it fortunate for us that we fell into the hands of more systematic & strict teachers, though not so popular with us, nor perhaps so elevated in their habits of thought as Mr. E. The next teacher was the Rev. Jona. Cole, & after him RevWm. H. Sanford.22 Mr. Sanford left college without much reputation as 19

" I lately dreamed of doing so" was added at a later time by Dana. Later still, Dana added in the margin: "Note. Visited it in October 1863. 38 years later." 20 Edward Royall Tyler ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 4 8 ) , Yale, B.A., 1825; B.D., 1826. Metzdorf notes that after a pastorate at Middletown, Connecticut, he did editorial work in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut. George William Perkins ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 5 6 ) , Yale, B.A., 1824; B.D., 1828. Metzdorf notes that he later filled pastorates in Montreal, Meriden, Connecticut, and Chicago. 21 Emerson ( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 8 2 ) kept the school from spring of 1826 until the following autumn. Dana's rather arch tone concerning Emerson's qualities of mind reflects Dana's own inclination toward more conservative theological schools of thought. The Journal will reveal Dana's movement toward High Episcopalianism. Later, Dana also discovered and valued an amicable acquaintanceship with Emerson, which probably began at the time Emerson favorably reviewed Two Years Before the Mast for The Dial (October 1840), I, 264-265. The same month in which his review appeared, Emerson wrote of Dana and Two Years to his brother William: "He was my scholar once, but he never learned this of me: more's the pity." 22

Jonathan Cole ( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 7 7 ) , Harvard, 1825, ordained at Kingston, Massachusetts, 1829. William H. Sanford ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 7 9 ) , Harvard, 1827. Dana misspelled the name as "Sandford." He was later ordained and in 1 8 5 7 established a bookstore in Worcester.

Beginnings

14

a scholar, & he was not given to theories & speculations upon teaching, mental processes of the young, modes of presenting motives, &c., yet he was the best teacher I ever had. He used no corporal chastisement, but had regular systems of punishment, well understood & put in force with all the certainty & inflexibility of public statutes, & the pardoning power was most sparingly exercised. As an instance of this, one of his rules was that no boy should speak except in answer to a question from the master, without coming to the master's desk. This rule was partly to prevent the offering of excuses, denials, & the like at the time a note for impropriety was made; a time for such excuses being set apart, after school was dismissed. Something had been thrown across the school-room from the part where my desk was. He saw it & called out to the monitor to note me for misconduct. I instinctively said, "I didn't throw it, Sir." "Note him again for talking", was the only reply. After school was over the boy who threw the thing confessed it to save me, & my note was taken off. I was going away, when Mr. S. called me back for my other note. I told.him they ought both to go together; but no, I had to commit my ten lines of Virgil for my second note. On another occasion he had set one of the boys, as a punishment, the task of committing ten lines of Latin to memory. The boy's father, who was rather indulgent to his son & thought the task too hard, wrote Mr. S. requesting him to change the punishment, if he could do so consistently with his rules. Mr. S. answered that [he] would do it with pleasure, & set the boy the same number of lines of Greek. After this he had no interference from parents. There was perfect silence, order & decorum in the school, with a good deal of hard study & sufficient emulation, & the drilling in the grammars & rudiments was constant & thorough. By these means, though but an indifferent classical scholar himself, Mr. S. fitted his boys admirably for college & they passed very creditable examinations. He left the school with the approbation of all the parents & with good wishes & kind feelings from his scholars who felt the benefits of his faithful preceptorship. After Mr. Sanford came a gentleman of great classical attainments, cultivated tastes, a good theorist in education, & with many excellent notions & desires; but he lacked the tact, efficiency & system of his predecessor, & the school fell away under his dynasty. There was always noise, inattention, a great deal of reasoning & attempts at convincing, wh. often ended in unpleasant passages. He was, however, personally beloved & might have made an excellent private tutor. The teachers following Mr. Sanford were, Henry S. McKean & Horatio Wood. 23 Mr. Wood kept but a fortnight. He was very unfortunate in all 2 3 Henry

Swazey

McKean

(1810-1857),

Harvard,

1828. Son of Professor Joseph

McKean of Harvard, he went on to an engineering career. Horatio Wood

remains

2815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

15

his plans & notions. He made enemies of the boys & contrived to thin out the school more than one half, in those few days. His punishments were degrading. Among other things, he made the boys of the upper class, between 14 & 16 years of age, on the eve [of] entering college & thinking ourselves young gentlemen, stand out upon the middle of the floor for punishment, for the slightest offences. He also inflicted some violent corporal punishments. One inflicted upon myself was the cause of his being turned out of his office. He had placed me in the middle of the floor for some offence or other, & my station being near the stove, fit the room very hot, I became faint. I asked to be allowed to go out & gave my reason, but to no purpose. In a few minutes we had our usual recess of a quarter of an hour, & I went out. Here I came very near fainting again, looked very pale, & asked leave to go home. This was refused. As I was really sick, at the suggestion of the boys, I went home, wh. was but a few minutes walk, to get a written excuse. My father saw that I was ill & kept me at home & sent me the next morning with a written excuse for my non-appearance, alleging faintness & sickness. Mr. W. was mortified & angry at this & said that the excuse only covered my not returning, while the chief offence was my going home without leave, wh. he could not excuse, & calling me out, took his ferrule & ordered me to put out my left hand. (He also intimated that my sickness was all a sham). Upon this hand, he inflicted six blows with all his strength, & then six upon the right hand. I was in such a phrensy of indignation at his injustice & his insulting insinuation, that I could not have uttered a word, for my life. I was too small & slender to resist, & could show my spirit only by fortitude. He called for my right hand again & gave six more blows in the same manner, & then six more upon the left. My hands were swollen & in acute pain, but I did not flinch nor show a sign of suffering. He was determined to conquer & gave six more blows upon each hand, with full force. Still there was no sign from me of pain or submission. I could have gone to the stake for what I considered my honour. The school was in an uproar of hissing, scraping & groaning, & the master turned his attention to the other boys & let me alone. He said not another word to me through the day. If he had I could not have answered, for my whole soul was in my throat, & not a word could get out. For an hour after school was dismissed I could not articulate a whole word, solely from excitement & indignation. All my fostered notions of honour & personal character had been despised & outraged, & myself treated with indignity. I went in the afternoon to unidentified unless Dana is mistaken in his later remark that Wood died before 1 8 4 2 . If Dana is mistaken, then it is probably, as Metzdorf remarks, Horatio Wood ( 1 8 0 7 1 8 9 1 ) , Harvard, 1 8 2 7 , later a Unitarian minister.

ι6

Beginnings

the trustees of the school, stated my case, produced my evidence, & had an examination made. The next morning but four boys went to school, & the day following the career of Mr. Wood ended. For several years after this affair, the notion of being revenged upon the perpetrator of this insult was frequently in my mind. As I grew larger & stronger, so as to be nearly a fair match for him, I determined that if I ever encountered him nothing but a full & unequivocal apology from the man should prevent my trying the utmost of my powers upon him. One evening, during the year before I entered college, I thought I saw him passing down a lane near where I was. I followed at a rapid pace, but on coming nearer, it proved to be another man. Had I been in a duelling country, I should have challenged him instantly, even the day I left his school; & I could understand, in this case, somewhat of the feeling of a duellist. It is a favourite method with many good persons to ridicule duelling, & call it absurd to risk your life & put it at the same chance with your opponent's, in order to avenge an insult. I grant that a duel is always wicked & often absurd, but not always so. There are some insults to wh. the natural man cannot quietly submit. Something must be done; & a feeling of honour & chivalric generosity, wh. wd. give every advantage to a foe, leads to the measured field, the equal weapon, the forms & courtesies of the duel. If an insult is offered to the national flag, war is declared in form, & the fair terms of civilized warfare being observed, each contending party has the prayers of churches & clergy for the destruction of the other. On how much different ground does the duel stand? It is worse in degree, more disturbing to social life, & more frequent, but how different is it in kind? Be this as it may, I have always felt that nothing but religious principle, which teaches us to forgive our enemies & pray for them that despitefully use us, which enables a man to leave it all in God's hands, is a sufficient answer to the duellist. All other arguments partake too much of mean spirited prudence to satisfy a generous mind. My feeling on this subject met with a silent but powerful rebuke by my seeing, a year or two afterwards, his death announced in the newspapers. What miserable fretful, proud & blind creatures we are! He died hoping in a happy eternity. I would not acknowledge any other hope; & in what state had my heart been towards one whom I might meet in heavenl "Deliver us from blood-guiltiness, Ο God!"24 There is one feature of the school at Cambridge wh. I always recur to with great pleasure. This is, the uncommon gentlemanly spirit that prevailed among the scholars. We were all, with never more than one or 24"Deliver . . . God", was added at a later time by Dana. It derives from "Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, Ο God . . ." (Ps. 51:14).

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

17

two exceptions, the sons of educated men, lived at our own homes, & being so much connected with the University, saw a good deal of literary society, & became familiar with a much higher style of conversation & range of topics than boys usually are. The profanity & vulgar & indecent language so common among school boys, was almost unknown among us. A boy lost caste by being vulgar & profane. It was looked upon as ungentlemanly & low bred. Whatever the boys may have been in their hearts, certainly more courteous, well bred & dignified external conduct could hardly be looked for among the young. A high sense of honor & a certain pride of personal character was the esprit du corps. A mean action, vulgar or indecent language, coarse or illmannered behavior, put a boy down in a position from wh. he rarely & with difficulty recovered. All our teachers remarked upon the school as being a collection of well dressed, well mannered & well informed boys. The topics of conversation, also, among the boys, were much more select & improving than I ever knew at any other school, & even more so than with most college students. The principle of having select private schools of what are usually termed "gentlemen's sons" is, I know, condemned by many. But if its fruits were always the same as with us, I doubt if many who experienced the like would find much fault with them. From this school I went, in the winter of 1829-30, to that of Mr. Wm. Wells, 25 a boarding & day school at the extreme end of the town. Supposing this school to be one of the last remaining specimens of the old English style of school-keeping in this country, I shall give it a particular notice. Mr. Wells was an Englishman by birth, of a good but poor family, & educated at an English school & at Harvard College. He was a remarkably good classical scholar, a man of extended information upon all subjects of general interest in society, & with a high reputation as a good disciplinarian, & as an indefatigable teacher. His school consisted of about 30 boys, of whom all but about half a dozen26 were boarders, & either sons of men of property in Boston, or of Southern gentlemen, & sent to his care. The accommodations of the boys were as follows; four large rooms in the attic, in which they slept, 6 or 7 in a room, & to which they were not permitted to go except for sleeping, or for some special purpose, upon leave. There were no fires in these rooms, & I believe but one light in the entry for all the rooms. I am not certain of the latter fact, but, at all events, the boys were never allowed a light except for a few 25 William Wells (Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, 1 7 7 3 - 1 8 6 0 ) , Harvard, 1796. A tutor at Harvard and an usher at the Boston Latin School, he was, as Metzdorf notes, from 1804 until 1830 a Boston bookseller. He opened his school in 1830. 2e The " z " in "dozen" is formed over Dana's usual "s"; he seldom used the letter "z".

ι8

Beginnings

minutes, to go to bed with. There was a wash room, also without a fire, with half a dosen tin basins, & towels, for the boys' washing. There was a dining room, reserved for meals, & never entered for any other purpose. The school-room was the only room in which the boys could be, except when in bed, by day or night, & in which they must do all their reading, writing, thinking, conversing, & in which their characters & habits were formed. This room was oblong, rather small for the number of boys it was to accommodate, with a stove in the middle, & but one light in the evening for all the boys, & that a lamp fastened to the wall higher than the boys' heads, & of such a kind & so placed that but two or three boys could read by it at the same time. Indeed, what with the noise of so many boys in one room, the necessity of going away from the stove, & the poor accommodations under this lamp, very little reading was done. Those boys who passed several years at this school before entering college, went to college the most ignorant young men upon all subjects of literature & of that knowledge acquired thro' books & the society of educated persons, & not necessarily connected with their latin, greek & mathematics, of any who are able to get for themselves what is commonly called a liberal education. They seemed to belong to another class from the young gentlemen, well informed & well mannered, of the school I had left. They were inferior to them also in the sports & athletic exercises of boys. For in this school there were bounds beyond which the scholars were never permitted to go. These bounds included the yard about the house & a play ground adjoining; but none of the favorite games of foot-ball, hand-ball, base or cricket, could be played in the grounds, with any satisfaction, for the ball would be constantly flying over the fence, beyond wh. the boys could not go without asking special leave. This was a damper upon the more ranging & athletic exercises. Flying kite, too, was of course out of the question, as that requires a long run, to raise the kite & sometimes a chase after it if the string should break. Hardly a boy in the school knew how to swim, except the day scholars & those Boston boys who went to the swimming school in vacations. The only punishment known in this school was flogging. The Master, Mr. Wells, always had a rattan either in hand or lying on his desk; & if any disorder was observed, or a boy had not his lesson prepared, the master sprang up, & down went the rattan upon the boy's back. There were about half a dosen boys who were flogged regularly every day, & who detested the sight of school-room, master & books. There was never a half day without a good deal of flogging. The boys in the upper class, who were to enter college within the year, were rarely if ever flogged. I do not remember a boy in my class being flogged while I was in the

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

19

school. But the smaller boys suffered from it. Those who were slow to learn, & needed encouragement, became disheartened & made but little progress; & the smart boys transgressed as much as they could & avoid punishment. I remember very well two or three boys, in particular, who became almost stultified over their books. One of them was weeks & weeks upon a few pages of his latin grammar, which he had blotted with tears & blackened with his fingers, until they were hardly legible. That boy generally cried fr. a quarter to a half of an hour every half-day, over his lesson. All this was very ill-judged toward the boys, & always seemed to me undignified in the master. Yet no man could be more dignified, hightoned, courteous & kind than was Mr. Wells in his intercourse with society & in his family; & after we left his school, it was always a pleasure to us to spend an evening with him, as nothing could exceed the gratifying character of his conversation & manners. I always attributed his mode of discipline to his own English education; wh. though thorough, was upon the constant exercise of a principle, wh. should be reserved for extreme cases, wh. nothing else will meet. Indeed from all I can learn, the art of school keeping must have been a good deal advanced within the last dozen years. From the age of seven to fourteen, I used to have the whole forenoon for one lesson, & the whole afternoon for another, each of wh. I am quite sure I oould have learned, under any wholesome stimulus, in an hour. This brought on a lazy, intermittent mode of studying from wh. it required some years for me to recover. While I was at Westford, I frequently spent the whole forenoon over five or eight lines of Viri Romae, 27 filling up the time with day-dreaming, playing, reading books behind the lid of my desk, drawing on the slate, &c. I have since reflected with surprise upon the mechanical mode of instruction to wh. we were all subject, & wondered how such sensible men as some of our masters were could so have neglected & thwarted the golden opportunities, good impulses, & active understandings of youth. I passed my examination in July 1831, & at the close of the following August, entered the Freshman Class of Harvard College. In the interval I made a visit at Plymouth & New Bedford; at Plymouth, with my friend Jas. Τ. Hodge, gr. son of Dr. Jas. Thacher; 28 & at N. Bedford with my mother's brother. 27 Fragois Lhomond, ed. ( 1 7 2 7 - 1 7 9 4 ) , a popular edition of Latin biographies and autobiographies. 28 James Thacher Hodge ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 7 1 ) , Harvard, 1836. A close friend of the Dana family, his grandfather's Military Journal has already been cited. James T. Hodge was a mining engineer who disappeared and presumably died on October 15, 1871, while sailing as a passenger on the steamer Lake Huron.

20

Beginnings

At the end of my first term I found myself, unexpectedly, the second scholar in my class, in mathematics. At school I had no taste for that study, & was not considered proficient in it. My taste was for Latin. But at the examination I reed, the highest mark for algebra & arithmetic. Our study during the first term was plane geometry. This I paid strict attention to & became very fond of, & I soon found that my recitations were doing me credit. The first scholar in mathematics was a young man who had reed, a thorough mathematical education & had been over all the ground before & was familiar with it. In Latin I stood about 12 out of 60. In Greek, not quite so high. Toward the end of the second term a difficulty occurred between my class & the government wh. made a great change in my own affairs. An offence had been committed in the class, & the faculty wished to discover the offender. The esprit du corps was strongly against tale bearing, & if any one did know the offender, as I did not, he did not reveal it. The story that came to us was that a charity-student by the name of Rugg, 29 whom we considered a very worthy, unpretending man, accidentally knew the actual offender & had been required by the faculty to disclose his name; that he had refused to do so, & by reason of the refusal, had been served upon with some process by a sheriff to bring the matter before a Grand jury. Whether this was in all respects the true story, I have never learned; for when I returned to college the affair had blown over, & I had not interest enough in it to inquire. At all events, such was the story that came to us & that we believed, & upon the faith of which we acted. What motives regulated others I do not know, but I can sincerely say that for myself, an aversion to tale-bearing, & a determination to sustain a young man who was willing to endure imprisonment rather than to disclose what had been committed to him perhaps in confidence, were the causes that led me to take part in the rebellion. A meeting was called, at wh. all the class but two or three very timid & mean spirited lads attended. We passed resolutions that we wd. sustain our classmates, & proceeded to act accordingly. On Friday evening, at prayers, when all the students were assembled, the President in his seat, & Dr. Ware 30 just opened the Bible to read, when my class set up a hissing, groaning & scraping wh. completely drowned his voice. He stopped a few minutes, looked round & was ready to proceed, when the same noise began again. This brought Mr. Quincy 31 down from his seat, 29Augustus Kendall Rugg (1815-1843) left Harvard in March 1832 and received his degree at Union College in 1836 (honors). Admitted to the bar in 1839, he practiced in Albany, Georgia. 30Henry Ware (1764-1845) was Harvard Professor of Divinity from 1805 to 1840. 31Josiah Quincy, Sr. (1772-1864), Harvard, 1790, Massachusetts Bar, 1793. President of Harvard, 1828-1845, he appears with some frequency in the Journal, where

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& two or three tutors from the galleries. They watched us closely, but the noise continued throughout the reading & until the prayer commenced, when it stopped. The same thing was repeated on Saturday morning. Here was an open rebellion. I believe, too, that we refused to attend recitations. Suspension or expulsion was the certain consequence of discovery in any overt act, yet we persevered, though at great risk of detection. Some were sent off, others were taken away by their parents, & to those who remained, submission or suspension was the only alternative. It was intimated to my father that if I staid away from prayers & did not enter the yard for a day or two, I might be saved from any evil consequences of my previous connection with the rebellion. Here was a crisis in which my father's character & his manner of treating his children shone forth. He called me to him & asked an explanation of the whole affair. I gave it to him, & told him that I had joined the rebellion because I thought the class were contending for a principle of honor & good faith between young men; — that no explanation had been given to change our view of the case; that I had given my word with the rest to go forward; that some had already suffered; that all those who remained felt bond & were resolved to go on; & that if I staid away, it would not be because I had changed my view of the right & wrong of [the] thing, or because I felt myself dissolved from my obligation, but it wd. be a desertion of those who kept their word at great risk, merely for my own preservation. Upon this, my father left it with me as a matter of honour, saying that if I actually & after mature consideration felt bound in honour to go on; — if I could not stay away without feeling that I had done a dishonourable thing, I must go, though punishment would be the certain consequence; & he afterwards, when I had come to years of manhood, told me that his principle was in the first place, to give us right notions of what was honourable & just, & to require us to get at the truth of a thing, as far as we could; but if he saw plainly that there was with us a sense of honour in favor of a certain course, although it might be grounded upon a mistake of facts, he would not compel us to violate it. He would try to convince us that we were wrong, & require of us time & consideration, but if he found that we should take a different course at the risk of going counter to the sense of honour, unremoved, he wd. always let us follow that instinct & bear the consequences. This manner of dealing with boys & young men, presupposes, to be sure, a good deal of confidence in their honesty, & no little knowledge of character in the parent or instructor; but when there is confidence & discrehe should not be confused with his son of the same name. He was a member of the U. S. Congress, 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 1 3 , mayor of Boston, 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 2 8 , and the author of numerous books.

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tion, is it not far better that an instinctive sense of honour, wh. may be & often is purer in the boy than in the man, should be preserved unblunted, than that a step should be insured wh. might be safe & right in fact, but which is not taken because it is so, but in opposition to one of the noblest & safest guides man has. And what will it avail if in after years the man comes to see that the course he was compelled or overpersuaded to take, was not in fact dishonourable, for he will never lose the sense & perhaps never recover from the consequences of having done a thing which at the time he did it, he honestly felt to be dishonourable. Left to act upon these principles, I went in with the remnant of my class on the next morning, &, as was inevitable, had a summons to the faculty meeting & was suspended for six months.32 My immediate friends cared little for this occurrence, as I had not been suspended for anything but a municipal or parietal offence, & had left the institution with a character of wh. they had no reason to be ashamed. For myself, it proved a most fortunate occurrence; as I was placed under the charge of a man who did more than any instructor I had ever had to interest me in learning & to direct my ambition & industry to worthy objects. This person was the Rev. Leonard Woods Jr., 33 then a resident licentiate of the Andover Theological seminary, & now, at a very early age, President of Bowdoin college. Mr. Woods was then only about four & twenty years old, yet had completed his course of college & professional education, was giving his time to a system of comprehensive scholarship, chiefly theological, & had already become a ripe scholar. Beside his latin & greek & Hebrew, with wh. he [was] sufficiently conversant for the purposes of his reading, he both read & [wrote] with ease German, French, &, I think, Italian. He was an indefatigable & enthousiastic student, with a heart full of noble & kind sentiments, with a manner which won the confidence & love of all, with remarkable purity of spirit, & with a firm religious faith & a complete religious personal experience. He was also more free from prejudice, opinionatedness & exclusiveness than most students of theological system. Indeed, I never saw that he had any [of] those faults. More than any person whom I 32 Metzdorf has the following note: "The minutes of the Harvard Overseers record on 5 March 1832: 'Voted that Dana, being concerned in making noises in Chapel on Friday evening the 2d instant, be suspended and be directed to pursue his studies, in some place out of the limits of the town of Cambridge.' " 33 Leonard Woods ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 7 8 ) , B.A., Union, 1827, D.D., Andover, 1830. Not to be confused with his father of the same name, Leonard Woods was a close friend of Dana's and appears frequently in the Journal. A resident and tutor of Andover, 1 8 3 0 1832, he was ordained in 1833, was editor of the New York Literary and Theological Review 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 3 6 , President of Bowdoin, 1839-1866. Dana frequently calls him President Woods.

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ever knew he seemed to read, study, think & converse for the purpose of developing fairly all his powers & coming to a knowledge of truth. He was not only a fair but a favourable critic, & his society was very agreeable to the most unlearned & simple, & much sought after by them, a thing not usual with the learned & accomplished. For a student of abstractions, he was uncommonly familiar with every variety of polite literature. Poetry he studied as high philosophy & enjoyed as answering to a soul tuned for harmony, in love with beauty, & alive to noble [&] graceful sentiments. Novels & romances of every school he read with interest, & kept himself acquainted with the current literature of the day, & with so much of the lighter literature of other times wh. has survived to us. To do all this required system & great application; & both of these he certainly had. He never lost a moment. His books, nature, or society & his hours set apart for retirement employed all his time, & whatever he did was done with his might. Under the instruction & in the society of such a man my six months' banishment at Andover passed in a most delightful & improving manner. I can hardly describe the relief I felt at getting rid of the exciting emulation for college rank, & at being able to study & recite for the good of my own mind, not for the sixes, sevens & eights, which, at Cambridge, were put against every word that came out of a student's mouth. I studied to get the meaning of the author & to acquaint myself with the language, & we read over the lesson together as friends look at a beautiful picture. The books we were upon were Horace in Latin & Demosthenes in Greek, so that the peculiar character of my instructor's mind, had opportunity to show itself for my advantage. He also put me upon the study of German, & so much of his own enthousiasm did he communicate to me, that I went through the grammar & the preliminary readings with the eagerness & pleasure with wh. one makes his preparations for a journey through a delightful country to be prosecuted with [a] clear & intelligent companion. As soon [as] I sufficiently advanced, we went upon the ballads & shorter poems of Schiller, Goethe & others, & reading & repeating them over & conversing upon them at the recitations & in our [walks], I became more familiar with the sound & character of the language, & with the minds of its great writers, than I could in double the time spent in the mechanical writing of college exercises. My mathematics I studied with a friend of Mr. Woods, a Mr. Thompson, 34 a student of theology. With him, too, I could converse 3 4 This man, as Metzdorf notes, may have been William Thompson, Andover, 1832, and later professor of sacred literature at the Theological Seminary in East Windsor, Connecticut.

24

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familiarly upon the problems of solid & spherical geometry, wh. we were then investigating. This was a contrast, indeed, with the mode of teaching the same science at Cambridge. For I state it as a fact that during the whole time we were studying plane geometry, which was our introduction to the whole science, & wh. it was essential we should comprehend, in order to go forward intelligently, I never heard a word of explanation or illustration from our tutor. If a student recited well, he received a high mark. If his recitation showed that he did not understand the problem, he received a low mark & was left to his ignorance. No explanation was offered, & the student was unwilling to detain the instructor after the exercise, with questions; & furthermore, so injurious was the effect of the rank system, that if a student conversed at all with the tutor, he was suspected of fishing, & would be hissed by the class as he came down. Consequently, from a misunderstanding of a single problem wh. [by] a few words would be made clear, many students were left in confusion & darkness in all their future progress. Mr. Woods set learning & the cultivation of the intellect, the feelings & the whole moral nature, in a most attractive light. They became objects worthy of, & beyond the powers of the greatest intellects. In this view the strife for college rank, & for rank in the world, professional, political & social, took its right, & a very low, place. What a man is, & not merely what he has done, became the standard of emulation & effort. The Unitarian influence had been predominant at Cambridge for many years. This, though not so in its origin, had relapsed into Humanitarianism, a doubt of the divine authority of the scriptures, a denial of the fallen nature & condemnation of man & of eternal punishment, & of the atonement of Christ. The writings of Dr. Channing 35 & his followers were then at the height of [their] popularity, & Unitarianism, especially with the young, was considered the only faith consistent with the advancement of man, freedom of thought & the dignity of our natures. Though their preaching never satisfied my conscience, yet I had my prejudices & inclinations strongly in their favor. Mr. Woods, in his reading & conversation, with all fairness & liberality, & with [mind] susceptible of everything beautiful & grand, & without cant or sectarianism, set before me the great scripture doctrines of the God's nature & the nature of man, sin & holiness, condemnation & redemption, the Holy Spirit & the fallen will of man, with a force, comprehensiveness & beauty which I could neither gainsay nor resist. 35 William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), ordained 1803. A cousin of Dana's through the Ellery connection (see Genealogy), unlike his brother Edward Tyrell Channing he appears seldom in the Journal. His liberal theological views were distasteful to Dana, who seems not to have known him well personally.

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When my six months were over, I would have given a great deal to have my sentence extended one six months more; but it could not be, & I went back to college recitations, college rank, college gossip & college esprit du corps, as a slave whipped to his dungeon. My German studies I followed with great pleasure & profit in [a] class taught by the excellent Dr. Folien, 36 whose melancholy death a few years afterwards spread such a gloom over a large circle of friends & acquaintances. In my other studies, I went through the usual college mill. I corresponded regularly with Mr. Woods during my sophomore year, & made him a short visit in the winter. This year was with me one of hard study & of greater literary progress than I had ever made before. Having very strong eyes, I usually learned my morning lesson by candle light before breakfast, & gave my evenings to general reading, frequently sitting up till past midnight. Croker's edition of Boswell's life of Johnson, & Carlyle's life of Schiller,37 I remember as among the books I despatched during the winter. I had the satisfaction of seeing myself rise in college rank from the 15th to the 7th scholar, wh. was my position at the end of the Sophomore year, with the prospect of going higher every term, as I reed, the highest marks that were given in my themes, forensics, & in rhetoric & metaphysics, which studies assumed a greater relative influence in the rank during the junior year, & were paramount in the senior. At the end of my sophomore year I made a visit of several weeks at Plymouth, with Dr. Thacher's family, where I gave myself up to fishing, boating, shooting & idling of all kinds, with exception of reading Johnson's lives of the poets,38 & preparing a latin version of Fisher Ames' speech on [the] British treaty,39 for the October exhibition. There was visiting at the same house a relative of the family, Mrs. Hutchinson of Georgia, one of the Elliott family, a refined, delicate woman, perfectly feminine, with a delightful character, one of those ladies to whom a young man delights to render homage, & whose society, especially when a good deal older than he & married, has an excellent influence upon him. She was lost a few years afterwards, with both her 36 Charles Folien ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 4 0 ) . A political refugee from Germany, Folien was appointed instructor in German at Harvard in 1 8 2 5 . His strong antislavery attitude cost him his temporary professorship in 1 8 3 5 . He was killed on the ship Lexington when it burned on Long Island Sound. 37 J o h n Wilson Croker (ed.), The Life of Samuel Johnson . . . Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides . . . A New Edition, by James Boswell, Esq., 5 vols. (London: John Murray, 1 8 3 1 ) ; Thomas Carlyle, Life of Freidrich Schiller. Comprehending an Examination of His Works ( 1 8 2 5 ) . 38

(1779-1781). Delivered to the Congress on April 28, 1 7 9 6 , in support of John Jay's treaty with England. 39

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children, in the melancholy wreck of the Pulaski,40 leaving her husband a widower & childless. She had a deeply religious character, & I hardly ever knew of a death which more immediately suggested the text "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". In the last letter she wrote to her friends at the North, a few days before she embarked in the fated boat, she said, — "remember me to dear Richard Dana". Pleasant as the visit was to me, & apparently unimportant in its consequences, it changed suddenly & to an extreme my whole course of life for years after & perhaps for all my days. A day or two after my return home, I was taken down by an attack of the measles, which I had unknowingly taken when at Plymouth. Though the sickness lasted but a few days, it left my eyes in so weak [a] state, that I could not bear the light of day. They gradually improved so that 1 could go about, but I could not look upon a printed page for a moment, without extreme pain. They remained in this situation for nine long months, without apparently improving at all. I was obliged to leave college, & lingered about at home, a useless, pitied & dissatisfied creature. My father was at this time embarrassed in his pecuniary condition,41 & I felt that I was a burden upon him. This consideration added to the loss of all employment & any prospect of advancement in life, added to a strong love of adventure which I had always with difficulty repressed, & which now broke out in full force, determined me upon making a long voyage, to relieve myself from ennui, to see new places & modes of life, & to effect if possible a cure of my eyes, wh. no medicine had helped, & wh. nothing but a change of my system seemed likely to ensure. Foreign travel in the manner generally pursued by young men of education was not then within my means, & I was too young for it. I had many offers of passage in vessels bound on various voyages; but I knew well that I should be [more] tempted to use my eyes as a passenger at sea, than when living on shore, & indeed, that a passenger's life would be insupportable without books. Partly from these considerations, but 40 Dana misspelled this woman's name "Hutcheson," and her family name "Elliot." Metzdorf's research reveals that she was Corrine Elliott, daughter of Senator John Elliott of Georgia, wife of Robert Hutchinson of Savannah. The steam-packet Pulaski, enroute from Charleston to Baltimore and carrying more than one hundred-fifty passengers, blew a boiler and sank while thirty miles out to sea on June 14, 1838. Because of inept management and leaky lifeboats, fewer than sixty passengers were rescued. Robert Hutchinson was rescued some six days after the explosion. 4 l The Dana family fortune, accumulated by Richard's grandfather, had been lost in speculative trade by Francis Dana his paternal uncle (see Genealogy). The feeling that he was obligated to restore those fortunes powerfully influenced Richard in many of the decisions which he was called upon to make during the course of the

Journal.

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aided very much by the attractiveness of the romance & adventure of the thing, I determined to go before the mast, where I knew that the constant occupation would make reading unnecessary, & the hard work, plain diet & life in the open air, away from coal fires, dust & lamp-light, would do much to give rest to the nerves of the eye, & would, above all, make a gradual change in my whole physical system. When I recall the motives wh. governed me in this choice, I can hardly tell which predominated, a desire to cure my eyes, my love of adventure & the attraction of the novelty of a life before the mast, or anxiety to escape from the depressing situation of inaotivity & dependence at home. My father, acting upon his usual system, did not oppose my plan, after he had heard all my reasons, & did all in his power to assist & encourage, though, as I afterwards learned with a heart heavy wiih the apprehension that he was giving me up forever. The first vessel in wh. I attempted to procure a situation, was the ship Japan bound to India, owned in part by Mr. J. Ingersol Bowditch, son of Dr. Bowditch the celebrated mathematician.42 Mr. B. was going out as supercargo, & upon becoming acquainted with me positively refused to let me go before the mast, but offered me a passage with him to Calcutta & back, as a companion, & a room in his house on shore while there. He also introduced me to his father, who partly joined in his son's dissuasions, though with less earnestness, for the old gentleman had been a short voyage before the mast himself when a boy, & he knew that it had done him good. He told me he liked my resolution, which only added fuel to the fire. I therefore refused the kind offer of Mr. B., & after some trouble & delay procured a berth in the brig Pilgrim,43 for California. I undertook this voyage because it was difficult to get any other that would be long enough, at that time, & because California was represented to be a very healthy coast, with a fine climate, & a plenty of hard work for the sailors. 42 Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 8 9 ) w a s a Boston merchant who wrote on navigation and published a set of nautical tables. He was the father of Henry Pickering Bowditch, the physiologist, and brother of Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, also mentioned in the Journal. Nathaniel Bowditch ( 1 7 7 3 - 1 8 3 8 ) gained fame as an astronomer and mathematician. Sailing upon five voyages between 1795 and 1803, he published revisions of J. H. Moore's The Practical Navigator after 1799, which came to be titled The New American Practical Navigator. 43 James Allison, in his edition of "Five Dana Letters," The American Neptune 1 3 : 1 0 4 , n. 14 (July 1 8 5 3 ) , identified the Pilgrim as built in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1825; length, 86 feet 6 inches; breadth 2.1 feet 7V2 inches; depth 10 feet 9% inches; 180 tons.

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ÄUG. 14TH. 1843. As the occurrences of this voyage are given in full in my published book,44 I shall not go over them here. Yet well do I know that many things are omitted there from necessity, though nothing is there given which I did not believe to be strictly true. From that book I studiously kept out most of 45 my reflections, & much of the wickedness which I was placed in the midst of. These I have no inclinations to go over again. The dangers to a young man's moral purity, & to his nicer sentiments, as well as to his manners, are more to be dreaded in such a life, than gales, mast-heads & yard-arms. I will take [this] journal up, again, from the place where my published narration ends. Upon our arrival at Boston on the 22 of Sept. 1836, the first friend whom I saw was my cousin Francis Dana,46 who came on board while we were in the stream, bringing with him two of my school-mates, Francis H. Jackson & Waldo Higginson.47 I was very much struck with the pallid & emaciated appearance of the gentlemen I met with, when compared with the rough, sun burnt, hardy faces which I had solely seen for the last five months. If I had been [told] that there had been a famine or a fever in the city & that these persons were recovering from its effects, I should have said that their appearances indicated it plainly enough. The women looked like mere shades. 4 4 August 14, 1834, was the date on which Dana set forth upon the voyage from which his book was taken. Two Years Before the Mast. A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea, was published by Harper and Brothers on September 18, 1840. The actual journal which Dana kept on the voyage was lost in the confusion of his homecoming, and he reconstructed Two Years from memory, a few notes, and some letters. See Allison, "Letters"; "Journal of a Voyage from Boston to the Coast of California, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.," ed. James Allison, The American Neptune, 1 2 : 1 7 7 - 1 8 5 (July 1952); Robert F. Metzdorf, "The Publishing History of Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast," Harvard Library Bulletin, 7:312-332 (Autumn 1953); Robert F. Lucid, "The Composition, Reception, Reputation and Influence of Two Years Before the Mast," unpubl. diss., University of Chicago, 1958. 4 5 Dana added "most of" at a later time. In fact he excised a considerable amount of material from the manuscript of Two Years which might offend sensitive readers. Profane language, and especially references to the sexual relations between the sailors and the Indian girls in California, received his particular attention. He himself, like his shipmates, lived with various Indian girls when he was curing hides on the California beaches, and his failure to include these details in the book drew an ironic letter from his shipmate, Benjamin G. Stimson, who reminded him of "the beautiful Indian Lasses, who so often frequented your humble abode in the hide house . . ." Letter to Dana, March 16, 1841, Massachusetts Historical Society.

^Francis Dana, son of Dana's Uncle Francis, was a Boston dentist. He appears frequendy in the Journal along with his wife Isabella, and is often called "Frank." See Genealogy. 47 Francis H. Jackson later became manager of an iron works in the Adirondacks, where Dana paid him vacation visits. Waldo Higginson (1814-1894), Harvard, 1833, was an engineer, later turning to the insurance business.

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The next persons of my acquaintance whom I saw, were my cousin & class-mate George Charming, who had returned but a few days before from India, & a college acquaintance, Wm. S. Cruft, who came down to [the] wharf to see me.48 From the wharf, I went up to the house of my cousin Francis, with him & his father, & there changed my dress from a sailor's to that of a citisen. I dined at my cousin's, Mrs. Geo. Ripley; & though it was the first good dinner I had eaten for two years & two months, yet I had little appetite. The excitement of getting home, was beyond that produced by the sight of fish, flesh & vegitables. In the evening I went out to Cambridge in the omnibus with Aunt Martha,49 to Mr. Allston's. There saw Mr. Α., Aunt Sarah, & Uncle Edmund. 50 Slept at Uncle Edmund's. Had my first wash with fresh water & soap in a basin for 2 years. The next day (Thursday 23rd) I set out for Newport, where my father, sister & Aunt El. 51 were visiting our relative Mrs. Robt. Sedgwick. 52 I arrived there just after dark. Owing to the tenor of my last letter, my friends were not expecting me under three or six months. Mrs. S., who had not seen me for six years, recognised me in the twilight at once, while my Aunt who had seen me almost every day of my life until I sailed, watched me as I got out of the coach & stood on the side walk for several minutes, without suspecting who it was. My father was ill, up stairs, & my sister with him. Aunt E. went up & told them she had good news, & gradually broke my arrival to them. They would hardly credit it. After my father had held me some minutes in his arms, he could with difficulty be persuaded of the reality. No son need wish [for] surer proof of a parentis] deep affection [than] such a meeting as I had with my father. The deep springs of his nature seemed to [be] opened, & no words except a few incoherent ones about his belief that God would spare me, came from him. 48 G e c r g e Edward Charming ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 3 7 ) followed his cousin Richard's footsteps out of Harvard and into maritime pursuits. He died the next year while sailing under Captain Francis Thompson, Dana's old commanding officer in the Pilgrim, and was buried in Penang. Later in the Journal Dana describes the melodramatic circumstances of the voyage and visits Channing's grave. William Smith Cruft ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 5 1 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 5 became a merchant in N e w York. 49 Martha Remington Dana, Richard's paternal aunt, was married to the painter Washington Allston ( 1 7 7 9 - 1 8 4 3 ) , the details of whose death receive such careful attention later in the Journal. 50 Sarah Ann Dana and Edmund Trowbridge Dana (not to be confused with Richard's brother of the same name) were Richard's father's brother and sister. See Genealogy. 51

Elizabeth Ellery Dana was the sister of Richard's father. See Genealogy. Mrs. Robert Sedgwick ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 6 2 ) , whose husband died the year Dana began writing the Journal, was born Elizabeth Dana Ellery and was Dana's cousin through the Ellery connection. Since many members of her family are given frequent mention in the Journal, a diagram of the family has been supplied in the Genealogy section. 52

Beginnings

30

I spent nearly a week with Mrs. S. & her family, & my own friends. Safe am I in saying that rarely has mortal felt the delights of refined & affectionate social intercourse, especially with cultivated females, more than I did during this week. To be transferred in a day from a forecastle, the contact of none but rough & vulgar men, servile duty, blasphemy, obscenity & tyranny, to perfect freedom & leisure, literary conversation, refined language & manners, with all the arts & ornaments of polished life, added to a personal affection not to be doubted, was a change wh. has not befallen many. From Newport, I spent a week at Providence, with my sister at Uncle Wm.'s,53 & returned to Boston. After a few days in Boston, went to Burlington, Vt., & spent a week with my brother54 who was in college there. Upon this visit, I made the acquaintance of Prof. Jas. Marsh, 55 who had been my father's friend & had interested himself a good deal in my brother. It was my intention to spend the winter in philosophical studies with Prof. Marsh, but the feeble state of his health, together with his numerous other duties prevented his attending to me. He however wrote me out an abstract of his course of study, & gave me the privilege of several long conversations with him, in which I received the same impression that I believe he never failed to give to every one, that I was conversing with a man whose sole object in study & in intercourse with others was to arrive at truth & with perfect humility in himself to subserve the glory of God. I was glad to find Ned an accomplished scholar, & by the admission of all the first man of his class. On returning to Boston I prepared to re-enter Harvard College, it having been intimated to me that I could be reed, into the Senior class in full standing, upon an examination. While preparing for this examination an event occurred to me which changed the character of my future life, I trust, for the better. I had never doubted the truths of revealed religions. I had always been aware that in the sight of a perfectly pure God, I was a miserable sinner. Believing the gospel declaration to [be] true that the gate to life is narrow & few there be that find it, & that everlasting punishment awaits those who do not repent & trust alone in Jesus Christ, I had often fearful misgivings; no, they were not misgivings, they were certainties which were only now & then made real to me. I had from my boyhood 53

William Smith, Dana's maternal uncle. Edmund Trowbridge Dana, frequently called "Ned" in the Journal. See Genealogy. 55 James Marsh ( 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 4 2 ) . President of the University of Vermont, 1826-1833, he resigned in 1833 to become professor of philosophy there. In 1829 he edited Coleridge's Aides to Reflection. 5i

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been the subject of deep religious impressions, but they had always gone off with little abiding effect. I had been religiously taught, but very early gave up prayer & estranged myself entirely from God. I can hardly recollect the time when I did give up prayer, I was so very young; but from that time on to the time of wh. I write, I had never prayed, except in moments of alarm or of awaked conscience. The first instance I can recollect of my being called back to a sense of my duties, was when reading the story of "Little Henri & his bearer" 58 while at Westford. It was of a Sunday afternoon. I walked into the orchard in tears & with a full heart; but the effect was gone on the morrow. Afterwards, during the year before I entered college, under the preaching of the Rev. Mr. Adams 57 at Cambridge, I became the subject of deep religious convictions. I felt in my inmost heart the truth of the doctrines he preached. I felt that if God should condemn me, I could have nothing to say. The convictions both of my understanding & of my heart were right, but my will was not conquered. I determined to let the subject go. This I could not do without a struggle; & I did struggle against the spirit of God, & for a season I prevailed. When now after the lapse of eleven years I call those times to mind, I calmly & seriously believe that at certain moments, which I can distinctly point out, remembering where I stood & what I was doing, the spirit of God was at work as directly upon my spirit as when man converses with man. I recollect being seated at a desk practicing a lesson in drawing, by myself, when I felt in my heart something calling to me. I felt the presence of another being, though I knew that nothing was visible to my bodily senses. I was aware that I had praying friends, & the prevailing thought in my mind was that I was at that very instant the subject of a fervent effectual prayer to God, & that God was allowing me to be especially visited. I felt held as by a chain. I was obliged to give up what I was about. Thoughts crossed my mind of falling on my knees & giving myself up entirely to God & asking pardon through Jesus Christ, & devoting myself to the love & service of God. But this involved a religious life, renunciation of sin, & a coming out before the whole world as a servant of God: & these I cd. not make up my mind to do. The feeling passed off; how, I do not recollect, but probably from some one interrupting me, or my going off into the street, or into a room with others, in desperation. Since this season, which lasted about a year, I had but slight awakenings of conscience, & once or twice 56

Mary Martha Sherwood ( 1 7 7 5 - 1 8 5 1 ) , Little Henry and, His Bearer ( 1 8 1 4 ) . It is the story of a pious orphan who dies at the age of eight. 57 Nehemiah Adams ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 7 8 ) . A leading voice against the theological liberalism of the Unitarians, Adams was at the Shepard Congregational Society in Cambridge during the period mentioned by Dana.

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had serious doubts whether I had not sinned against the Holy Ghost & been given up by God's Spirit. During all this time, & indeed throughout my whole life, I preserved an excellent character for morality & good conduct in all the relations of life, & all of my friends who were not evangelical in their views thought I had nothing to fear or repent of. Unitarian preaching justified me & passed over my head. Orthodox preaching sounded in my ears like the knell of judgment, but I knew it to be true, & that no other would lead me to salvation. During all these struggles, not a soul knew of the real state of my heart, except from suspicions of their own. For myself, I lived five years with a conviction that should I be taken out of life I had nothing to expect but the doom of the impenitent. This was the settled conviction of my mind. I knew too that there was a way of escape, but I refused to walk in it. It may be thought that I must have been melancholy & desponding. Not at all. On the contrary I was remarkably bright & bouyant. Everything & every body interested & excited me. It was only when alone & when religious subjects forced themselves upon me, that I felt gloomy. Then the struggle was usually short. I never in a single instance mastered these feelings, but always fled from them. During these five years I was subject to a deep depression58 which seised me when alone, & from wh. I fled as from a nightmare. Sometimes I went to books, but if the fit was a severe one, books failed. My own mental resources always failed. Walking & diversion upon natural objects sometimes succeeded, but not always, & I was almost invariably obliged to join myself to some one in conversation, unless relieved by some accident. The subject upon my mind was not always nor usually religion. Indeed, I generally had no particular subject before me, but was affected with a sinking of the heart, which I could feel physically as well as mentally. Yet my health was excellent. I stood in great apprehension of death & of terrible physical changes. I felt no certainty that any thing would remain as it then was, & if death should overtake me, or if we should all be the subject of some great change, I had no God in whom I had any right to trust. I felt that if I were a Christian in deed, I could meet all the powers of the present world & of the world to come; but as I then was, a driven leaf could terrify me. I never lost my courage in the affairs of men, & I believe I always loved danger when there was excitement & glory connected with it; but in the spiritual warfare, I had no hope, no courage, for I had set myself against Him in whom my very life was & whose were all my ways. While on my California voyage I had fallen into all the bad habits of sailors, & profanity among the rest. At first I did not, & it was not until from the length 68Serious psychological depression continued to afflict Dana throughout the years he kept the Journal, and such moods usually came to him in the form of insights into his own "depravity."

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of the voyage I gave up all hope of returning to cultivated society, & supposed I was made a sailor for life, that I fell into their ways. When I did, I was as bad as any of them. Not a man in my ship was more guilty in God's sight than myself. During this voyage, I had but one time of serious impressions, & that was when lying sick in my berth, off Cape Horn, amidst the ice, & in momentary danger of death.59 I knew that the very next wave might send the vessel against ice, which the fog hid from us, & which might destroy us in an instant. I lay, too, in my berth in the forecastle just where the vessel would strike, if at all. In this state, I prayed & vowed to God, but it was strange & did not go to the root of the evil; & the next day I forgot it, & cast off fear & distained prayer before God. Such was my religious state, when the event befell me to wh. I have alluded. Soon after my return I heard of the death of a young lady whom I had known a year or two before I went to sea, with whom I had been quite intimate, & whose simple purity of heart, kindness & religious faith & practice, I sincerely respected; yet whom I had no reason to suppose particularly attached to me. When I heard of her death, which happened during my absence, a few days before my return, (Sept. 3, 1836) 60 it was with very little emotion, being occupied with other things, & looking upon her only as an acquaintance who had died & gone with the pure in heart to see God. I wrote a formal letter of condolence to her friends to which I reed, one in reply. This told me that wh. stirred my soul to its centre. She had been interested with the rest in my voyage, & the only thing they observed was that she never mentioned my name. Her last sickness was attended with delirium. In this delirium she spoke only of me. She prayed for me; — for my safety from suffering & death, & above all for my eternal salvation, & said she feared I had not made my peace with God. On recovering from the delirium, she asked her mother privately whether she had spoken of me, & being told that she had, & how, she opened her whole heart to her mother. Among other things she said that if the spirits of those in the other world attended upon & watched over those in this, & God would permit it for her, her prayer would be that she might watch over me, keeping me from sin, & influencing me toward God & holy things. In her very last moments she prayed fervently & impassionedly for me, & the last words that fell from her lips were "Prepare him for a seat at thy right hand". 59 See Two Years Before the Mast (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1 9 1 1 ) , pp. 388-394. Unless otherwise indicated, this indexed edition will be the source of all references to Two Years. eo The phrase "a few days before my return, (Sept. 3, 1 8 3 6 ) " was added at a later time.

Beginnings

34

Poor, poor — , 6 1 if God has granted your prayer, what perverseness, what insensibility, what wickedness have you been obliged to see! Yet you have seen me brought by your own words to a sense of sin, led to seek God, to profess him before men, & to hope in him for eternity. Nothing in life had ever affected me like this annunciation. It seemed especially contrived of God, as a last call, to touch me in the most sensitive points. In the first place, it cast down my pride of honour. For, while indulging in the society of this very young, pure minded, deep-feeling & artless girl, I had been told by an older friend of hers as well as of myself that I was doing wrong; — that I had carried my attentions too far; that I should remember it was possible I might interest her in me, while I had no intention of returning the interest. I did not attend to this advice as I should have done, but allowed the pleasure of such intercourse together with a little vanity of feeling myself successful in attentions where others also tried, prevail over a nicer sense of honour. Yet I had no reason to know that she had any feelings towards me beyond pleasure in my society, & I parted from her about a year before I went upon my voyage as acquaintances part who have been good friends & who wish one another well. Such were my feelings, & no more than such did any one know until it escaped from her in delirium, were hers. The extreme delicacy of her conduct & the purity & sincerity of her affection, contrasted with the heartlessness & want of high 62 honour on my part, humbled me into the dust. My high blown pride broke under me. I felt, too, as I never had before, the glory fit purity of God, of Heaven, of angels & spirits made perfect, & the vileness of my own nature. For several days, I could find no relief but in solitude & in tears. I was prostrate in the earth. I felt, too, that God had nicely attuned this last call to all my feelings, that I had resisted before, & became certain that if I resisted this, I never should have another so complete & likely to be efficacious. In time I bowed to God. I gave myself up to him, & sought pardon through Christ as the appointed way, & by uniting myself with the visible Church, 63 & partaking of his ordinances, & seeking knowledge of eternal things, began, I trust, that religious life which I have since followed, God knows & my own soul knows how lamely, 6 1 Metzdorf

Woods

is almost certainly correct in his conclusion that the girl was Sarah A.

(1817-1836),

sister of Dana's friend, the younger Leonard Woods, who is

probably the "older friend" mentioned a few lines later. 6 2 Dana 6 3 Dana

added the word "high" at a later time. and his sister, Ruth Charlotte, were confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal

faith at St. Paul's, Boston, in 1838. Both were to find this " L o w " church too liberal for their needs, and Richard moved on to the "High" Episcopalianism of the Church of the Advent Catholicism.

(which he helped found), while his sister was converted to Roman

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miserably & sinfully, but yet I trust with a hope of heaven & of seeing & enjoying God hereafter. In December 1836, after a few weeks preparatory study, I passed my examination & was admitted into the Senior class of Harvard College. This class was two years behind my former one, which had graduated in Aug. 1835. I took a room in the S.W. comer of Hollis Hall, in the upper story, alone, & passed the remainder of the academical year with great pleasure & no little profit to myself. Our studies were chiefly moral & intellectual philosophy, rhetoric, themes & forensics, & we had but few recitations & could divide our time pretty much according to our own pleasure. The luxury of this life after the one I had been leading, can easily be imagined. I could hardly comprehend or tolerate the indifference & dissatisfactions of my acquaintances, as we seemed to me to have the pleasantest lot in [the] world. In my short career in this class, I was exceedingly successful. At the end of the winter term, in April, I was informed that I had received the highest marks that were given out in every branch of study, &, as one of the faculty told me — "I could not stand higher". I had also been chosen into both of the rival social clubs, the Porcellian & Hasty Pudding, an honour at that time very unusual, & had represented the Porcellian Club at a convention of all the Societies. I also received one of the Bowdoin prises for an English prose dissertation, the subject being the moral tendency of Bulwer's novels. Pelham, Paul Clifford & Eugene Aram were the only novels of Bulwer I had read,64 & on the strength of these I wrote my dissertation, copied it & handed [it] in in five days, beside my other exercises. A part of the winter vacation I spent at Plymouth with my friend J. T. Hodge, who had just returned from a geological survey of Maine. At the end of our year, when the parts were given out for Commencement, I received the first English Dissertation, which is given to the fifth scholar. I was informed, however, by one of the faculty that I had received the highest marks given out in all the branches, & if I was allowed to reckon from the time I joined the class, would be the first scholar; but the faculty thought that as the studies had been limited, & I had not been tried with the others in latin, Greek & mathematics, it would not be right to place me over their heads. The subject assigned me was "Empyricism", which was entirely uncongenial to me, as I felt ashamed to get up & find fault with the quackery of the age. I got excused from this subject, wh. one of the oration men took, & had liberty to choose 64Eugene Aram, A Tale, 3 vols. ( 1 8 3 2 ) ; Paul Clifford, 3 vols. ( 1 8 3 0 ) ; Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman, 3 vols. ( 1 8 2 8 ) . Eight additional principal works of Bulwer (who did not become Bulwer-Lytton until 1 8 4 3 ) were available to Dana at this time.

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my own. I asked my friend & relative Prof. Channing for something to write upon, & he read aloud from the page he happened to be reading, the quotation fr. Wordsworth "Heaven lies about us in our infancy", & said 'Why don't you write upon that?'65 His suggestion struck me favourably, I took the ode from wh. this is an extract into my chambers, & spent nearly a whole day in reading it over & over, studying it, & committing passages. I became infatuated with its spirit, & under the influence of it, wrote my dissertation. I never wrote anything with greater pleasure to myself; & the ode opened to me the nature of Wordsworth's mind, & set in motion powers & feelings in myself wh. had never been reached before, &, I believe, was of great advantage to my subsequent studies & thoughts. On the day after commencement, the graduating class, with the two below it, declaim for the Boylston prise. There were about 20 competitors, & the best declaimers in college. I had the satisfaction of receiving the first prise, by the unanimous vote of the judges, wh. was not the case with any of the other prises. My piece was one which had never been spoken before, for the good reason that it was mostly original. It was founded upon some clever bits of Sir Chas. Wetherell in the house of Commons in reply to Lord J. Russell at the time of the burning of Nottingham castle, while the Reform bill was under discussion, somewhat extended & terminating with a happy quotation once used by Sir R. Peel.8® The piece took exceedingly, & I had a great many applications from the students to know where it could be got. I refused to give a copy, saying that I had a monopoly. I sent a copy to my brother at Burlington, where he declaimed it with the same success, & afterwards, when I was instruct65 E d w a r d Tyrell Channing ( 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 5 6 ) had been Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard since 1 8 1 9 . Mentioned frequently during the course of the Journal, he was Dana's cousin through the Ellery connection. See Genealogy. Metzdorf notes that the Class of 1 8 3 7 held its Commencement exercises August 30, 1 8 3 7 , and that Charles Stearns Wheeler ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 4 3 ) spoke on " A n English Oration. 'Empiricism'." In Charles Francis Adams' Richard Henry Dana, A Biography, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1 8 9 0 ) , an account of Dana's performance is recorded (I, 22), from the journal of Dr. John Pierce of Brookline: " A dissertation by Richard H. Dana, son of R. H. Dana and grandson of the former Judge Francis Dana, was on the unique topic 'Heaven Lies about us in our Infancy.' H e is a handsome youth, and spoke well. But his composition was of that Swedenborgian, Coleridgian, and dreamy cast which it requires a peculiar structure of mind to understand, much more to relish." The lines in question are from Wordsworth's " O d e on the Intimations of Immortality." 66 Metzdorf offers the following note: "Nottingham Casde, the home of the fourth Duke of Newcasde, was burned by a Reform L a w mob on October 10, 1 8 3 1 . The speech of Sir Charles Wetherell ( 1 7 7 0 - 1 8 4 6 ) to which Dana refers was probably the slashing attack which that Tory orator made on Lord John Russell in the House of Commons on October 12, 1 8 3 1 . "

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ing in elocution at college, I lent it, with strict injunctions of secrecy, to a favourite pupil who also obtained with it the first Boylston prise two years afterwards. 67 Upon graduating I entered the Dane Law school, having always considered it a settled thing that I must be a lawyer. I had had a dread of the profession from a boy, received from my father, & looked upon it as hard, dry, uninteresting, uncertain & slavish; yet it was an honourable one, my ancestors had been distinguished in it, & I had a distaste for every other except divinity, which I did not esteem myself fit for, & of wh. I stood more in dread than of the law. To a person with these feelings, no place could be so well suited as the Dane Law school, under Judge Story & Prof. Greenleaf. 68 Free from all the details, chicanery & responsibilities of practice, we were placed in a library, under learned, honourable & gentlemanly instructors, & invited to pursue the study of jurisprudence, as a system of philosophy. We began with the history of the science, & the essays upon its nature in the introduction to Blackstone, & followed it down through its various developements to the present time. From the very first recitation it became exceedingly interesting to me, & I have never yet found it dry or irksome. After studying law about a year & a half, I told Prof. Greenleaf that I had not come across any dry places yet. "No Sir", said he, "& you never will. A man who begins it properly and studies it philosophically, will never find it dry. And if he practices it upon the principles of Christianity & professional honour, & conscientiously as a man & a member of the body politic, his interest in it will increase as he goes forward in life". My first Moot Court case I argued in Sept. 1838, after having been one year in the school. From that time I argued them frequently until I left, in March 1840. I also took notes of eveiy case argued by the others, & of the decisions of the professors, & preserved them with care. This practice is an exceedingly useful one. There is no act I can do with greater pleasure than to bear testimony at all times to the surpassing excellence of this school, of the spirit fostered there, & to the kind, courteous & indefatigable labours of the professors. During two years & a half spent there, I never knew a difficulty to arise 67 In the margin, Richard Henry Dana III later wrote: "Spoken by his son at Harvard in 1873 & he obtained second prize." 68j0seph Story ( 1 7 7 9 - 1 8 4 5 ) had been Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court since 1 8 1 1 and Dane Professor of Law at Harvard since 1829. He held both positions until his death. Simon Greenleaf ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 5 3 ) , called "Prof." throughout the Journal, as Royall Professor of Law at Harvard, collaborated with Story to form the Dane Law School, a pioneer and highly successful effort to alter the established practice of studying for the bar in private law offices. Dana remained close to both men until their deaths, and they receive frequent mention in the Journal.

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Beginnings

between instructors & students. All exercises were voluntary, there were no rewards or punishments, no rank, & no police or supervision; yet there was a great deal of hard & cheerful study, & invariable good conduct in all the relations between the taught & the teachers. If the conduct of any student out of the school was bad, & it became necessary to attend to it, the professors refused to have any knowledge of it, complaints must be laid before the President of the University, who called up the student, warned him &, if necessary, ordered him to leave the University, but the law professors refused entirely to know anything of the young men except as students together in the same science. This system worked admirably. There was perfect confidence, & yet great deference & respect towards the instructors, & the best kind [of] respect, that wh. is shown voluntarily to a dignified person in an office of dignity. There was also an abundance of study & honourable competition, without the unwholesome69 stimulus of college marks. It is strange that in both the Divinity schools of Andover & Cambridge, they have felt obliged to adhere to a strict system of discipline & compulsory attendance upon exercises. In the autumn of 1839, I made an argument before Judge Story upon the subject of the effect of a judgment between creditors & accommodation indorsers, which he requested me to write out for him in full that he might take it to Washington with him in the winter & show it to the judges of the Supreme Court as a specimen of what could be done upon a two years education at a law school. I did so, & upon his return he brought me very gratifying compliments from the judges, & especially from Judge McLean,70 in whose Circuit the question had arisen, but had not been argued. In January 1839, I received the appointment of instructor in elocution at College, & finding that I could discharge its duties without interfering with my law studies, I accepted the office, which I retained for one year until I left the Law School in Feb. 1840. I laboured hard, & I believe successfully in this office. I certainly received as flattering & satisfactory testimonials of various kinds from the faculty, students & strangers as any one could wish. It was also an exceedingly pleasant office to me. I never for a moment lost my interest in it, or became tired of the declamations. I did not miss more than two appointments in the whole time, & previous to one of the exhibitions, I gave 72 hours in 2 weeks to hearing rehearsals. Upon taking the office I refused to receive the situation of proctor wh. was offered me & wh. usually went with it, as that involved a supervision of the conduct of the students. I accepted the plan of the law professors, e»Dana inserted "unwholesome" after excising "excitement." 70 John

McLean ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 6 1 ) of Ohio was appointed to the U. S. Supreme Court

in 1829 and served in the post until his death.

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39

& the first day that I met my classes told them that I had nothing to do with their parietal government; that we met merely as gentlemen who were pursuing the same studies & exercises, & that I had no eyes, ears or tongue for anything else. From that moment my intercourse with the students was of the most gratifying description. I never had an unpleasant word, or any unpleasant circumstance of any kind arise in all my intercourse with them. I could not desire manners or conduct more satisfying, & I believe I secured constant & punctual attendance, & sufficient interest & industry in the department. In Feb. 1840, I resigned this office & left the law school to enter the office of Ch. G. Loring Esq. 7 1 in Boston, to obtain knowledge of praotice necessary to entering upon it for myself. Both the law school & my college office I left with regret, & shall always look back upon them with remembrances of unmingled pleasure. The law school I love, as far as a man can love a mere institution wh. has no soul. When I left it, [I] could say of it as the Jews did of their city, —72 Among the acquaintances wh. I made at the law school, the leading men were Wm. M. Evarts, E. R. Hoar, Geo. Bemis,73 &c. The most successful speech made at the school during the whole time I was there, was made before a jury of undergraduates, Judge Story on the bench, by Wm. M. Evarts. A law argument wh. he introduced into it, addressed to the Court, was the most complete, systematic, precise & elegantly spoken law argument I have ever yet heard, including many arguments by our most distinguished counsel before our highest Courts. Evarts' jury 71 Charles Greeley Loring ( 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 6 7 ) , Harvard, 1812. His law career was extremely successful. Later he entered the insurance business and in 1862 served in the state senate. He will be mentioned frequently in the Journal. 72 Dana left the space blank. Presumably he intended to cite Psalms 1 3 7 : 5 : "If I forget thee, Ο Jerusalem . . ." 73 William Maxwell Evarts ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 9 0 1 ) went on to a distinguished career and became a figure of importance in Dana's life. After passing the bar in 1841 he formed a highly successful New York City partnership with Charles E. Butler. After the Civil War he shared with Dana the task of preparing a treason case against Jefferson Davis, was President Johnson's Attorney General, 1868-1869, President Hayes's Secretary of State, 1 8 7 7 - 1 8 8 1 , and was in the U. S. Senate from 1885 to 1889. He is credited with saving Johnson from impeachment. Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 9 5 ) passed the bar in 1840, was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 1 8 4 9 - 1 8 5 5 , judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, 1859-1869, and U. S. Attorney General, 1869-1870. He was deprived of a place on the U. S. Supreme Court when the Senate refused to confirm his appointment by President Grant. George Bemis ( 1 8 1 6 1878), a gifted lawyer who distinguished himself in the prosecution of Dr. Webster in the Parkman murder trial, and later in legal work for the Department of State during the Civil War, was independently wealthy and led the life of a world traveler. He bequeathed $50,000 to Harvard.

40

Beginnings

argument was very well done, but Wm. Davis 74 of Plymouth, who was his opponent, did quite as well to the jury. Evarts' was the best law & Davis' the best jury argument I heard in the school. When charging the jury, judge Story said he must rule the law on certain points against the Dft.'s counsel (Evarts) though they had been argued to him "in a manner to wh. I cheerfully do homage". Judge Story always complimented liberally, but never went so far as in this instance. Indeed, Evarts has been a peculiar young man, at school, college & in his professional studies. If he does not become distinguished, he will disappoint more persons than any other young man whom I have ever met with. During the spring vacation of 1838, while at the school, I made a visit of a week at Plymouth. The mayflowers were not then out, & a few days after my return I reed, a present of a box of the most beautiful of them gathered for me by the young ladies, my acquaintances. To this distinguished honour I replied by a letter wh. cost me a good deal of brain cudgelling, & wh. was favourably received, as I was informed. In the summer of 1838, I spent the vacation at home in Boston. We then lived at No. 48 Chesnut St. 75 I had heard that Miss Nancy Marsh, an old & valued friend of my aunts & whose father, the Rev. Dr. Marsh,78 had been a friend of my grandfather, was to make a visit at Proff. Willard's 77 in Cambridge, & was to bring with her her two nieces, Miss Elisabeth & Miss Sarah Watson.78 I had heard much of the beauty, accomplishments & virtues of these young ladies, & when about 15 years of age had heard my aunt speak of Miss Sarah, the younger, then a girl at school, in a manner wh. interested me exceedingly.79 This passed out of my mind, of course, but when their names were mentioned as about to visit us, I recalled what I had [heard] before of her, & was anxious to see her. After their visit at Mr. Willard's they were to spend a week with us in Chesnut st. I had not heard of their arrival, & on Sunday evening, •^William Davis ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 5 3 ) , Harvard B.A., 1837. 75 Metzdorf remarks: "The spelling 'Chesnut' is a provincial vulgarization; it is sometimes found in Philadelphia as well as in, Boston." 7e Nancy Marsh, who was over seventy when she died in 1857, figures prominently in the Journal as one of the maternal aunts of Dana's wife, Sarah Watson. Reverend John Marsh ( 1 7 6 5 - 1 8 2 1 ) was Sarah's maternal grandfather, and was a Congregationalist minister in Wethersfield, Conn., for over fifty years. 77 Sidney Willard ( 1 7 8 0 - 1 8 5 6 ) , Harvard, 1798. He became professor of Hebrew at Harvard in 1806, serving until 1 8 3 1 . He was mayor of Cambridge from 1848 to 1850. Dana frequently abbreviated "Professor" as "Proff." 78 Sarah Watson, a year older than Richard, lived with her widowed mother in Wethersfield, Connecticut, at this time, and was to become Dana's wife August 25, 1 8 4 1 . Her sister Elizabeth later married Oliver Ellsworth Daggett. 79 It is quite possible that Richard's aunt remarked the resemblance between Sarah and Richard's mother.

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July 15th I went out to Cambridge to hear a lecture of R. W. Emerson before the Divinity school, & there, though without my knowledge, I was for an hour or more, [for the] first time in the same room with the woman who [was] afterwards to be my wife. I left the hall, however, without knowing anything of the matter. On Friday morning, I was told that Miss M. & her nieces were coming into town in the course of the day to make their visit to us. At ten I went out to Mt. Auburn in the omnibus with [my] Andover friend the Rev. Gannett, & returned in the 12 o'clock omnibus. This coach stopped at Prof. Willard's door, & then for the first time it occurred to me that the ladies might be my companions. I got out when the coach stopped, & on the steps of the house was introduced to Miss Marsh & her nieces, attended them into the coach, & conversed with them during the ride. The first thing that struck me about these young ladies was the appropriateness of the dresses. Instead of riding, as many ladies do, in their silks & satins, they had neat travelling dresses, wh., though designedly plain, their handsome figures & gracefulness made look exceedingly genteel. There was the atmosphere of ladies about them. They could not be mistaken. I shall not here go over the course of the acquaintance I found with them during this visit. They commanded my respect, they interested my best feelings, their society was a delight to me, & when they went away, I was tempted to apply to them the lines of Cowper: They came; they have gone: we have met, To meet perhaps never again. The sun of those moments hath set But shall not have risen in vain. They have come; they have fled like a dream. So vanishes pleasure, alas! But have left a regret & esteem That shall not so easily pass.80 I did not hand them these lines for the reason that one of them had made an impression upon my hearts of hearts, which such complimentary tributes would do injustice to. Had it been only the elder sister I could have done it, easily & with pleasure. 80

Dana has adapted the first verse of William Cowper's "Catharina — Addressed to Miss Stapleton," ( 1 7 9 5 ) : She came — she is gone — we have met — And meet perhaps never again; T h e sun of that moment is set, And seems to have risen in vain. Catharina has fled like a dream — (So vanishes pleasure, alas!) But has left a regret and esteem That will not so suddenly pass.

42

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In the success wh. had attended me the last two years, in the interest my studies had for me, & in the ambition of beginning the race of life, I had suffered many of my better feelings & much of the noblest part of every man's nature to become deadened. I owe it to her & the influence she had over me that I was awakened & quickened. If man ever had a being to rouse, interest, counsel, direct & inspire to all that is noble, holy & good, I have had one in her from the first hour of my acquaintance, to last, I trust, until death us shall part. We parted on Thursday 9 Aug., without her knowing or having reason to suspect then that I esteemed her, had sought her friendship assiduously but respectfully, & was desirous of its continuance. A little subtlety of my own as to something I was to give her, obtained a door for a correspondence wh. I kept up for the next year with each of them. In Aug. 1839, I went to Hartford with my Aunt & sister to spend a day or two on our way to Burlington, Vt., to my brother's commencement. To any one who has truly loved, I need not mention the anticipation of that meeting, & the tranquil, soul-infused delight of feeling myself once more in her presence, under the same roof, to see her the next moment, with the remembrance of the moment passed. We reached Hartford Wed. 31 July. Thursday we spent at Wethersfield, & on Friday, Aug. 2, my party with the two young ladies, who were to meet their brother at Albany, embarked on board the steamer Cleopatra for Ν. Y., where we arrived at day light the next morning, & took an early steamer & passed the day in sailing up the Hudson. The delights, the fascinations of those two days! Sunday we spent in Albany. Sunday evening, & Sunday night — On Monday their brother Wm.81 joined us & we went together to Saratoga, where we parted at noon, they to remain there & we to go to Burlington. We parted formally, in the midst of friends, but we had been through that together which will never leave true hearts, whatever may be its issue, unwounded. I cannot detail what passed then, in the two or three next letters that were exchanged between us. I have suffered & yet gloried under it, & I can thank God for it as one of greatest blessings to me.82 It was a trial I needed, & I stood the test, & years of happiness than wh. man cannot have greater from a fellow mortal have been my exceeding great reward. My character had undergone one change at the receipt of the news of the death & prayers of an early acquaintance. It needed a further change, 81 William Watson (b. 1809), a lawyer, will appear regularly in the Journal, and is usually called simply "William." 82 Dana's preoccupation with the need for moral self-improvement is a central factor in his relationship with Sarah. As the Journal progresses, their regular analyses of his moral inadequacies frequently bring about moods of intense self-loathing on his part.

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& this I now experienced. I went back to my studies, my reading, my private thoughts, my religious duties, & my intercourse with life an entirely changed man. I saw myself & everything about me in a new light. Worldly distinction & honours, learning, reputation of talents & even their possession, influence among men, success in life; — all these things passed into nothing. I could from my inmost heart say with Burke, "If I am not much mistaken in myself, I would not give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called honorable & distinguished in life". 83 I felt that what I could do, what men thought of me, what I passed for, was nothing; but that what I was in my own nature, was everything. My thoughts, my motives of action, my estimation of myself & others, underwent an entire revolution. Nobleness & elevation of soul, sincerity of feeling, purity of intention, capabilities of true sentiment, of devotion, of heroism, — private secret heroism, — these & such as these became all that is worthy of being admired or striven after, & to me became all in all, — for I knew that in that balance alone was I to be weighed by her, for whom I would give up the world, aye, & my own life also. If the state of feeling I was under during this year after I left her at Saratoga, would continue thro' life, I should be of base material in grain not to be elevated & ennobled by it. In Feb. 1840, I visited Hartford, arriving there on the first Monday ev. of the month & leaving on the Friday morning following. I left the plighted & acknowledged accepted suitor of that lady.84 I could have broken out as poor Pilgrim did in songs, at the sight of the celestial city. She was God's gift to me, richer than diamonds & fine gold, purer than the aether, a consolation to my heart, a lamp to my feet, & a crown of rejoicing. The day after my return, I entered the office of Chas. G. Loring, & remained there until Sept. 1840, when I was admitted to the bar, & opened an office at No. 20 Court st., Boston. It gives me pleasure to join my testimony with that of all others who know him, to the high tone of professional morals, the gentlemanly conduct, kindness, liberality & perfect fairness & integrity of that gentleman. In fact, the business of his 83

"Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world." The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, " A Letter to a Noble Lord," V (Boston: Little, Brown, 1866), 208. 84 Four months later Richard presented Sarah with an emerald engagement ring, having, as Metzdorf notes, evidently taken some months to save the money. An extremely important aspect of the union was that Sarah possessed no fortune. In a characteristic gesture, Dana refused to accept the token three hundred dollar dowry which she did have.

44

Beginnings

office was conducted, not only by himself, but by his junior partners F. C. Loring & Mr. Dehon,85 in a manner wh. should insure the respect & conciliate the good feelings of all who come into connexion with it. During the two last years that I was in the Law School I was engaged in writing out the journal of my voyage.86 I read it first to my father & then to Mr. Washington Allston, both of whom expressed themselves exceedingly interested in it, & advised its publication. This I determined upon, not because I supposed the book could be of much benefit to me in a literary or pecuniary point of view, but because I though it would be of some use to me in Boston in securing to me a share of maritime business, in insurance & other maritime cases, & because I believed it would also do something to enlighten the public as to the real situation of common seamen in the merchant service. A friend of mine spoke to [a] Boston bookseller about publishing it, but neither he nor the bookseller had seen the Ms. & my friend was not at liberty to mention my name. The bookseller could not guess, nor did [my] friend himself know the nature of the book, & the interview terminated without an issue. When my book afterwards appeared, this same bookseller asked me why I had not offered it to him. By the advice of my friends I sent the Ms. to my father's friend Mr. Bryant87 at N. York, that he might lay it before the Harpers.88 I was told that the Harpers were sharp men, but that they would give the book a greater circulation than any other house, wh. was my main object. I gave Mr. Β a carte blanche as to the bargain. He left it with the Harpers, & after a long time, they offered to publish it, but positively refused to give me any share of the profits, or any percentage upon the gross sales, or upon the number sold, or anything of this kind. Their only terms were a sale of copy-right to them, entirely, for a fixed sum. Mr. Bryant & my father, who was then in Ν. Y., both tried to bring them to allow me an interest in the book, thinking that it would be profitable & successful. But the Harpers were inflexible & my friends yielded, though not until I gave my consent. This I gave in entire ignorance of the value of the book; though I have reason to believe that the Harpers knew it, while they 85 Francis Caleb Loring (1809-1874), Harvard, 1828. William Dehon ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 7 5 ) , Harvard, 1833. The firm continued in existence until 1857. 8 6 The basic manuscript was written in the first year. In the second, Dana wrote only a short introduction and the "Concluding Chapter." 8 7 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), a close friend of Dana's father, had since 1839 been living in New York City, where he was editor of the Evening Post. He appears frequently in the Journal. 8 8 See Metzdorf, "Publishing History," and Lucid, "Composition of Two Years," for a detailed discussion of the publication of Dana's manuscript. For a less jaundiced view of the Harpers than Dana and his friends developed, see Eugene Exman, The Brothers Harper ( N e w York: Harper & Row, 1965).

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45

professed an unwillingness to undertake the book at all. After the bargain had been completed for a small sum, I learned that a literary gentleman to whom they had submitted the Ms., had advised them to purchase it at any price & predicted its great success.88 The bargain now turned upon the sum to be given for the copy-right. Various sums were named, & Mr. Bryant at last offered it for $500, wh. he said was small enough. This the Harpers refused, & offered $250. Mr. B. & my father called several days & tried to raise their terms, but with no success. My father was so disgusted with their manners & the style in wh. they did their business that he should have left them with contempt, had the business been his own, but being mine he endured them. Mr. Bryant told them, at last that they ought not to stand for $50 with a young author, but should give me the round $300. This they refused, & the bargain was at last made at $250. We were fairly beaten down to this, & I consented to it against the advice of several friends, from ignorance of the value of the book, & because I was anxious to have it published before I opened my office. They were to print one handsome edition, of the sise & style of Sparks' Am. Biography, & another for the School Library, & to send me 20 or 30 copies for distribution.90 They sent me two dosen, wh. I distributed, mostly in such a way as to secure a sale, & finding them gone & that I had other friends to send to, wrote for a half dos. more, to make 30. They delayed sending them, & I took them up of their agent in Boston, Munroe & Co. After I had taken these up, they sent them. I wrote that I did not want them, & offered to return them to their agent. The agent did not like to take them back, & I asked the H's to credit their agent with them. This they never did, & I had to 8e

The phrase "to purchase it at any price & predicted its great success," was added by Dana after he excised "strongly in its favor." Dana identifies the "literary gentleman" with this marginal note: "Prof. Potter now ( 1 8 6 4 ) Bishop of Pennsylvania." Alonzo Potter ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 6 5 ) was elected Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1845. At the time of his reading of the manuscript he was vice president of Union College at Schenectady. He appears later in the Journal. 90 The book was printed from stereotyped plates and was first issued, in both black and tan covers, as number 106 of the Harper's Family Library series. It is possible, also, that there was a simultaneous issue, perhaps in gray cover, in the New York State School District Library. In any case, the School District Library publication came soon after the publication of the first edition on September 18, 1840. Later editions of the book, printed from the same plates, were bound as volumes independent of the Family Library set. The Family Library drew heavily upon history, biography, and voyage-and-travel literature. For bibliographical discussion see: Lucid, "Composition of Two Years," pp. 69-72; Merle Johnson, American First Editions, ed. Jacob Blanck (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1942), p. 135; D. A. Randall and John T. Winterich, "Two Years Before the Mast," Publisher's Weekly, 1 3 8 : 1 1 7 3 - 1 1 7 5 (September 21, 1940).

Beginnings

46

pay for them. I wrote them that I had pd. for the books, & they answered my letter, but said nothing about the books paid for. When they paid me my $250, which they did at my request sometime in Oct. & after the book had got an admirable run, they deducted the interest. This I did not expect. I supposed they were to give me $250 in cash down. Also, I incurred some expense in employing a proof reader, of wh. I notified them, but of wh. they took no notice. So ends my contract with the Harpers. I am told on excellent authority that now (Aug. 1842) the book is worth $10,000 to them. Perhaps it is better for me that the money should be in their hands than in mine. 'It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth'.91 I would not take the money, if I had to take one tithe of their spirit with it. I should wish it only for S[arah]'s sake. I opened my office in Sept., & with about 3 or 4 weeks with almost nothing to do, began to be employed in an encouraging manner. My book got into general circulation & repute in the course of the autumn, wh. brought me in a good deal of maritime business. I had the good fortune to gain my three first cases, which encouraged me not a little. At first I took half of a small oifice with Mr. Jos. Willard, a Master in Chancery.92 In two months I took a single office by myself, & in nine months from the time I was admitted, felt able to engage two rooms in the second story of a central building (the Old State House) & to take a student with me. This student was Mr. Geo. W. Peck93 of Brown University, a young man of excellent qualities both of heart & mind. My first visit to Hartford, after Feb. 1840, was in May. — Sat. evening — walk — at home. Sunday evening. Blind man's buff. Battle door. Mr. Daggett.94 The last evening. The locket. Next visit in July for Elisabeth's wedding.95 Arrive Tuesd. ev. July 14. Grave yard. Mowed field. Wed. the wedding. Groom's man & bride's maid. Ride to Meriden. Rail cars to N. Haven. Judge Daggett's.96 Garden in evening. Thursday, ride " I t is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth" ( L a m . 3:27). 92j OS eph Willard (1798-1865), Harvard, 1816. He had been appointed Master in Chancery in 1838 and later held other legal offices in the Boston area. 9 3 George W . Peck may have been descended from William Dandridge Peck, old friend of Dana's Uncle Edmund. He was, as the Journal will reveal, eventually ruined by alcohol. ^Oliver Ellsworth Daggett (1810-1880), Yale, 1828. After a short career as a lawyer he studied at Yale Divinity School, and at the time of this writing was pastor of the South Church at Hartford. He was engaged to Sarah's sister Elizabeth. Here, and in some of the following pages, Dana writes in a kind of shorthand and is recalling romantic incidents in his own courtship of Sarah. 91

0 . E . Daggett married Elizabeth Watson on July 15, 1840. David Daggett (1764-1851) was Oliver Ellsworth Daggett's father. A former

β5 9e

1815-1841

An Autobiographical Sketch

47

round N. Haven, & return to Hartford. Thursday ev., behind summerhouse. Frid. morning, meadows under the trees, next the stream, conversation there. Sat. ev. at Mrs. Tudor's.97 Stair case. Sunday ev. ride to Wethersfield. Sunday night there. Monday morning, in a boat, & by the rocks in the meadows, river in sight. Return to Hartford. Tuesday to Boston. S. in Canada. Letters fr. Montreal & Burlington. Elisabeth in Boston in Sept. Tenth of Sept. Grand Harrison convention.98 In November, again visit Hartford. Unexpected arrival. Meeting in entry. Wethersfield. Return. Next visit in March. Return over the river. In May 1841. Invited to address the American Seaman's Friend Society in N. York at their anniversary." Met S. at Brooklyn on Sat. May 8, at Mr. Marsh's.1 Elis. & Mr. Daggett there. Walk to N. York. Sat. evening. Sunday morning, Dr. Cox. 2 Evening, walk with S. Monday ev. address at the Tabernacle Church before the Seaman's Friend Society. Walk home with S. Tuesday morn. Brooklyn Heights with S. Tuesday aft., set out for Boston in the steamer N. York, bound to Norwich. In Hurlgate,3 broke our shaft, & came very near going on the "Pot rock". I & 2 or 3 others with me, compelled the captain to give us a boat in wh. we took Mr. Ch. Tappan, lady & daughter & our baggage & pulled on board the Massachusetts, against the stream of the Hurlgate. By doing this, we reached Boston at the usual time. The passengers who remained on board did not arrive until the next day. I had a case in court ordered for 10 o'clock on Wed., & I got into the Court room just as the other side was getting me defaulted. In July, I made another visit to Hartford, previous to my marriage. Left Boston Sat. ev. & travelled from Worcester to Hartford by stage coach, all night, arriving at Hartford just at day break Sunday morning. It was a most beautiful sight. As we came to the Connecticut river, the U. S. senator, he had been Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, 1 8 3 2 - 1 8 3 4 , and at the time of this writing was Kent Professor of Law at Yale, a post which he held until 1848. He will appear in the Journal with some frequency. 97 Probably Sarah's aunt, Mrs. Samuel Tudor, of Hartford. 98 Dana is referring to the national convention, in Boston, of the Whig party. William Henry Harrison was nominated for President, John Tyler for Vice-President. " D a n a was the featured speaker and introduced the following resolution: "Resolved, that in the Seamen's cause the day has come." 'Rev. John T. Marsh (d. 1852), Sarah's uncle, was minister at a church in Brooklyn. 2 Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 8 0 ) , a new-school Presbyterian leader, a founder of New York University and Union Theological Seminary, was much in demand as a preacher in New York at this time. 3 "Hurlgate" was evidently a euphemism for what contemporary as well as modern maps identify as "Hell Gate."

48

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moon was in the west, just over the city & across the river, while in the east the morning star was just fading before the first tints of the morning. All was a dead silence & we rode through the streets of the city as though a place in which the inhabitants were all entranced. The whole ride had been beautiful, as we had a fine sunset & moon all night, as we [drove] up the hills & down the valleys of the route. About midnight we passed a company who were spearing fish in a small stream by torch light. They had a bugle with them. Made my visit at Mr. Daggett's. Sunday ev. walk by the stream beyond the college. Monday morning in the woods on the Windsor road. Tuesday to Wethersfield & spent Tuesday night. Thunder storm. Wednesday returned to Hartford, & Wed. noon started for Boston; the next time of seeing Hartford being for my marriage. Tuesd. Aug. 24, I started from Boston in company with father, Charlotte, Aunt E, & Cousin Mary, for Hartford. Ned & Aunt S.4 had gone before. Arrived the same evening. "Put up" at the City Hotel. Saw S. a few moments on Tuesd. evening. The house full of company. Passed through the day Wednesday, as easily as I could. Wednesday even'g Aug. 25, 1841, married. My feelings was not nervous, nor anxious, nor veiy solemn; but elated & triumphant. As I stood beside S. in the midst of the company, she promised to 'love & honour', & appointed to cherish, guard, love, honour & comfort her, my heart was too large & too full for its mortal vesture. I felt lifted above the world & the common men & women of it, & breathing a purer, higher & more inspiriting atmosphere. I could have laid down my life for her at the very moment I was promising to serve her through the whole of it. I could not feel solemnly until we parted from all her friends the next morning, with their tearful eyes. Thursday to Worcester. Friday morning to Boston. Dine at Chesnut st. In the afternoon set out for Rockport, where we arrive at Mrs. Wheeler's house, about 9 in the evening. There we are entirely alone. A widow & her son of about 12 years old occupy the rear, & we have the front to ourselves. The sea & rocks are before us, & a wide wood behind us. There is a cool sea-breese, & no noise but that of the woods & waters. Sat. we roamed about upon the rocks & in the pastures. Sunday we walked to Church in the afternoon. Monday alone all day, as before. The beauty, the heart-felt peace, & gushing happiness of these hours! No souls know it but those that have loved. I thought then that there could not be happiness equal to it *Dana is with his sister Charlotte, his maiden aunts Elizabeth Ellery Dana and Sarah Ann Dana, and his cousin Mary Elizabeth Dana, daughter of his Uncle Francis. See Genealogy.

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4g

reserved for the future; — that it was peculiar to the newness of our position; but now, after nearly a year, I can say that greater happiness, deeper, more all-pervading, & no less ecstatic has come over our path, & that not seldom. Those are either vulgar or weak or ill-matched persons to whom what is popularly called 'the honey moon' is the envied part of married life. Confidence, respect, tenderness & devotion will increase as life goes on, if there is ground [to] rest such sentiments upon & capability of feeling them in each of the persons united. A true man & woman may be & sometimes are always lovers. The deference, tenderness, respect, & the romantic & chivalrous devotion need never fade away. They never will between two persons really capable of feeling them & of calling them out. Tuesday morning we left Rockport for Boston, where we arrived at noon, & took up our abode at the U. States Hotel. Our parlor is in the third story, S.E. comer & has a beautiful view of the harbour, & of the country round Milton, Dorchester & Roxbury. At night we see both the lighthouses. Friends are calling, the weather is beautiful, & all things in the house are to our minds. Our hearts are each others. In the latter part of Sept., Miss Lydia Marsh & Mary Watson5 make a visit at Chesnut st. & are often with us. I may here speak of the success of my book in England. Almost immediately upon its receipt in England, it was published there by Moxon.6 My friend Charles Sumner & Miss Fanny Appleton7 each sent copies to England, both of wh. fell into the same train. Mrs. Robt. Mackintosh, (Miss Appleton, formerly) lent hers to Capt. Jones, R. N. who recommended it to Moxon. Sumner's got [to] Mr. Kenyon8 who knew both B Lydia Marsh (b. 1 7 8 6 ) was one of Sarah's three maiden aunts, all of whom lived with her mother, Mary Marsh Watson. Mary Watson was Sarah's sister (b. 1 8 0 7 ) who, later in the Journal, will marry Jared Wilson of Canandaigua, Ν. Y. 6

E d w a r d Moxon ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 5 8 ) , English "publisher of poets," brought out various works by Wordsworth, Southey, Tennyson, and Browning, among others, and was an important figure in English literary circles. His first edition of Two Years appeared in February 1 8 4 1 , followed by a second edition in August. C. F . Adams, in his Dana (I, 2 6 ) , said that Moxon paid Dana a larger sum voluntarily than the Harpers had paid by contract for the volume. 7 Charles Sumner ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 7 4 ) , a close friend of Dana's, was practicing law after having made a highly successful grand tour of Europe and England, and was shortly to begin his formidable political career. Frances Elizabeth Appleton, daughter of Nathan Appleton and sister of Dana's friend Thomas G. Appleton, married Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1 8 4 3 . Her sister married Robert Mackintosh, a wealthy Englishman. 8 John Kenyon ( 1 7 8 4 - 1 8 5 6 ) was a philanthropist patron to a number of the poets published by Moxon.

and world traveler and

was

Beginnings Jones & Moxon. In this way they helped each other. Moxon behaved like a gentleman. He wrote me a very complimentary note, & sent me a dosen copies of his edition, & a beautiful copy of Cicero's Life & letters. Upon this a pleasant correspondence began wh. has continued to this time. Each succeeding letter brought favourable accounts of the popularity of the book & of the persons of distinction — Brougham, Moore, Bulwer, Dickens, &c. &c. who praised it & wished to see me, & the like. Two cheap editions were also printed & sold off with great rapidity by small booksellers. I am told it is all over England. 9 In the summer of 1841 I was engaged upon my second book, the "Seaman's Friend", & Moxon hearing of it, offered me half profits for the proof sheets in advance of the other publishers. I sent them to him, & the book appeared simultaneously in the two countries, early in October.10 In April an edition had been sold here, & Moxon wrote that his did very well in England. This is purely a business book. Early in Dec. 1841, Lord Morpeth 11 arrived in the steamer from England. The day after his arrival, I had a note from Sumner saying that Lord M. wished to meet me, & inviting me to meet his lordship at his (Sumner's) on Sunday evening. I declined as respectfully as possible, expressed my desire to see Lord M., but gave, as a reason, that I never went into company on Sunday, & should be careful not to break my rule when I should lose so much by adhering to it. I thought this would be the last I should hear of Lord Morpeth; but Sumner said he showed him the note & that he was quite pleased, & spoke in admiration of a principle adhered to, even in extremes. Lord M. then asked S[umner] to introduce me at his own rooms; accordingly I called on his lordship at the Tremont House, & spent a very pleasant half hour. He is a tall, large framed man, & looks as though he had some strength in his limbs. He is homely in the face, having an uncomfortable look of fulness, with a large hanging lower lip, & hair turned to light grey. He is about 35 or 40. His manners are excellent. Nothing can be pleasanter than the effect of them, for you believe him to be sincere. There is no parade, but perfect simplicity; & yet a dignity which would keep off a vulgar or troublesome man. He has 9 Apart from Moxon's edition, the English publishing house of Charles Wood, in Devonport, brought out an edition dated 1840, and the London house of J. Cunningham issued an 1 8 4 1 edition. There were no legal obligations, and only Moxon gave Dana compensation. 10

The Seaman's Friend, a handbook on seamanship and maritime law, was published in America by Little and Brown in 1 8 4 1 . Moxon retitled his edition The Seaman's Manual. Compared to Two Years, its sales were moderate in both countries. n L o r d Morpeth ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 6 4 ) was George William Frederick Howard, later to be the 7th Earl of Carlisle. A prominent figure in English politics, he was in 1 8 4 1 on a year-long tour of the United States and Canada.

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received a careful education, has excellent common sense, & a noble spirit. His reputation is that of an honourable, amiable, thorough bred 12 man. It is a comfort to fall in with such an one. 1 2 After

"bred" Dana excised "& talented."

2. A Tear of Initiation 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 4 2

DEC. 17. 1 8 4 1 . With this day I begin my journal, writing down the events of each day, as they occur. All before this has been from memory. A m to dine at 5 at Abbott Lawrence's with Lord Morpeth. A n elegant room, with Mrs. Lawrence & daughter, Mr. L . & one or two gentlemen present. 1 The company all arrived punctually between Yi before 5, & 5 min. after. While in the room, observed that Sumner now & then whispers to L d . M. the names of persons as they come in & tells him whether he has met them before. I was talking with L d . M., when Sumner said in a low tone — "That is Mr. Quincy (the tall gentleman) whom you have met. T h e other gentleman not, a Unitarian clergyman", &c. &c. Accordingly L d . M. meets Mr. Quincy half w a y , with " H o w do you do Mr. Quincy" &c. This is very convenient. Present at dinner, beside the host, lady & daughter, Harrison Gray Otis, Judge Story, Josiah Quincy Jr., Fr. C. Gray, Mr. Ticknor, Mr. Sears, Rev. Mr. Lothrop, Saml. Eliot, R. G. Shaw, & Sumner & Governor Davis. 2 Abbott Lawrence ( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 5 5 ) was a prominent merchant, manufacturer, diplomat, and philanthropist. In partnership with his brother Amos, he was a leader in the development of the New England textile industry. He was married to Katherine Bigelow, eldest daughter of Timothy Bigelow of Medford. They had seven children, two of whom were girls. 2 Harrison Gray Otis (1765-1848) served frequently in the U. S. House and in the Senate, from which he resigned in 1822. From 1829 to 1831 he had been mayor of Boston. Josiah Quincy, Jr. (1802-1882) was to serve as mayor of Boston, 1845-1849. His father was still president of Harvard at this time. Francis Calley Gray (17901856) served many terms in the Massachusetts legislature and was a leading figure in Boston literary circles. George Ticknor ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 7 1 ) , social and political, as well as literary, autocrat of Boston, was at this time at work upon his monumental History of Spanish Literature (1849). David Sears ( 1 7 8 7 - 1 8 7 1 ) was a powerful and wealthy Boston merchant who served frequent terms in the Massachusetts house and senate. Samuel K. Lothrop (1804-1886), whose name Dana frequendy misspelled "Lathrop," was at this time pastor of the Brattle Square Church and would later join the faculty of the Harvard Divinity School and become president of the American Unitarian Association. Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798-1862), whose name Dana misspelled "Elliot," was a prominent Boston manufacturer, had been mayor of Boston, 1837-1839, served in the U. S. Congress from 1850 to 1851, and served three terms in the Massachusetts house and senate. Robert Gould Shaw ( 1 7 7 6 - 1 8 5 3 ) made a large fortune in trade, commerce, and land speculation. John Davis (1787-1854) had been governor of Massachusetts, 1834-1835, was in the U. S. Senate at the time Dana was writing, but had already been elected governor again for the 1841-1843 term. He later returned to the Senate.

1841

A Year of Initiation

53

Capital conversation, & a sumptuous dinner. Mr. Otis was in his best vein, & we young men could easily believe that he had been, in his prime, the best conversationist in the land. Judge Story talked more; but tediously, & without the variety, brilliancy & tact of Otis. Otis never speaks a word without having the attention of the whole table. Indeed, as soon as a word comes from him, all stop speaking. He addresses his conversation to all, & has something that will take the attention of each. Hardly a person present, whom he does not bring in, & in a manner complimentary to them. Judge Story argued like a lawyer, & prosed like a book worm. Otis never forgot that he was a gentleman dining out. Mr. Otis told us that when he began to study law, he was offered to become one of a company to purchase a large tract of land extending from the western part of Georgia, nearly to the Mississippi river. He did purchase, but sold out. His friends used to laugh at him, & say — "Well, Otis, how comes on Alabama, & Yasoo," with particular emphasis on those two outlandish names, & ask him if any white men had gone there yet, &c. He was also offered to be one of a company to purchase the western part of N. York. Lord M. kept clear of American politics, & would say nothing unfavorable of our country, — even of our repudiation3. There was a plenty of high conservatism talked, & by no one more than by Judge Story, who began life a radical. Judge Story entered into a defense of Boswell. Spoke of the good his book had done, & thought there was something commendable in his devotion to Johnson & in his willingness to submit his personal dignity & character to that of another whom he admired, & whom he wished to extol. This was addressed to Ld. M., as the Englishman present. Lord M. only replied, "I agree with you, Judge Story, that the book cd. have been written in no other way, & we are glad it has been written, but I confess I should not wish to be [the] man." We all felt the sense, at least I did. After this, the judge rather labored in the defense. The judge was wrong again upon the Christian religion. He said that its great doctrines, & its chief features were the truths of immortality & the true nature of God, & its moral precepts. Several gentlemen proved that these were human before, & only received a purer definition & a higher sanction from Christ. They did not say what the great element of Christianity, redemption by Christ's death, was. Some of them thought it, 3

B y the turn of the decade, British bondholders had invested 1 1 0 to 1 6 5 millions of dollars in American state and territorial loans. Motivated in part b y a financial panic in 1 8 3 7 , the debtor states and territories adopted an attitude of "repudiation" of their financial responsibilities. In 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 4 2 eight states and one territory defaulted on interest payments.

54

Beginnings

perhaps, & others did not. Unitarianism has blotted out a good deal of the scriptural truth. Lord M. is a Churchman, & believes in Christianity as held by the English Church, at least in headAbbott. Lawrence said that Lord Selkirk told him he found Wellington reading Jack Downing.4 Company broke up at 10, & 10V2. Went with S. to hear Braham.5 Very grand, & very touching. He sang Luther's Judgment Hymn with a power that was stupendous. I could not conceive of the human voice as being capable of such compass of sound. In the opening to the Creation, he was accompanied by trombones & trumpets. There was a choir of 50, & a full band with an organ. What grandeur & majesty in the effect! Nothing takes us out of ourselves, — our every day sphere — so completely as music. This morning I went into the Municipal Court to defend a lad upon a charge of larceny. I met Judge Thatcher® in the lobby & he told me that the mother of the lad had been to him to ask him, in case her son was convicted, to send him to the house of reformation instead of the jail, & that he asked her who was to defend him. She said "Mr. Dana". "Then", said the judge, "I told her he would not be convicted". — A compliment fr. Judge Thatcher is rare & valuable. DEC. I 8 T H .

DEC. 23. At 7 A. M. set off for Hartford with S. in the cars. We went to Springfield, 95 miles, in the cars, in 5 hours, while by stage coach fr. Spr. to Hd., 23 miles, we were 5V2 hours. Found all well. John reached home fr. Ν. Y., on a visit, a half an hour after us. Mrs. W[atson] looks happy to have two absent children arrive the same evening. [DEC.] 24TH. Christmas eve at Christ Church. Fine music & church beautifully dressed. Saw Elizabeth [Watson Daggett] in the morning. Her infant is 2 weeks old, & she is invaliding in an arm chair. Little Susan, named for her father's sister Mrs. Dwight.7 She looks unusually intelligent.

4 L o r d Selkirk was James Dunbar Douglas ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 8 5 ) , Wellington is the celebrated opponent of Napoleon, and Jack Downing is the pseudonym of Seba Smith ( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 6 8 ) , American satirist, who founded his first newspaper in Maine. 5 John Braham ( 1 7 7 4 - 1 8 5 6 ) , English opera star and composer, was brilliantly successful in London, Paris, Rome, and America. e

Peter Oxenbridge Thatcher ( 1 7 7 6 - 1 8 4 3 ) , whose name Dana misspelled "Thacher," graduated from Harvard in 1 7 9 6 . He was judge of the Municipal Court of Suffolk County, 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 4 3 . 7 Susan Daggett Dwight, sister of Oliver Ellsworth Daggett, died in 1 8 3 9 . In 1 8 1 1 she married Sereno Edwards Dwight ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 5 0 ) , Boston clergyman, who was the son of Timothy Dwight, great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards.

1841

[dec.] 25.

A Year of Initiation

55

Church in morning. In afternoon call on Mrs. Sigourney 8

(poetess), Mrs. Wadsworth, Dr. Hawes, &c. 9

[dec.] 26.

To Wethersfield in evening. Spend Monday there. Call at

Mrs. Chester's. Walk with S. through the place where she spent so much of her childhood.

[dec.] 27.

Return to H'd. Judge Williams, Mrs. Chester (Thos.) & Mrs. Gov. Ellsworth have called. 10

[dec.]

28. L e f t S. at H—d, & set off for Springfield. Lecture at Cabotville. Beautiful ride over to C. & back to Springfield, by moonlight, along the river wh. is frosen over, while the whole country is crusted with snow.

[dec.]

29. Reach Boston. Stay at Chesnut st. until S. returns. Leonard Woods is there. Full of high church; yet a charming talker. A t night the U.S. hotel illuminated for the opening of the rail road to Albany. Letter from Moxon.

[dec.]

30. Dine with Fr. C. Gray. Present Th. G. Appleton, Capt. Judkins R. N., Thos. B. Curtis, Alexander, the artist, John Gray, Dr. Parkman, 1 1 &c. Letter from S. & write to her. 8 Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 6 5 ) , "the sweet singer of Hartford," was one of the most celebrated writers of popular verse in her day. She married Charles Sigourney in 1819. She conducted a small school for girls in Hartford. 9 Probably Mrs. Wadsworth is Martha W. Moore Wadsworth, who married Daniel Wadsworth in Hartford in 1824, the ceremony being conducted by the Reverend Joel Hawes (1789-1867), pastor of the First Congregational Church at Hartford. A close friend of Sarah's family, Reverend Hawes was an extremely popular lecturer and author of moral tracts. He and his family are mentioned frequendy in the early years of the Journal. 10 Thomas Scott Williams ( 1 7 7 7 - 1 8 6 1 ) , admitted to the Connecticut Bar in 1799, was a justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors from 1829 to 1847, chief justice after 1834. Margaret Bull of Hartford married Thomas Chester (b. 1764) of that city in 1795. Emily Webster, daughter of Noah Webster, married William Wolcott Ellsworth ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 6 8 ) in 1813. He was governor of Connecticut, 1838-1842. u Thomas Gold Appleton ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 4 ) , Harvard, 1831. Son of Nathan, brother of Fanny, he was a world traveler and one of the most celebrated wits of the Boston literary coterie. Captain Judkins was eventually to attain command of the passenger liner Persia, and twice accompany Dana on transatlantic crossings. Thomas B. Curtis (1788-1867), a Boston merchant, served in the Massachusetts house in 1852. Francis Alexander (1800-1881), painter and lithographer, enjoyed great popularity in Boston from 1832 to i860. John Chipman Gray ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 8 1 ) , Harvard, 1 8 1 1 , was a traveler, philanthropist, and litterateur, who served many terms in the state legislature and was sought after as an expert in finance. George Parkman was to be murdered in 1849 by John W. Webster.

56

Beginnings 1842

JAN. 7TH. 1842. Argue Luther v. Ocean Ins. Co. Ch. G. Loring & myself for Ptf., & Richd. Fleatcher & C. T. Russell for Dfts. Judge Wilde told Sumner that I opened admirably. Glad to hear it, for it is my first case before a Jury in the Supreme Court. 12 I had argued Dana v. Valentine before the full bench at Cambridge in October. I heard compliments from the judges from various quarters, in that case. This is pleasant for a young lawyer, who has a wife depending upon his success & who will rejoice in his good reputation. Mrs. Ticknor's 13 in the evening. Knopf playing on the violincello. Mrs. Norton's daughters S. & I agree are the most pleasing girls in company.14 [ J A N . ] 1 4 . FBIDAY.

[JAN.] 1 5 Expect S. in a day or two & return to the U. S. Hotel. The solitude has its charms, for a time, especially when expecting S. every day. [ J A N . ] 1 8 . S. comes in the evening, with Ned. Nothing talked of but Dickens' arrival. 15 The town is mad. All calling on him. I shan't go unless sent for. I can't submit to sink the equality of a gentleman by crowding after a man of note.

Letter fr. Th. Colley Grattan (High Ways & bye Ways) 1 0 saying that Dickens wishes to see me, & is surprised that I have not called before, & fixing 2 P. M. for a call. At 2 P. Μ. call at Tremont House & told that he is engaged. Send up name & am shown up. Kept disengaged on purpose to see Longfellow 17 & myself. Talk a few minutes when Longfellow comes in with Sumner. — Disappointed in D.'s appear[JAN.] 26.

12 Samuel S. Wilde ( 1 7 7 1 - 1 8 5 5 ) was a judge of the state Supreme Court from 1 8 1 5 to 1850. These legal references by Dana, along with many of the persons connected with his cases, have usually been open to documentation only when the cases were officially reported or when the personnel were otherwise well known. 13 Anna Eliot, daughter of Samuel Eliot, prosperous Boston merchant, married George Ticknor in 1 8 2 1 . Her considerable fortune, combined with his own inheritance, allowed Ticknor to maintain his prominent position in the community. ^Catherine Eliot, daughter of Samuel and sister of Anna, was married to Andrews Norton ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 5 3 ) , Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature at the Harvard Divinity School, 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 3 0 . Their daughters were the Misses Jane and Grace Norton, and Charles Eliot Norton was their son. 1B See Edward F. Payne, Dickens Days in Boston (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1 9 2 7 ) . Dickens arrived in America in January 1 8 4 2 and left the following June. 16 Thomas Colley Grattan ( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 6 4 ) , a journalist, was British consul at Boston from 1 8 3 9 to 1846. He described his travels in France in Highways and Byways (1823-1829). 17 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 8 2 ) had been a professor of modem languages and belles-lettres at Harvard since 1 8 3 5 . His daughter Edith eventually married Dana's son, Richard Henry III.

1842

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57

ance. We have heard him called 'the handsomest man in London' &c. He is of the middle height, (under if anything) with a large expressive eye, regular nose, matted, curling, wet-looking black hair, a dissipated looking mouth with a vulgar draw to it, a muddy olive complexion, stubby fingers & a hand by no means patrician, a hearty, off-hand manner, far from well bred, & a rapid, dashing way of talking. He looks 'wide awake', 'up to anything', full of cleverness, with quick feelings & great ardour. You admire him, & there is a fascination about him which keeps your eyes on him, yet you cannot get over the impression that he is a low bred man. Tom Appleton says "Take the genius out of his face & there are a thousand young London shop-keepers, about the theaters & eating houses who look exactly like him". He has what I suppose to be the true Cockney cut. He inquires for father and wonders he has not been to see him. Offers to call on him, if he is unwell.18 [ J A N . ] 27. Dine with Dickens at F. C. Gray's. Present, Prescott (Ferdinand δι Isabella), 19 Sparks (life of Washington),20 Mr. Ticknor, C. P. Curtis, Alexander &c. Like Dickens here very much. The gentlemen are talking their best, but Dickens is perfectly natural & unpretending. He could not have behaved better. He did not say a single thing for display. I should think he had resolved to talk as he would at home, & let his reputation take care of itself. He gave a capital description of Abbotsford.21 It was eno' to make you cry. He described the hat [that] Scott wore in his last illness, & the dents & bruises there were in it from his head falling against his chair when he lost the power of his muscles. It was heart-sickening. "And to think of a man's killing himself for such a miserable place as Abbotsford is", adds Dickens. C. P. Curtis asks him if there were any such magistrates in London as Fang in Oliver Twist. Dickens says "One just such, & many more like him", & tells us that his Fang is a portrait of a magistrate named Tang, who was sitting when the book appeared, and that he was removed by the Home department in ten weeks after the publication, upon a thorough

18 After he had met both the Danas, Dickens wrote John Forster about it: "Dana, the author of 'Two Years Before the Mast,' is a very nice fellow indeed; and in appearance not at all like the man you would expect. His father is exactly like George Cruikshank after a night's jollity — only shorter." Dickens Days, p. 69. 19 William Hickling Prescott ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 5 9 ) published The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and, Isabella the Catholic in 1 8 3 7 . Among the most distinguished of American historians, he later produced History of the Conquest of Mexico ( 1 8 4 3 ) and History of the Conquest of Peru ( 1 8 4 7 ) . ^Jared Sparks ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 6 6 ) was editor of the North American Review, 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 2 9 . Since 1839 he had been McLean Professor of History at Harvard and in 1849 became president of Harvard. His Writings of George Washington appeared, 1 8 3 4 - 1 8 3 7 . 21

Abbotsford was the estate of Sir Walter Scott.

Beginnings inquiry. 22 Dickens tells us that the treadmills in England work to no profit, as the people will not send anything to them to be ground, considering them as interfering with the labour & earnings of the honest poor; & that accordingly they go round & round for nothing. Thereupon Curtis says "The convicts can't be said to 'crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift doth follow &c'". 23 That was a very clever hit. If Dickens had said it, it would have been all over town. Conversation upon Dr. Lardner's lecturing & going to hear him. Tom Appleton ridicules the fastidiousness of Boston people. Mr. Gray says he would go to hear him, as a lecturer, without inquiring into his character. He would go to hear the Devil, if he gave a course of lectures, & he had no doubt the Devil would give a very good one. "He would know a thing or two", said Dickens, as quick as a flash. Speaking of names, a gentleman mentioned that in Portsmouth there was a Dr. Blood, a Dr. Graves & a Dr. Coffin. 24 "Think of a consultation of those physicians", says Dickens, "around a sick bed" — "in a dead language" he added, instantly. These things seemed to come from him before he could stop them. I believe he determined not to say any witty things. He looked ineffably funny two or three times, but said nothing. I caught him looking out into the hall where some servants were with a look which could not but have come from something wh. would make half the world ache with laughing. As soon as he saw that I observed him, he changed his expression instantly. Whether he saw something comic in the hall, or looked there to look away fr. the real cause of his amusement, I do not know. When he went away, the company all agreed that he was an exceedingly well behaved, natural & unassuming man. Prescott found great fault with his long hair, & blew up all persons who wear long hair. My hair was long, but P. always makes such mistakes & then is sorry for them. He is noted for it. He asked Dickens who "Grip" was, the chief character in Barnaby Rudge. 25 He told Mr. Guild, Presid. of the Agricultural society, 28 that he 22According to Gilbert A. Pierce, The Dickens Dictionary, revised by William A. Wheeler (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Fang was "a portrait of one A. S. Laing, the senior magistrate of Hatton Garden Police Office at the time 'Oliver Twist' was in the course of publication, who was notorious for his arrogant and brutal treatment of witnesses, and, indeed, of all who came before him. So true a likeness was it, that Lord John Russell, the home secretary, felt compelled to remove Mr. Justice Laing from office" (p. 92). 23 "No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp/And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee/where thrift may follow fawning" (Hamlet, III.iii.65—67). 24John Gorham Graves (d. 1829) received his M.D. degree from Harvard in 1811, and subsequently practiced in Portsmouth. 25Published in 1841. 2eBemjamin Guild (1785-1858), a Boston lawyer, and son-in-law of Nathan Appleton.

1842

A Year of Initiation

59

had seen all the agricultural cattle at a meeting &c. Sparks told him that he was too nice about Dickens' hair; that it was well eno', & a trifle at all events. (P. wears his hair as short as if he had [been] sentenced to be cropped & shorn to the quick). If Presoott is not an ordinary man, I am no judge of cleverness. I did not know who he was until dinner was nearly over; & supposed he was some ordinary mercantile man whom Mr. Gray felt obliged to ask on account of some family connexion. This was not from his silence, but from the common place nature of his remarks. As the conversation went on, I saw that he was a man of learning, which put me at a loss to tell who he could be. He has a way of taking up & explaining, amplifying & running down a clever or witty remark of another person, & always spoiling it & showing that he caught but half the idea. Sparks is as good natured as the master of an East Indiaman in the trade winds. Alexander is thought to toady Dickens, & people call him "Mr. Le Creevy". 27 Poor Sumner can't take a joke, of any kind. He is as literal as a Scotch guide-board. Ticknor is a thorough man, — armed at all points with information & using it with great readiness. In the evening a party at R. G. Shaw's. Dickens & lady present. I told Fanny Appleton that I preferred Lord Morpeth. She agreed with me. He has not genius & Dickens has; neither has he anything like Dickens' native cleverness; but he is a well educated, well bred, high minded, agreeable man, with a very good share of intellect. S. is introduced to Mrs. Dickens.28 FEB. 1. The great "Dickens dinner". Josiah Quincy Jr. presides, & capitally. Excellent speeches. Hillard is fervid & interesting, though a little over-done as usual, yet eloquent & touching. Palfrey is tiresome. Bancroft is heated, intense, striking, yet long winded, wandering & out of temper. Stevenson is amusing. Edw. G. Loring, common place in a very respectable & rather elevated way. Grattan decent. Mr. Quincy (senr.) very well indeed.29 Mr. Allston's toast went off famously. Dickens spoke excellently. I never heard a speech wh. went off better. He speaks natu27 Miss L a Creevy, " a mincing young lady of fifty," appears in Dickens' Nickleby ( 1 8 3 8 - 1 8 3 9 ) . 28

Nicholas

Catherine Hogarth married Dickens in 1 8 3 6 . They were to separate in 1 8 5 8 . George Stillman Hillard ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 7 9 ) was Sumner's law partner and noted as an orator and an intimate in George Ticknor's literary circle. John Gorham Palfrey ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 8 1 ) , clergyman and historian, contributed regularly to the North American Review and was later active in Dana's Free Soil circles. George Bancroft ( 1 8 0 0 1 8 9 1 ) , historian and Democratic party leader, had the year before published the third volume of his History of the United States. E d w a r d G. Loring ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 9 0 ) , prominent lawyer and journalist, became a justice of the U. S. Court of Claims. Josiah Quincy, Sr. ( 1 7 7 2 - 1 8 6 4 ) had been president of Harvard since 1 8 2 8 , remaining in the office until 1 8 4 5 . 29

6o

Beginnings

rally, with a good voice, beautiful intonations, & an ardent, generous manner. It is the speaking of a man who is no orator, but says what he wishes to say in a manner natural & unpracticed. Grattan called me out. I thought it might happen & was partially prepared. The audience thought that I was taken by surprise & I got more credit than I deserved. [FEB.] 2. Argued Chapman vs. Hastings, in the Supreme Court. I managed the Dft.'s case alone, while the Ptf. had Ch. G. Loring, the most successful advocate at the bar, & Ellis G. Loring, 30 also a man of note. I doubt if a case ever went to a jury in the Supreme Court with such odds of counsel. The amt. at stake was only about $1000, but it was a suit between two merchants of high standing in wh. each charged the other with a breach of contract, & in wh. they considered, their mercantile honors at stake. Mr. Hastings gave me his defence solely from friendship, & said that if I was willing to take it alone, he would not employ any one else. I was willing, & it was left to me. I prepared both the law & the end. At the trial I had to open & close, & to argue both law & fact, besides evidence, & did not consult another lawyer from the beginning to the taking down evidence, examining witnesses & making notes of arguments. It was closely contested; & [I] felt not a little anxious during the two or three hours that the jury was out. The verdict was for the Dft. I have never had anything so completely satisfactory to me since I began life, — in a professional or business way, I mean. My client would have given several thousands rather than lose it; & the gaining it was a great thing for me. Chas. Loring complimented me in his closing speech in a very gratifying manner. He repeated the expression several times of the "beautiful manner" in wh. the case had been argued for the Dft. A practical compliment was also conveyed by the manner in wh. he followed my argument step by step & laboured to do away with its effect. While the jury was out, Ellis G. Loring said that the case could not have been better argued. The words were "it is impossible that any man living could have argued it better". My client heard this, & I was glad he did for my security, in case I lost the verdict.

One thing however pleased me more than anything else. A juryman told a friend of mine, (but whom he did not know to be such) that he never heard a case argued & conducted in so gentlemanly a manner since he had been in Court, as this was on both sides. I felt that it was a deserved compliment; for although the parties themselves were at sword's points & did not speak in the street, the witnesses contradicted each other, & great deal of feeling was called out, reputation was at stake, & 30 Ellis

G. Loring (1803-1858), working with Dana's old law tutor, was a prominent

Boston lawyer and antislavery advocate.

1842

A Year of Initiation

61

there was written charges of misrepresentation in making the contract, yet not an unpleasant word passed between Mr. Loring & myself. Had we been engaged together in auditing the accounts of an amicable reference, all that passed between us could not have been pleasanter. It is a delight & a [refreshment] to the spirit to meet so honorable & gentlemanly an opponent as Mr. Loring, — one whose fidelity is equalled only by the kindness of his heart. FEB. 5. Called on Dickens at 10V2 A. M. by appointment, as he leaves at one. He was at breakfast. Sat down with him. He was very agreeable & full of life. He is the cleverest man I ever met. I mean he impresses you more with the alertness of his various powers. His forces are all light infantry & light cavalry, & always in marching order. There are not many heavy pieces, but few sappers & miners, the scientific corps is deficient, & I fear there is no chaplain in the garrison. Mrs. Dickens appears to be an excellent woman. She is natural in her manners, seems not at all elated by her new position, but rests upon a foundation of good sense & good feeling. [FEB.] 9TH. Argue Convent v. Harding before jury of Supreme Court, & get a verdict of $200 for a sailor against his captain. Harding was master of a N. Bedford whaler. [FEB.] 10. Letter to Dickens upon business confided to me from Baltimore. Wm. Watson to take it, as a letter of introduction. [FEB.] 26. Dine on board the Columbia frigate with Capt. Parker & Mr. Jones, the chaplain. Tea total dinner. Neither wine, cider, porter nor spirit on the table — Nothing stronger than water & coffee. This is the first U. S. vessel of war that ever went to sea without a decanter in the cabin. Capt. Parker came very near losing his commission, though a valuable officer, for intemperance, & by the efforts of Mr. Jones, who was his friend as well as his chaplain, was induced to sign a total abstinence pledge. He is an excellent man, with good feeling & affections, & had but one failing. There were a number of gentlemen at dinner, all of whom, though accustomed to drink their wine, said, when going home, that they were glad to go without it & see a good man saved from destruction & a great evil corrected in the navy. Mr. Henry Morris, 31 the ist Lieut., has signed also, as encouragement to the crew & to his captain. Morris is a capital fellow. I hardly know when I have seen a man I have liked better, in his way. He is homely & rough enough, but straight forward, hearty & fair minded. 31

Henry W. Morris ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 6 3 ) went on to a distinguished career, commanding the steam sloop-of-war Pensacola in the Union Navy during the Civil War, finally taking command of the captured city of New Orleans.

62

Beginnings

M A R C H ι. Lecture at Manchester on Cape Horn. Fall in with Rev. Oliver Taylor, translator of Reinhard 32 &c. [ M A R C H ] 2. Give my sea lecture at Salem. S. goes with me. Breakfast at Judge White's. The wife knew Mrs. Dana's mother, when they were young ladies. [MARCH]

3. Gave my lecture on "Knowledge is power" at Framingham.

MARCH 4. Invited to become a member of the Boston Post Society. Declined because it is solely a Unitarian affair, & because they have all sorts of preachers at their bethel, — Universalists, Humanitarians, Transcendentalists &c. &c. Told Father Taylor 33 the reason. He says he stays with the Unitarians because they are so benevolent & liberal & do so much for his church; but that he thinks they all need conversion. He says he believes all the 39 articles of the Church of England. I doubt if he knows what he does believe. In the afternoon rode to Milton with S. Drank tea at Mrs. Russell's34 & spent the evening. Had a delightful ride home. Talked a good deal to S. about this place in wh. I spent so many happy days of childhood. When we were children, we used to spend a few days in Milton two or three times every summer. One of the remembrances I have of my mother, is seeing her sitting upon a sofa in the saloon, dressed in white, caressing & using her handkerchief, with a gentle motion to brush away the flies from her face, while talking. This was in Uncle Barney's 35 life time. The house is sacred to me. I shall always delight to be there. [ M A R C H ] 9. Went to Norwich [Connecticut] to lecture. Left Boston at one, reached Norwich at 7, & went directly into the lecture room. Spent the night with Captain Daniel Tyler, 36 late of the U. S. army, a very intelligent & spirited man of about five & thirty. His wife was a daughter of Capt. Lee, who once resided in Cambridge, & now lives in Philadel32 OHver Taylor ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 5 1 ) , after 1 8 3 9 was pastor of the Congregational Church in Manchester, Massachusetts. H e translated Franz V . Reinhard's Plan of the Founder of Christianity ( 1 8 3 1 ) , as well as Reinhard's Memoirs and Confessions ( 1 8 3 2 ) . Dana incorrectly spelled the name "Reinhardt." 33

E d w a r d Thompson Taylor ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 7 1 ) was internationally known among sailors as the seaman's preacher. H e built his Seaman's Bethel in Boston in 1 8 3 3 . 34 L y d i a Smith ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 5 9 ) , first cousin of Dana's mother, married Jonathan Russell ( 1 7 7 1 - 1 8 3 2 ) of Milton in 1 8 1 7 . She and her family were close to Dana and will appear often in the Journal. 35 Barney Smith (b. 1 7 6 3 ) was the paternal uncle of Dana's mother, brother of Dana's grandfather John Wilson Smith ( 1 7 5 9 - 1 8 0 6 ) . 3e Daniel Tyler ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 8 2 ) resigned from the Army in 1 8 3 4 and became a successful financier of railroads and canals. He resumed his military career, with mixed success, during the Civil War.

1842

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63

phia, a man of fortune. Mrs. T. a very accomplished, lively & pleasant woman. Capt. T. was sent by the U. S. to [spend] 3 years on the continent to perfect himself in the infantry & artillery tactics. During these years he saw a good deal of society [as] well as of military practice, & is exceedingly well informed. He says that the French officers always speak highly of the courage of the English, especially those who were at Waterloo. He never knew an instance when it was not admitted to the fullest extent. The next morning (10th) rode around Norwich, & walked to the Indian burial ground with Capt. T. There lay buried in one of the most romantic spots on the face of the globe, Uncas & all the royal family of the last Mohicans. A half mile from this is the battle ground where a small body of Mohicans were surprised by the Pequots & driven to the end of a point of land surrounded by the river on three sides, with the enemy on the fourth, & the banks so high & precipitous the descent was impossible, except by a leap from a frightful height. The Mohicans fought to the last & the few who remained, rather than be taken prisoners threw themselves from the height & perished in the water in the darkness of night. A mile in another direction is the plain where the decisive battle was fought between these two hostile tribes, & in which Miantonomo, Chief of the Pequots was killed by Uncas.37 On that plain Miantonomo was buried. The whole scenery about Norwich, as well as its natural position is uncommonly romantic & picturesque. It is just the place with wh. to connect the traditions of the battles, wigwams, burial grounds & hunting fields of the gallant aborigines. If a man has poetry or love of nature in him, Norwich ought to bring it out. In the afternoon Mr. Adams drove me to N. London with his ponies, where I drank tea with a Major Perkins, lectured & returned to Boston in the Ν. Y. steamer wh. touched at N. L. about midnight, on its way to Norwich. While waiting for the boat, I fell into conversation with a singular man who kept an oyster cellar there. He had followed a variety of callings, & among others, employed an artist to paint for him a picture of the Amistad negroes.38 He paid the artist & took the picture round for exhibition. He said it did not succeed very well & he lost $100 by it. Yet he said he enjoyed himself in visiting different towns, seeing the principal people & hearing the criticisms upon the picture. He said the 37

Miantonomo was murdered by Uncas in 1644, an action which gave rise to a bloody war of reprisals. 38 In 1839 fifty-four Negro slaves mutinied aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad (near Cuba), murdered half the crew, and forced the survivors to take the ship to New York. Piracy charges were not sustained by the American courts, and in 1841 the Supreme Court declared the Negroes to be free. Private charity provided them with passage back to Africa.

64

Beginnings

gentlemen who came spoke well of it, but the popular interest in the negroes had subsided. — Reached Boston at V4 before 7, the next morning, & breakfasted with S. in our rooms. Employed my time while in the rail cars making this journey in reading "Guesses at Truth". 39 Finished "Curiosity Shop". I was alone, & shed tears at the death of poor Nell. I am convinced that the book had an excellent moral effect upon me. It would be well for me to be put into such a state of feeling often. The purity of the little child contrasted with the deformities & vices of everything about her, made her appear a pearl of exquisite beauty. Would we could have the purity & simpleness of heart of this creature! But we cannot. 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy', but shades of the prison house have closed on us now.40 I can thank Dickens for several hours of the purest & most delightful melancholy & virtuous feeling I have ever experienced. APRIL 2ND. Left the U. S. Hotel & came to Roxbury to spend the summer. Board with Mrs. Atkins in Cedar st. She is a widow, who lost her husband in less than a year after marriage. She is melancholy, but of an excellent, unaffected character & religious feeling & experience. This situation is extremely pleasant, being amidst rocks & cedars, & quite retired. [APRIL] IOTH. SUNDAY. Sermon by Rev. Mr. A. D. Howe fr. "Silver & gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto you". 41 One of the most skillful & thoroughly constructed sermons I ever heard. The beggar had a permanent complaint, & asked silver & gold for a temporary relief. Peter & John had nothing for his temporary & partial relief, but in the name of Jesus of Nazareth made him whole & a new creature. So is it with the gospel. We are all under sin & have a permanent malady. We seek various kinds of relief (Here he described the moralists, the formalist, the preaching of Transcendalists & many Unitarians); but the gospel

39 Julius Charles Hare ( 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 5 5 ) and Augustus William Hare ( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 3 4 ) were the authors of Guesses at Truth: By Two Brothers, first published in London in 1 8 2 7 . It is a collection of reflective essays, paragraphs and epigrams, and was so popular that Julius Charles Hare continued adding to it, in series, until some editions went to several volumes. 40 Lines 6 6 - 6 8 of Wordsworth's " O d e on the Intimations of Immortality" read: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy . . . 41

" S i l v e r and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee" (Acts 3 : 6 ) .

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has none such. It has no silver & gold. It has only regeneration & sanctification — Every part as well as the general outline was excellent. [APRIL]

13TH.

Argue McLeod v. Peterson. Decree in my favour.

[APRIL]

15TH.

Argue Nugent v. Oden. Verdict for my client.

[APRIL] 17TH. SUNDAY. Sermon at the Congregational Church from Rev. Thos. Laurie, 42 missionary to Syria. Subject — Abraham's offering up Isaac. This is the first sermon that ever brought tears into my eyes. I am easy to shed tears over a book, or upon any event in life when thinking it over alone, but no speaker ever brot them into my eyes before. It was only for an instant. No one would have perceived it. It was at the words "his message home to his mother", when describing the last words of Isaac.43 It was more the simplicity, sincerity & unaffected deep feeling of the preacher together with his innocence of all rhetoric, that produced the effect.

APR. 20. A man came suddenly into my office talking in an incoherent manner, & who I thought to be either insane or drunk. I spoke harshly to him. He tried to answer; he choked & burst into tears. I asked [him] to sit down. He dropped into a chair & handed me a bundle of papers. There was a certificate of his marriage at Halifax N. S., a recommendation to the kindness of persons who might assist him from several public officers, & a statement that his wife had suddenly eloped & left him, after running him largely in debt. His story was this. He had been a sailor & had recently opened a sailor's boarding house in Halifax. Only about 25 years of age, of an open countenance, expressive of good & warm feelings, but without much sagacity. He had taken as a domestic a girl of 13 or 14 years, treated her kindly, clothed her, sent her to school & at last, at the age of 16, married her. She was pretty & he was infatuated with her, & gave her her way in everything. He was doing well in business & all looked encouraging & bright. A young Frenchman came to board & Towers (this was the poor man's name) turned him away from suspicions of improper intentions towards his wife; but he had no suspicions whatever or doubts of his wife. One morning he saw a boat pulling 4 2 Thomas Laurie (b. Scotland, 1821) sailed from Boston around 1830 as a missionary to the Mountain Nestorians, a mission in which h e lost his health. 4 3 Genesis 22, where the story of Abraham and Isaac is recorded, attributes no last words to Isaac before the angel interposes to stop the sacrifice; and Sarah, Isaac's mother, is not mentioned in connection with the story (Genesis 22: 7 ) . However, a very strong medieval tradition may have supplied the source of this version of the event. For example, see the fourteenth-century Miracle Play Abraham and Isaac in The English Drama, An Anthology, .900-1642, ed. E. W . Parks and R. C. Beatty ( N e w York, 1935).

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on board a vessel wh. was under way for Boston & in it was his wife with this Frenchman. It was too late for pursuit. Thunderstruck, poor Towers went to his deserted house & soon found that the ungrateful creature had robbed him of all his money & had run him in debt at every shop in the place where he had credit. In desperation, he sold his whole furniture & stock at a hurried auction, converted all into money, & taking the small balance that remained after paying the debts for wh. he had been held to bail, set off for Boston in pursuit. In one fortnight, after being settled in a house, with a wife by his side, promising business & every comfort of his condition in life, he now stood in my office, a stranger in a strange place, his home broken up, his prospects destroyed, his peace of mind, nay, as appeared, his very heart broken, his name dishonored, & with but a few shillings left him in the world. I never saw so genuine an instance of grief. His expressions of contradictory feelings; his attempts to appear indifferent & to seem as though he desired only justice; & then his tears & chokings, & incoherent words, were not to be mistaken. In his haste he had gone to Ν. Y. & Philad., & thus missed of the parties who arrived at Boston while he was gone. Their baggage was detained 2 days by the custom-house officer here on suspicion, but having no proof he had released it a few hours before Towers returned. I gave him a warrant & an officer & he went in pursuit; but after half a day spent in running about at the boarding houses, taverns & rail road stations, he came back tired out, discouraged & faint. He was quite pale & the perspiration stood upon his forehead. The officer said he was half mad & insisted that every other woman he saw was his wife. I took him to an ordinary & gave him a plate, but after a few mouthfuls he put the plate away. I asked him to eat more. His face was turned away & he could hardly speak, as he said "If you were to give me a hundred pounds, Sir, I could not eat another morsel". Yet he had eaten nothing for nearly 48 hours, & seemed faint. He left me again towards night to go in pursuit. He offered me money, wh. I refused, as he had only one dollar & 5 cents in the world. He then said he should give me a dog wh. he left in Ν. Y. as he had no more need of him. This brought on his tears again, & the poor fellow left me to pass a weary & anxious night. I advised [him] to take some rest, as I was afraid he would lose command of his senses, he was in such a state. But he replied that he could not sleep. With all his indignation, I am satisfied that he would take her back, if she would consent to go. The custom-house officer told me that she was a very good looking girl of about 18 years. MAY 2. At about 10V2 at night one of the boarders heard a cry as of a child in the street, & awakened the household. As I was up writing, I went out first & there found, lying on the damp ground, which had been

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wet all day with a cold drizzling rain, with its head resting on a stone, an infant boy. The women ran out, took it into the house, & found it to be only a few hours old. It was left so far from the house & so late at night that the person who left it must have been indifferent as to its ever being found, & it was very thinly clad. The next morning the physician, Dr. Burns, says it is a healthy child, likely to live, & it is placed at the almshouse. [MAY] 11TH. At home, sick. Read life of Henry Martyn. What a novel it would make! I never was more excited & never more beneficially affected by any book in my life. The sacrifice he made in poor L. was more than burnt offering & incense.44 War in Rhode Island.48 The Dorr party mustering in great strength. All depends on the firmness of Gov. King & his adherents. All the democratic party in Boston go for Dorr. This is to put the question upon what government depends — Whether it is mere will, or duty as well as choice. Great meeting called in State st. in Boston of the "sympathisers". Intense anxiety to get the news. Just before the meeting came to order, the penny papers came out with "Flight of Gov. Dorr".46 It was [a] damper. Hallett bellowed, Bancroft yelled, & they did their best, but people called out "Where's Dorr?" & it was no go'. [MAY]

I6TH.

[MAY] 19TH. War over in Rhode Island.47 Law & order have triumphed & the bragadocio, Dorr, has fled, — sword & all. 44 John Sargent, A Memoir of Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. (London, 1 8 1 9 ) . Martyn ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 1 2 ) was a British missionary to India. " L . " was the childhood sweetheart he forsook to follow his vocation. 45 Rhode Island's failure to revise obsolete legislation that prevented large sections of the adult population from voting had created an angry reaction from the disenfranchised portion of the electorate. In defiance of the courts and the legally elected governor, Samuel Ward King ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 5 1 ) , the disenfranchised voters formed a "People's Party," held elections, and proclaimed Thomas Wilson Dorr ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 5 4 ) governor of the state. Governor King declared martial law, made wholesale arrests when the armed People's Party failed to fight, and tried Dorr for treason. The state Supreme Court sentenced Dorr to life imprisonment at hard labor in 1844, but released him after a year of solitary confinement, restoring his civil rights in 1 8 5 1 . After his release from prison, Dorr, his health seriously impaired, went into retirement. During his lifetime, however, he saw most of the inequities which had caused the unrest repaired by legal reform. 46

Dorr had not fled, but had gone to Washington, D. C., to confer with the President. Despite Dana's comments, there was no actual war in Rhode Island. 47 A marginal note adds: "John Wilson Smith [Dana's cousin] distinguished himself leading the attack on Dorr's force. See infra, p. 103." The page reference is to Dana's own manuscript (see p. 1 1 0 of the present edition). John Wilson Smith was the son of Dana's Uncle John, his mother's brother, and was the namesake of Dana's maternal grandfather.

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[MAY] 24TH. Went over to the launch of the U.S. frigate Cumberland. Horatio E. Hale48 called. Been away five years & over, as philologist to the Exploring Expedition. Was in San Francisco 3 mos. ago, & saw the Alert there, collecting hides.49 Also saw "Hope",50 the Kanaka, mentioned in my "Two Years". Hope desired his Aikana to me — remembered me well. Hale said his face lighted up as soon as my name was mentioned to him.

[?] Met Mr. Webster51 in Washington st. He was walking leisurely along, & I was led to notice him by perceiving that people as he passed turned round & looked after him, & men standing in the shop doors pointed him out to others who were going by. He looked in good health, & had his hat slouched over his forehead. Under that hat is the greatest phrenological head in the civilised world. JUNE

JUNE 12. SUNDAY. The great event was drawing near this morning, & the lives of two beings, the one a wife & the other, if it lived, a child, might soon be decided. I went into town for Dr. Shattuck,62 & he came out about noon. After waiting an hour or so, he left to go upon a professional call. I was frequently in the room & S. walked slowly across the room with me. She had occasional violent pains but kept up. At three she was put to bed & I went below. Dr. S. went up & at half past three I was called. All was in readiness, the physician, nurse, Mrs. Watson &53 myself in the room, & poor S. in the pangs of labor. I stood beside her & held her hand all the time & whispered in her ear, & in her moments of ease she whispered to me & pressed my hand. It is an hour of harrowing anxiety, beside [the] distress of witnessing so much pain. There is surely 48 Horatio E. Hale (1817-1896), lawyer and ethnologist, had been on the government-sponsored Wilkes Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) to the South Seas. From the data he compiled he produced the monumental Ethnography and Philology (published as Volume 4 of the Expedition's Reports, 1846), establishing an international reputation. He graduated with Dana in the Harvard class of 1837. 4 9 The Alert was the ship on which Dana returned from his voyage in 1836. She was built in 1828, was later to be converted to a whaler, and on Sept. 9, 1862, was captured and burned by the Confederate raider Alabama. Details of her history are recorded in the 1911 edition of Two Years, pp. 499-502. 50 Hope was a Kanaka friend of Dana's on his voyage, whom Dana helped nurse back to health from the effects of venereal disease. 51 Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was at this time Secretary of State. 52 Either George Cheyne Shattuck, Sr. (1783-1854) or his son, George Cheyne Shattuck, Jr. (1813-1893), both of whom were practicing medicine in Boston at this time, the younger man since 1840. George, Jr. outstripped even his distinguished father, succeeding Oliver Wendell Holmes at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1849, where he served for thirty-seven years, and going on to become dean of the Harvard Medical School, whose faculty he joined in 1857. 53 Sarah's

mother, Mary Marsh Watson.

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no pain like it in the world. Poor S., who has great self command, screamed again & again as the last & heaviest came on. All self control is gone & the woman lies a mere passive instrument in the hands of an irresistible power.54 It is the rending asunder of all but soul & body. At Vi before 5 P. M. the end comes, & a living daughter is born.55 In an instant S. is awake to all the feelings of a mother & soon the signs of pain are gone & the beautiful expression peculiar to the new made mother take their place. What a load from the heart of a husband. The precious life of a wife spared, & both of them united by a new bond, & a new creature, their own offspring born into the world. God be praised. If ever man had reason to bless God with his whole heart, it is I. He has given me the best, the most tender, affectionate & faithful, as well as superior & charming wife that man ever had. Her life is spared & he has added to us a daughter to bear its mother's name & preserve her likeness, & one which promises life, health & intelligence. [ J U N E ] 13. Dr. S. pronounces the child one of "perfect symmetry". S. is doing exceedingly well. Nothing has gone wrong; but all things are as favorable as possible. [ J U N E ] 15. Judge Thatcher gave me some anecdotes of his early acquaintance with Webster. He (Judge Thatcher) had just left college & been appointed a teacher in the Exeter Academy. The first day of the term he went into the school room & looking about among the scholars saw a remarkable looking boy in the window. He said immediately to the head-master, "Who is that? Who have you got there?" The master did not know the boy, as he was a new comer, but agreed with Mr. Thatcher that he had a remarkable head & countenance. The boy was put for a while in Mr. Thatcher's class, & while there showed great power of mind in acquiring & in his answers. Mr. Thatcher looked upon him with wonder. The boy was not long under Mr. T.'s care, but either went to another class or left the school; but Mr. T. kept the run of him, & inquired after his progress & character.56 He next met him when a law student & saw plainly that he was carrying the same great powers, but matured & strengthened into the legal profession. When this man, who was Danl. 54

A marginal note initialed by Richard Henry Dana, III adds: " E t h e r had not been discovered. Mrs. H. W . Longfellow [Fanny Appleton] was the first person to take it in case of childbirth." Coincidentally, Dana later was retained as attorney by William T. G. Morton, who perfected the technique of ether anesthesia, to protect his interests in the process. 55 Sarah Watson Dana, often called " S a l l y " in the Journal, was the first of six children, all but one of them daughters. 56

A f t e r leaving Exeter, Webster went to Dartmouth, graduating which be read law, and was admitted to the Boston Bar in 1 8 0 5 .

in 1 8 0 1 ,

after

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Webster, was first elected to Congress, he stopped at Judge Thatcher's in Boston on his way to Washington, & the judge took him about & introduced him to John Lowell 57 & other leading political men. To Mr. Lowell judge Thatcher said, "I have brought you a man who is going to be the greatest man in Congress". The judge said it needed no sagacity to predict this; for Webster's greatness forced itself upon your notice, even at his boyhood. [JUNE] 16. Dr. S. been here. All going on very well. Dear S. is a happy, happy mother, indeed. If I had no other than sympathetic happiness, it would be enough. [ J U N E ] 30. Went to N. Bedford in the cars, on business. Left Roxbury at jVi A. M., reached N. Bedford at 10, attended the talcing of 3 depositions, made four calls, dined, returned in the cars & reached home at 6; having traveled nearly 120 miles. In the cars, going down, was Mr. Ticknor & his daughters & servants, bound to their residence on the sea-shore. Mr. Ticknor told me that he was at Lord Byron's, in his study, looking over books with him when the news of the battle of Waterloo came. Some one, a friend of Byron's & a baronet, whose name I have forgotten, but which Mr. T. mentioned, rushed in out of breath & said "My lord there has been a great battle fought near Brussels, & Bonaparte is completely & hopelessly routed & his army all broken up". Lord Byron said "But are you sure of this? How do you know it is true?" "Oh!" said Sir — "There's no doubt of it. There is an aid of Wellington's in town & the news is just from Downing st.". Byron was silent for some time, scowling & knitting his brows, & at last said — "I'm d — d sorry for it. I hoped to live to see Castlereagh's 58 head on a pike, but I fear I shall not". Dined at Mr. Arnold's.59 Mrs. Arnold is the most charming & dignified of women. There is something about her which interests your feelings, makes you love to be near her, & at the same time commands your highest respect & insures without enforcing it the most deferential address & manner in all who approach her. I know of nothing in society so beneficial in its influence upon young men as to be thrown into intercourse with married ladies much older than themselves & of the character & manners of Mrs. Arnold. The fopperies & affectations which they are liable to contract from being beaux to young ladies they feel to be out of place & they insensibly fall into a respectful style of address, tax their 57 John Lowell, Jr. (1769-1840) served in the Massachusetts house regularly between 1798 and 1830. He was a lawyer. 58 Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822), was Foreign Secretary at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, and a favorite target of Byron's political satires. 59 James Arnold ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 6 8 ) , New Bedford merchant and philanthropist, who served in the Massachusetts house in 1829 and on the Governor's Council, 1844-1845.

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sense & knowledge to appear to advantage & pay attentions from which they know they can have no return but increased self respect & the esteem of a superior woman. JULY I 6 T H . SATURDAY. Being completely worn down by fatigue from warm weather & hard work, determined to make a trip to Halifax, solely to change the scene, to get away from the care & toil of business, to relax my mind completely & to get upon salt water once more. Set sail, or made steam at 5 P. M. in the steam ship Caledonia bound to Halifax & Liverpool. S. being quite well, & her mother & an excellent servant with her, I can leave without much anxiety. Baggage on board, business left with Ned & Mr. Peck, fine afternoon, a noble vessel filled with passengers & we are off for Halifax. Among the passengers are Mr. Chas. Lyell, the geologist, Franklin Dexter Esq. eo U. S. Distr. Atty. for Mass., a gentleman of high spirit, elegant accomplishments & manners, on a tour for the same purposes with myself, & Mr. David Eckley of Boston, merchant, on a fishing expedition. Also Md'lle Fanny Ellsler," 1 the celebrated opera dancer, & her attendant Mr. Wyckoff. We (Mr. Dexter & I ) made the acquaintance of Geo. R. Young Esq., 62 a lawyer of Halifax, who was on board & who treated us with great civility. No sooner had we got outside of the light house & the cool, salt night wind of ocean come over us than I felt myself a new creature. It was damp & a little foggy, but I staid on deck until nearly one o'clock on Sunday morning, walking to & fro, snuffing up the breese & opening my whole system to its invigorating influence. I was on deck again before sun rise & walked deck until breakfast time, wh. was 9 o'clock. At breakfast I had a terrific appetite & ate more than I have at any meal for months. I was the last that left the table. At 10V4 A. M. a bell rang & the passengers were invited & the crew ordered into the cabin, where the captain, there being no clergyman of the Episcopal or Presbyterian Churches on board, read the service. The cabin was well filled & the company were attentive & responded in a 60 Charles Lyell ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 7 5 ) , eminent British geologist and author of several standard works in the field, was on a tour of the United States which would, in 1 8 4 5 , produce his Second Visit to the United States, an analysis of the social, as well as geological, characteristics of the country. Franklin Dexter ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 5 7 ) , was U. S. District Attorney, and had served in both the House and Senate of Massachusetts. el F a n n y Ellsler ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 8 4 ) , an Austrian, was a celebrated dancer in Europe, and at this time was on a two-year tour of the United States. In the next year she returned to England, retiring from the stage in 1 8 5 1 . e2 George R. Young ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 5 3 ) , lawyer, teacher, journalist, and Canadian legislator born in Scotland, with his brother Sir William Young was a pioneer in establishing sound government in Nova Scotia.

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proper & apparently devout manner. The rule of the boats is that if there is a clergyman of the established Churches of England or Scotland on board, he shall be invited to perform the services, & if not, that the captain shall read the service of the Church of England. This rule met with a good deal of opposition from the different dissenting sects in England & from the numerous independent sects in our own country; but seems to me to be a very necessary one. Before it was adopted every man calling himself a clergyman, of whatever denomination, creed or ordination, (& usually the most fanatical & extreme were the most forward) claimed a right to conduct religious services & to harangue the passengers upon their favorite topics. Universalists, Transcendentalists, Quakers, — Anti Slavery agents with their local & temporary topics, — every description of wild-fire Western preachers who called themselves clergymen, whatever their creed or ordination, — nay, even Mormonites & Matthias men,63 had equal claims. In this state of things the captains found it difficult & embarrassing to make a choice, & there was no safety as to the doctrines, mode of service & address or the topics of the preachers. Dissatisfaction arose among the passengers & the sabbath was turned into a day of dissention & ill feeling. Admitting the Episcopalian & Presbyterian clergy threw in the great body of the British Protestant preachers, & gave the surety that the man who officiated would be one who had been ordained by a responsible body of men, bound to look after his conduct, & who at least professed & who [would] not dare to preach against a well established Christian creed. The services of these two churches are, also, such as very few Christians cannot conscientiously & profitably join it. Such being the case, the present arrangement must be admitted to be, at least, the lesser evil. On this day, the service being a regular order of the Govemers of the company, connected with the national government, was treated with respect by all, & there being no motive for party-spirit or dispute, the day was passed in quietness & decorum. On Monday morning, we were off Cape Sable, & before noon were going up Halifax harbour. There was a set of young men on board who very early attracted my attention. They were tall, & well-made, with easy, natural manners, polite to all, but keeping rather by themselves, & dressed in the roughest traveling clothes. I soon learned that they were men of birth, & one of them a nobleman, Lord Herries,64 son of the Earl e3 Robert Matthews (1790-d. post 1840), engaged in evangelical street-preaching in Albany, Ν. Y., under the name of Matthias, prophesying the destruction of the city. He led a sect of some popularity before he was exposed as an imposter. 64 Probably Thomas George (1822-1865), who became 12th Earl of Strathmore when his father died in 1846.

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of Strathmore. The handsomest of them, & a dashing fellow he was, was Charles Sheridan, grandson of Richd. Sheridan & brother of Lady Seymour.65 Tall, straight, with well formed limbs, full of activity & spirit, dressed in a sailor's hat, jacket & trowsers, but with a decidedly genteel air, he seemed the very impersonation of youthful health & spirit. Another of the set was Baron Geyle, a young German nobleman, & Mr. Adams, late of one of the English S. American Embassies. Sheridan found me out as the author of "Two years" & I was soon in their company. We talked politics a little & I had hard work to defend my country. The African slave trade, our own slavery, repudiation, loco-focoism,ee the Rhode Island rebellion, encouraged by the chief magistrates of other states, &c. &c. the rule of faction, removals from office for party purposes, availability &c., they were familiar with, & so was I. I had nothing to say. A New York radical was present, & he said, among other things, that all our office holders were the servants of the majority, & that if a custom officer or a postmaster charged him more than he thought he ought to, or refused to accommodate him, he had only to say to him "Sir, recollect I meet you at the polls". I disavowed this doctrine & told the Englishmen that it was a specimen of those principles which [were] threatening us harm, but that there was a sound conservatism in the people which would save us. Thereupon the radical replied that I was in favor of Aristocracy & conservatism, & the reason was because I belonged to an old family, known in the history of the country, & wished to see family privileges. His politeness was only to be equalled by his principles. At night I walked deck with the captain of the boat. He was not a naval officer, but came from the forecastle of a merchant vessel. He talked of America & England, & in a very fair & liberal manner. But to his own government & his sovereign, he was as loyal [as] man can be. He told me that he had everything to gain & nothing to lose by a change; — that he had no property, rank nor influence & was not even a voter in his own country; — yet he wished no change in its institutions. Such has been the e5Charles Sheridan was one of the four sons of Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817), son of dramatist and parliamentary orator Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816). Lady Seymour was Jane Georgiana Sheridan, wife of statesman and author Edward A. S. Seymour (1804-1885), and was Thomas Sheridan's only daughter. e6 "A trade-name coined in America as that of a self igniting cigar (patented in New York, 1834), but quickly transferred to lucifer matches, and then to the extreme Radicals, or Equal Rights faction, in America, because, so the story goes, at a meeting in Tammany Hall (1835), when the chairman left his seat, and the lights were suddenly extinguished, with the hope of breaking up the turbulent assembly, those in favor of extreme measures drew from their pockets their locofocos, re-lighted the gas, and got their way." William Rose Benet, in The Reader's Encyclopedia (New York, 1948).

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feeling of every Englishman I have met with, & most of them have been favorable to Peel's Administration. JULY I8TH. MONDAY MORNING. Write to dear S. from my state room, in order to send by the Arcadia which we hoped to find in Halifax. Going up the harbour Mr. Lyell said the country appeared very much like that about many of the Norwegian harbours, — rocks, pines & cedars. It is certainly a noble harbour, capacious, deep, well protected, & little affected by the tide. The fogs & the rocks a few miles below the mouth on the sea shore, are the only drawbacks. Mr. Young points out to us the York Redoubt, Georgia's Island, the citadel crowning & commanding the whole town & harbour, the North West arm & the Bedford Basin.

Strange appearance of men carrying coal on their backs in large bags, & red coats upon the wharf. Young sends us to Coblinty's Hotel, & a great mistake we have made of it. I am put into a large dancing hall, capable of accommodating two hundred couples, with a niche screened off for a bed, wash stand &c. There is no clerk or office to go to, no keeper to attend to you, but the chamber maid, an ignorant, stupid old woman with a beard, gives you your room &: you must hunt up a negro boy to do all you want done. "Mr. Cosey", the most popular & efficient of the negro waiters is tractable & can be driven into some attention to his duty, but all the others are beyond hope. Found here Mr. Henry Codman 67 from Boston, also on a pleasure excursion. Walked down to the wharf to take leave of the Caledonia. Shook hands with Capt. Lott, Sheridan, Adams & their set, & with my Ν. Y. radical friend whose name is Felix Argonti. The Arcadia is not in. Return to the Hotel & dress for dinner. Dine at six, in English style. Most of the boarders are young men of business, in merchandise or the professions, & they come home at about half past 5, & appear at table dressed for the evening, in light vests, dress coats, &c. The meal is made a comfortable & social one, as the business of the day is over. After dinner, put off my dining dress, put on my blue loose trowsers, rough jacket & glased cap, & set out for a cruise about the town. Engage a boat for fishing tomorrow, & a boy to get bait & lines & to tend the boat. At nine go up to the barracks of the 69th to hear the tattoo. All the drums & fifes of the garrison, & two or three bugles, are assembled on the parade in front of the barracks, & when the clock strikes, the bugles play a call, & then the drums & fifes with the octave flute & triangle play for about half an hour favorite national tunes. The "Blue bells of Scotland" was played tonight in a way I never heard before & wh. I fear I shall never 6 7 Henry

Codman ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 5 3 ) , Harvard, 1808, was a Boston lawyer.

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get out of my head. The whole concludes with "God save the Queen", accompanied by a roll of all the drums in the garrison at the end of each stave. The effect upon a stranger is very imposing. I cannot help recognising the grandeur of the English name & nation. Here, 3000 miles from home, across the Ocean, are banded together in strictest discipline & perfect efficiency a corps of a thousand men, who are but a handful compared with that great army which is garrisoning half the world. At the same hour of the night, the tattoo is beating & the drums rolling, & "God save the Queen" is playing in the midst of English bayonets & nerving British hearts in China, in India, at the Southern Cape, in the mediteranean, in the Pacific, & across half of North America! Webster's figure of the British morning drum beat, comes most forcibly upon the mind.68 An Englishman feels that he belongs to the greatest nation that ever existed upon the globe. Who can blame him or dispute him. It is a nation to be proud of. She has been the salt of the earth & the Israel of the Christian faith for the last four centuries. TUESDAY, J U L Y 19TH. (The regiments at Halifax are the 64th, 69th & 76th.) On the parade at 10 A. M. to see the guard mounted. A fine band & a good show of about 200 men. At 11, went fishing at the narrows of Bedford basin. Had two boys with me to tend the head sails & cut the bait. There are no rocks or flats, so that I could manage my own boat. Caught about a dosen cod & haddock, & put back for town about 5 o'clock. Was to dine at Mr. Young's at 6. The wind came out ahead & we did not reach the wharf until that hour. Hurried up to the hotel & with great expedition got to Mr. Y.'s door at Vi before 7. The company were seated & had got through soup. I stated my excuse & we sat down. Present — Mr. Young, his brother, Mr. Wm. Young 69 who is a member of Lord Falkland's council, Count Bareuil, Sec. to Lord F., a Frenchman, Mr. O'Brien, an Irish Catholic priest, Dr. Henry, 70 the chief of the 68 From "A Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the 7th of May, 1834, on the President's Protest." Speaking of the American colonies Webster said, "They raised their flag against a power, to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjagation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England" (Webster, Works, IV, 110). e n William Young (1799-1887), at the time of Dana's writing, was a member of the legislative assembly. He became Attorney General in 1854, Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, 1860-1881, and was knighted in 1868. 7 0 Walter Henry ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 6 0 ) , professor and British army surgeon, left Canada the same year that Dana met him, to return in 1852 as Inspector General of Hospitals. He retired to a Canadian estate in 1856.

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medical staff, & Proff. Mariotti of King's College, Windsor. These were all well educated classical scholars & thoroughly informed men in all matters of polite learning. Also, expert in logic, a science but little attended to by us. Several topics of classical learning were started wh. led to arguments, wh. were conducted in the old style of logical preciseness. Count Bareuil said that "vox populi" meant the voice of the government, wh. was not that of the majority of the people counted by head, but of the tribes as artificially constituted — That if the maxim had been that the voice of greatest number of persons was the voice of God, the word would have been plebicolae, & not populi. O'Brien is an acute, thorough educated man & an admirable logician, but one does not feel as confident of his disinterestedness & simplicity as of his ability. The two Youngs were so ordinary in their appearance & manners, & in fact looked so under-bred that one would pass them without notice; yet when they come to converse, you found them scholars & well informed in all parts of literary knowledge. I am told that this inferiority of caste is noticeable as soon as you get out of the aristocracy & upper gentry with hereditary estates & old names, among men whose education & professions would entitle them to the first rank in America, & who, educated to that among us, would probably have had the manner which marks high breeding. J U L Y 20. WEDNESDAY. Parade again at 10. About noon started off with Mr. Codman on horseback to Cole Harbour, about 6 miles distant. Delightful ride there & back. Country very green. Dined at six. In the evening put on my rough clothes again & strolled off towards the barracks to hear the tattoo. While there, saw two girls accosting men for bad purposes. I was struck with the manner of one of them. She looked very young, had rather an interesting face & could not muster the impudence necessary for her calling. The girl with her went [boldly] up to the men, but this one kept behind & seemed to be new in her calling. Observing that I was watching them, & mistaking me in the twilight for a sailor or some rowdy (from my dress) they came towards me, & the elder solicited me in a very forward manner. I turned her off, but looked full into the face of the other & her eye fell. I walked away & watching them from a distance, saw that their relative conduct was the same. I felt a sudden interest in the younger girl, & knowing that I was a stranger & was completely disguised for the light there then was, went up to the girls & beckoned the younger one to follow me. Thinking it to be in the way of her trade she followed me, & the other said nothing. I walked until I was hidden from view by the side of a fence in a lane & then called the girl to me. I told her at once that I did not want her in the way of her calling,

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but wished to say a word to her. I then in a careless manner opened my ooat to show her that I had the dress of a gentleman, & she saw by my voice & man[ner] that I was different from what they supposed, & she answered me very respectfully. I told her plainly & at once that I knew what she was, what her life was & had been, & asked her if she knew what she was fast going to. She made no reply; but looked down. I then set before her in as kind & affectionate a manner as I could, the end which inevitably awaited her. I told her that she would fall from step to step, would become diseased & in time a burden upon the persons who kept [her] & then would be left to die a miserable death of neglect, suffering & remorse. She was a good deal affected, the tears stood in her eyes, & after a time she said she knew it all. I then asked her how she came into that situation. Finding, from something she said, that she supposed me to belong to Halifax, I let her go on in the error, thinking that she would be more careful to tell me no more than the true story. She told me her name, the name & occupation of her father & where he lived. She said her mother died when she was fourteen & left her father with herself & two younger brothers. The brothers were put into the almshouse & bound out to trades. She could not go to the almshouse & begged her father to take a room & she would keep it for him; but her father was rather intemperate & refused to do it, & she went out to service. A boy of about 16, the son of a baker, (whom she mentioned as a person I must know) attended to her & in time, being left without helps or advisors, he had his way with her. This was discovered before long, & the person she lived with turned her away, without any effort to save. She could not get another place as she had no certificate of character. In this difficulty she went to her father, who turned her away with contempt. One of her brothers had gone to sea, & the other was too small to help her. At this trying time she was invited to the house of a washer-woman & went there to work. This was a bad house, & she fell into a set of the lowest girls of the town, & was soon out in the streets in the manner I saw her: — Such was her story. I could not but believe it, partly because, taking me for a resident, she referred to so many sources from which I could easily learn its falsity, if it were false, & partly from its probability. Had she been seduced by a man of wealth or gentility she would have been passed about as a kept mistress, for she was very good looking, but having been turned loose upon the town where she was well known for an affair with a poor lad, she naturally fell thus early into the lowest walks of her calling. I asked her if she ever went to church? She answered — "It would only be making a mock of it, Sir, to go to church & then go right away & do bad again". I found that her parents were Catholics & that she had been

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baptised by Father Laughlan, the priest who usually attended upon the poor. 1 then told her to go him, & tried to encourage her that he might get her a place & that she might in time regain her respectability, being young, & find herself in a decent situation in the world. I told [her] that girls in her situation, if taken away at once, had been reformed, had married respectable men & found themselves happy & comfortable, instead of dying in misery & despair. She said she had thought often of this, but that all were against her where she lived & would not permit her to leave & that no one had encouraged her. She promised me that she would see Father Laughlan the next day & would do all she could to get away. I gave her some money & told her to keep away from men, & asked her if she could not — "God knows", said she, seriously, & as though she was speaking her whole mind "I never saw any pleasure in it". She then told me what her life was, of the dreadful death of one of the girls in her house, & seemed completely stirred up to extricate herself from it. I then told her that I was a stranger & married, & that I had spoken to her from what I observed of her with the other girl & from a desire to do her good. I said that I should be at the same place the next night, & that if she was sincere & went to the priest, & wished to tell me so, I should be glad to hear it; but that she might do as she chose, &, as I should go away the day after never to return, if she did not do as she promised, she need not meet me, & I should never know more of her. This left her perfectly at liberty to do as she chose. I had left her but a few minutes & was going down a street near the South barracks when, I saw a crowd rushing up the street with cries of "down with him", "kill him", "knock him over"&c.,& saw a soldier running for his life toward the barrack gate. One man brought him a blow by the side of the head which knocked him down, & two or three more struck him as he fell. Some money fell from his pocket, upon the stones of the gutter, & the men stopping to pick it up, the soldier got upon his feet, looked round a moment as though bewildered, & then ran for his life toward the gate, calling out "By the Holy Ghost" — "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" as though half stunned & in pain. The mob was too near the barracks to pursue him. I followed & saw him go in, & in an instant there was cry of "Serjeant of the guard!" "Picket, fall in!" &c., & in a minute more a dosen soldiers of the picket for the night, dressed in their long grey coats & high cloth caps, with muskets in hand & bayonets fixed, headed by their Serjeant, rushed from the gate in the direction from which the crowd came. They overtook another soldier who had been beaten & who went with them to point out the men. In five minutes the picket returned with three or four prisoners, rowdyish looking fellows, whom they put in the watch house. I went up to the scene of the row, & there saw about half a dosen houses, in each

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of which a fiddle, with tambourines or triangles, was playing, & a crowd of the lowest description, both males & females were going [in] & out. A decently dressed man standing near told me that this street, between the two barracks, on the hill, was the nest of the brothels & dance-houses, & that dancing went on here every night. Buttoning up my coat & pulling my cap over my face, I went into the largest of these houses. The door was open & people passed in & out as they chose. The entry terminated in an oblong room with low & black walls, sanded floor & closely barred shutters, used as a dancing hall. At one end was a platform holding two chairs upon which the fiddle & triangle player sat. At the other end was the bar, at which the bloated, red faced master of the house sold the glasses of rum, brandy & wine to the girls & their partners. In the middle of the room, in an arm chair, sat the old harradan, the "mother" of the house, with a keen wicked eye, looking sharp after the girls & seeing to it that they made all the men dance & pay the fiddler & treat them at the bar after each dance. There were about a dosen girls, nearly all of whom were dancing, & the average number of men in the room at a time was from 20 to 30. Having looked with sufficient disgust & horror at the old creatures who conducted the orgies & made gain out of this dreadful trade, I turned my attention to the girls, & after carefully watching them singly for some time, looking in their faces, for many of them came up & spoke to me as they did to others, & hearing them talk, I can sincerely say that there was not one of them who would not, to my mind, excite only loathing & pity in the breast of any but a man as degraded as they. Indeed, I asked myself several times — Can any man be in such a state as to have intercourse with these creatures? There was almost a certainty of disease, for every one of them looked broken down by disease & strong drink. The chance of a man's becoming diseased by connexion with them would certainly be ten to one with each of them. Then, with the exception of two or three who seemed coarse & hardened, they were such pitiable objects. One of them came up & spoke to me, — the best looking at a distance. She had bright cheeks, though thin, good features, & black hair curling in ringlets from the top of her head. When she came close to me, the marks of degradation were plain upon her. The skin was tight to her bones, her chest was fallen in, her eyes were wild & sparkling partly from liquor, but with dark lines & cavities under them, every sign of health, natural animation & passion had left her, & with a wasted form, hectic & fallen cheek, glassy eyes, & a frisette fastened to her head, she looked like a painted galvinised corpse. Her breath too was strong of brandy, & she was partly stupefied with drink. With the exception of two or three thick set, clumsy, coarse featured, pug-nosed & pock-marked Irish wenches, who seemed in good keeping,

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this poor girl was a fair specimen of the company. She is an instance of the effect of such a life upon those who have been handsome & in better circumstances, while those who have been coarse & vulgar & but little better than harlots from earliest life, brought up in vice, often retain their robustness, even when diseased. Black & white, too, were mixed up together, & the girl I have described had been dancing with a sooty fellow in a sailor's hat & duck trowsers torn at the knees, probably the cook of some merchant vessel. Having staid as long as I dared to without either dancing or going to the bar, or attracting notice, I slipped out & went into the next house. This was smaller & more filthy, & there were only two or three white girls of the lowest description among half a dosen black girls or women, for some of them seemed quite advanced. There was very vulgar & rough work here, two or three drunken sailors & a good deal of horse-play. One of the girls kicked a man in the back not much below the shoulders while they were dancing & there was good deal of swearing & hard talking. I was glad to slip out soon after I came in; but as it was one of the girls saw me going out & sprang towards me & got me by the arm, but I pulled my arm away from her & jumped through the narrow entry into the street. Fearing some of [the] drunken men might follow, & having no weapon of defense, — not even a cane — I stood under the shadow of the opposite building until I saw there was no pursuit. Determined to see the whole of this new chapter in the book of life, I went into a third & a fourth house, in which the scenes varied between the two first I had seen, neither quite so bad as the second, & neither superior to the first. It being now 11 o'clock, having seen fair specimens of the life on Halifax Hill, & most other such places on the globe, I presume, & having got through in safety, 1 walked slowly home to my hotel. The two adventures I had met with so possessed my mind that I lay awake for hours. Poor Kitty Morricay! (for that is her name) are you coming to such a dreadful end as this? Will you end your days among the negroes & outcasts on the hill? What a dreadful fate has society ordered for a single fault in a woman! No pity! No repentance can help her! No return! Yet this must be God's order, & it is necessary. No lesser terrors would guard female virtue. How unjust, too, the world is! Fanny Ellsler, or any other admired & successful strumpet, though her whoredoms are a part of the history of Europe, & notorious as the death or birth of a crowned head, — will be applauded & followed after & the world sees nothing but her grace & the "poetry of motion"; but if to vice is added poverty & misfortune, the virtue of the world is stern & has no eye for pity. What will probably be

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the eternal condition of the people I have seen tonight? — immortal souls, — made in God's image, living by his grace & power! Prayed earnestly & I trust sincerely, that God would touch the heart of the poor girl & save her from such an end. J U L Y . 2 1 S T . THURSDAY. Parade at ten, & went fishing immediately afterward. Before I went fishing, called at a tract & bible store to get a book that might be of use to poor Kitty, intending to give it to her that evening if she came to the place appointed. A short story, setting before her her life & its end, & which would stir up her religious feelings might be of use to her. I found no one in attendance but a woman, & I could neither find such a book myself nor describe it to her, — so I left the shop. The Bedford basin where I sailed is the most [remarkable] sea-bay I was ever in. The harbour passes Halifax town like a wide river, & then, about 2 miles above the town, after narrowing in a little, it spreads out into this large, deep, irregular basin, surrounded by well wooded shores, but little affected by the tide, without flats or rocks, & containing, I was told, 14 square miles of anchorage! It is the most complete sailing ground for boats & small vessels that can be imagined, & is at the same time large & deep enough to hold the whole British navy. This great head of water above the town, flowing in & out with the tides, & itself supplied by springs, small rivers & creeks, keeps the harbour deep & prevents any danger of its filling up. It would be almost impossible for a hostile force to get up into this basin, as there is but one passage way into .it. The ride round the basin is said to be quite beautiful. After fishing at the narrows some time I sailed about the basin in all directions, having a fine breese. There were several other boats & small vessels there at the same time. Coming back, towards night, I sailed close under the lee of two sloops of war, just arrived from the West Indies, — the Race Horse & Volage, both with yellow fever on board. The old frigate Pyramis lay at her moorings, used as a receiving ship. After dinner learned that Mr. Wm. Young had sent his servant with a horse for me to take a ride. Wrote a note to thank him. Towards nine sauntered along in my boating dress towards the South Barracks. It began to rain & the tattoo was played within the gates. I went into the garrison by permission, & for a few minutes it rained quite heavily. When the music was over it had stopped raining but was cloudy. It was nearly half an hour later than the time I had agreed to meet the poor girl, & the rain would have kept her away, I was quite sure, or she would have gone away thinking I would not come, — even if she meant to come at all. I felt quite sure that she would not come unless she had been to her priest, for I had told her that I would call on

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the priest & speak to him about her, & thus she would suppose I would find her out. I passed along the parade & down the street, but saw no one. Returning I thought I saw some one at a distance, & walked back again slowly. Looking behind me I saw a figure coming toward me, & walking slowly on it overtook me, & it was she. I walked aside & she followed me. I asked her what she had to tell me, & she told me she had been to Father Laughlan that morning early, & he treated her kindly, remembered her family, & told her to come the next day & he would try to aid her. (This she told me, before knowing that I had not been to see the priest, as I told her I might). She said he asked her how she came to think of reforming, & she told him how it happened, & that a gentleman who was a stranger had spoken to her & sent her to him. I told her that I had tried to get a book for her, & she said she could read easily & wished to have it. I told her, too, that I expected to go away the next day or the day after, & that if it should not be until the day after, I would meet her in the same place the next night & give her the book. I made her promise to read it [&] to keep it, & said that if she reformed & became happy & comfortable, the book would be a remembrance, & if she did not — still to keep it, & it might some day be of use to her. All this she promised, & seemed very much affected. I told her I had a wife at home to whom I should tell her story, & who would feel for her. 71 She asked when I should come back. I told her probably never; but added that I had friends here who would inform me, if her efforts succeeded. I did not think it safe to let her know my name. I told her that if I did not meet her the next night, she might be sure that it was because I had gone away. She promised to be there. I once more set before her the certainty of the fate that awaited her, & drew the best picture of the chances in case she changed, & left her. JULY 2 2 . FRIDAY. This morning learned that the steamer Saxe Gothe, the one I was to go in for St. John, was to sail at noon. I felt regret that I could not keep my appointment, for I wished to do all I could for the poor creature, & I feared that the discouragement of not seeing me might put her back. I wrote a notice to Father Laughlan, describing the case & enclosing a sum of money with which I asked him to purchase a book & give to her of a kind which I mentioned, & commended her to his pastoral care, & requested him to let me know in case any good was accomplished for her. Having called on the Messrs. [Young], & parted with Mr. Dexter, & Messers. Eckley & Codman, who remained to come up in the Columbia, 7 1 Dana made a practice of reading his travel entries in the Journal he returned.

to Sarah when

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embarked in the Saxe Gothe bound for St. John N. Brunswick, via Liverpool, Shelburne, Cape Sable, &c. stopping at all the ports along the coast. I preferred this route to going over land, because the object of [the] whole expedition had been sea-air, exercise & roughing it, for health. I went on board in my long, loose blue trowsers, rough jacket & glased cap, & we got under way at 1 P. M. Took leave of Halifax, its citadel, its barracks, the basin, the York redoubt, as we went down the harbour. The object of my visit had been answered. I had cleared my mind completely from business & cares, & by complete relaxation, with out door exercises, had restored the healthful & active tone of my system. I had refused all invitations to public places, to dinners, parties &c., & none of us delivered our letters of introduction, for we found that we could not go a fishing all day, & then sunburnt, tired & blackened, dress for a party in the evening. I had resolutely kept from books, & although I had books in my trunk & many leisure hours yet I made a principle of not looking at them, & loafed or walked about the streets or slept instead. Every morning before breakfast I had walked either over the citadel, which [is] the grandest fortification I ever saw, with a fine commanding situation, or to the Government House, or barracks. We were no sooner round the point, & out upon the deep sea than the wind blew very heavily, & a violent sea arose. Nearly all the passengers were sick, & one of them, Mr. Eustis Prescott, who had been my fellow passenger from Boston & was now going to Liverpool N. S., told me that he had crossed the Atlantic frequently but had never lost a meal from sea-sickness. The worse the weather the better I felt, & having cloths suited for all weathers I remained on deck nearly all the time walking to & fro, & enjoying the consciousness of health, strength & activity, increasing by the bracing sea air & heightened by the contrast presented by those about me. After tea & about 10 P. M. we touched at Lunenburgh & landed & took off a few passengers.72 At nine, I thought of poor Kitty Morricay. Did she wait for me? I hope she was not discouraged in her effort by my not returning. J U L Y 23. SATUBDAY. Arrived at Liverpool about 7 A. M. As we were to stay an hour, went ashore & walked throught the town. The town is built upon a single street running by the side of the river, winding along, & the houses have pretty garden spots before or by the side of them, & are painted, neat & comfortable in appearance. It is quite a pretty village of about 2000 inhabitants, I should judge. 72

From "At nine" to the end of this entry was added by Dana at a later time.

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Stood out again to sea, bound for Shelburne. About three o'clock stood up Shelburne Bay. This bay is said to be the best in Nova Scotia, being very extensive, deep & surrounded by well wooded country in many parts. The town of Shelburne is situated at the extreme end of the bay, & presents a remarkable instance of decay. It was founded by a large company of royalists who fled from the United States at the breaking out of the war of '75, & who selected this site on account of the excellence of the harbour. Here they built a town, planted farms, built vessels & engaged largely in privateering, the carrying trade & other modes of active industry by land & sea. There being a good deal of wealth among them the town was handsomely built & large capital was embarked & set in motion. For many years the town grew & flourished; but the general peace wh. followed the battle of Waterloo, threw it upon its regular legitimate resources for trade in times of peace; & from that time the downward progress of the place has been uninterrupted. The reasons for this were that it has no back country to support it & for which it would be the natural market & seaport, for it is situated at the end of the peninsular 73 of Nova Scotia, with Halifax above it to cut off its [trade], & because it lies so far up the bay that it is little used as a port of supplies, or a fishing station, In fact, the world seems to have given it the go-by, entirely. With as beautiful a harbour as the face of the globe can show, & with large capital to assist it, it stands as a warning to all who disregard the regular course of things in the affairs of men & attempt to counter-act it by particular & local efforts. As we steamed slowly up the bay the captain of the boat told me that its shores had once been lined with beautiful farms, & that the forlorn unpainted houses which stood here & there without a fence near them or any signs of cultivation, & used as the dwellings of fishermen, were once the abodes of substantial farmers who tilled their acres, supplied the town & sent their produce to other countries. He said, too, that as fast as the older & more wealthy men died off or left, their houses were taken to pieces, exported & put up again in other places. & that in this way all the best part of the town had been gradually moved off. This accounted for the fact that in a town which had diminished to one quarter of its sise within 20 years there should be no ruinous large houses. Throughout this wide sheet of water, spreading out like a large inland lake, not a sail nor a moving craft was to be seen. Had we been its discoverers we could not have gone over in more perfect stillness. As we drew nigh the town we saw a single vessel, a little fishing schooner, lying at anchor off the wharves, 7 3 Except in the case of proper nouns, Dana's spelling has been followed wherever its peculiarities do not obscure his meaning. Most misspelling of proper nouns and names has been corrected, usually with a note to indicate the original form.

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while rotting by the side of the wharves, themselves decaying as rapidly, lay two small vessels, condemned for old age. We rang our bell as we made fast to the wharf, & its echoes awaked the dead stillness about us like the fire bell at night. The persons who came down to the wharf were children or old women. I believe but one or two men came, & they seemed decrepit, & laid on the shelf. As [we] were to stay here a half hour, I went ashore to walk about this singular place. As the captain had told me, there was not a large house in the town: they had all been moved off, & the cellars under them had gradually filled up & been grown over with grass. The streets could not be distinguished except by the lines of houses, as carriage way & side walk were alike grown over with grass. Not a vehicle of any description was in motion, nor was there the sound of a blacksmith's hammer nor of the carpenter's axe in the place, but the dead stillness of a Jewish sabbath reigned over the whole region. Excepting the inimitable accumulation of images of decay in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes,74 & part of Burke's description of the Carnatic, 75 1 know of nothing in descriptive literature wh. the sight of this place called to my mind. The doors were indeed shut in the streets, the pitcher broken at the fountain & the wheel broken at the cistern. As we walked through the deserted streets, carefully laid out at right angles, hardly a person rose up at the footsteps of strangers, & half a dosen men, strangers, walking about on a Saturday afternoon, hardly drew a face to the window, or brought a boy or girl to the door. No trade or occupation of industry of any description seemed to be carried forward, nor was there a house of entertainment or a shop in the entire 74 "And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; "Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern" (Eccles. 1 2 : 4 - 6 ) . 75 The Carnatic, a region on the southeast coast of India, was desolated by war and famine and economic exploitation between 1765 and 1780. Burke describes it in " A Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts, February 28, 1785," Works, III, 64-65: "When the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region. . . . The Carnatic is a country not much inferior in extent to England. Figure to yourself, Mr. Speaker, the land in whose representative chair you sit; figure to yourself the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country from Thames to Trent, north and south, and from the Irish to the German Sea, east and west, emptied and embowelled (may God avert the omen of our crimes!) by so accomplished a desolation."

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settlement. In one window we observed some thread, papers of pins & a few weather stained articles placed, but the door step was almost inaccessible, & there seemed to be no one in the room. The ringing of the second bell called us aboard & we cast off from this paralised village without having landed or taken on board a single passenger. The captain said he should represent to the company the expense & waste of time in coming up this long bay, & see if they would not dispense with these formal visits.76 The dress of the people we saw was very antiquated & strange, & the stillness of the place seemed to have crept over the spirits of the inhabitants. I should hardly have been surprised had I been told that the children were deaf & dumb. The bay looked beautifully as we steamed down it, towards sun-set, & we rounded the point & were out upon the Ocean before nightfall. A thick fog closed in upon us as we cleared Shelburne bay, & all night long we were sailing in a perfect shroud of fog. Towards morning we passed Cape Sable, in the course of the morning felt our way by the lead among the Tusket Islands. The fog was so thick that with the sharpest look-out from the bows, at high noon, we could not see land until we were so near that a back revolution of the paddles was necessary to keep us off from it. In one instance we made an island, but the fog was so thick the captain could not tell what it was, & sent the pilot ashore in the boat. Though we were within a cable's length of the shore, the pilot missed the vessel in coming back & found us only by the tolling of our bell. As it was he could not see anything of the island when he landed except a few rods round him, & knew it only by a fence & an old tree which stood near where he landed. From this island we judged of the position of the others, & groped our way among them by the lead, by guess & sometimes by sending the small boat ashore. Sunday afternoon we touched at Yarmouth & landed passengers, & lay to for the fog in the outer harbour. Early Monday morning got under way, & passing through Grand Passage touched at Briar Island, & stood across the bay of Fundy for St. John. J U L Y 25TH. MONDAY. Arrived at St. John at about 4V2 P. M. & took lodgings at the St. John hotel. After tea went to the barracks to hear the tattoo. The 30th regiment of foot was stationed there, recently from Bermuda.

Parade of the 30th. at 10 A. M., & target shooting at 3 P. M. Tattoo at 9. Beautiful evening. At my request the serjeant who had charge of the music ordered them to play the "Blue bells of [ J U L Y ] 26TH.

76

I n 1 9 5 9 Shelburne had a population of 2 3 3 7 . T h e local industry is shipbuilding, notably yachts.

1842

A Year of

Initiation

87

Scotland". The band is an excellent one, consisting of between 40 & 50 instruments, & constant practice is enforced. Had a good deal of conversation with a serjeant of the 30th, a very intelligent man, upon the British service. I was surprised to learn that each soldier enlists for 25 years, which is equivalent to an enlistment for life. They are very strict, too, in their requirements & no man is enlisted over a certain age, (which [is] a very young date, though I don't recollect what) except of a certain height, & any physical imperfection will be sufficient to cause his rejection. Nearness of or imperfection of sight, hesitation in speech, varicose veins in the legs, consumptive tendencies, or any stiffness or other imperfection in the use of any joint in the hand or any limb of the body, — any one of these would be fatal. Notwithstanding this strictness the government always has an abundance of recruits offered, & frequently regiments are filled up by men selected from three, five or eight their number. This is owing to the destitute condition of the lower classes, to whom a tolerable support for life is a great inducement to enlist. As a soldier is to be kept for 25 years it is quite worth while for the government to take pains to make a good man; accordingly the soldiers are well fed & clothed, comfortably lodged, taken good care of in sickness, their cleanliness looked well after, & steady & moral habits encouraged. The most respectable of them are made corporals & in course of time serjeants, the office of serjeant, & particularly that of color serjeant to a company, or serjeant major to a regiment, is an honorable & profitable office & having many immunities, so as to be quite worth striving for. JULY 27. WEDNESDAY. At 5 P. M. embarked in the steamer North America for Boston. It rained the first two hours, but as I had on my rough sea-clothes, I did not mind it. Had on board between 60 & 70 Irish emigrants, of the poorest class. They slept on deck under the awning & upper-deck, & had their baggage mostly in bundles. They were not allowed to come abaft the engine, on any pretense, so that w e were free from them entirely. At 10V2 touched at Eastport. I stepped on shore just to be able to say that I had stood upon the land of the state of Maine. L e f t again just before 12 Midnight, touching at Campo Bello, which belongs to Gr. Britain, to get a clearance & avoid the U. S. law against the coasting of foreign vessels. Thursday morning it rained. At noon cleared off. Among the passengers, the Rev. Mr. Clinch of the Episcopal Church, settled at S. Boston, a Nova Scotian by birth, & educated at Windsor College. Saw a good deal of him.— a well educated, well bred & agreeable man. 77 Also a Mr. H o w e of Portland who is good, but soft & tiresome. 77 Joseph

H. Clinch, pastor of St. Matthews Church, Boston, will meet Dana again

during the Episcopal heresy trial of Dana's client, Oliver S. Prescott, in 1852.

88

Beginnings

In the afternoon while walking deck with Mr. Clinch, heard a violin & going forward saw the emigrants dancing. Yes, these poor creatures, 3000 miles from home, going to a strange land, a few hours before wet, herded together in misery & a most pitiful spectacle, — were now, at the first beam of the sun, fiddling & dancing. No other people than the Irish or the French would do it. Neither a Scotchman, an Englishman nor a Yankee would do it. The fiddler had his pipe in his mouth, & they enjoyed themselves highly for several hours. [ J U L Y ] 29TH. At day break am in Boston harbour, & having awakened & dressed & gone on deck, find myself between the castle & Long Wharf. Glad am I to be here. My wife & child to be in my arms in an hour! I was not long in engaging a hack, & ordering the man to drive to Roxbury. It is 6V2 A. M. as I pass the church. Get my trunk into the entry before any one knows I am here. Mrs. Atkins sees that there is no one in my wife's chamber but herself, & I run up to meet her. Dear, dear S. What a happy life I lead with such a creature to bless me. After an early dinner, go in to my office. Ned has gone to Burlington, & Mrs. Watson returned to Hd. with him. All is well in my business. Sarah & little Sally had been to Cambridge, & little Sally had been knelt to & saluted by Mr. Allston.

AUG. 2. Ride with Sarah to Cambridge & take tea at Aunt Martha's. Aunt Sarah is there. Aunt Elizabeth] has gone to Niagara with Professor [Ε. T.] Channing & lady; & father & Charlotte are at Rockport. Delightful ride both there & back. S. & I are no less lovers than a year ago. This is the true happiness of married life, when the fervour, the deferential address, & the sentiment & romance of courtship are not worn away. They never need be. [If] they are, it is the fault of one or both of the parties. There are married persons who are always lovers. gra. To Andover, to deliver an address before the Literary Societies of Phillips Academy. Dine with the Trustees — Present, Judge Hubbard, S. T. Armstrong, Prof. Stuart, Dr. Woods, Prof. Felton of Cambridge &c. 78 In the afternoon walked about this beautiful region which I had not seen for ten years. Just ten years ago, & I was passing the summer here, a Freshman at college, reading my classics, & German with Leonard [AUG.]

7 8 Samuel

Turell

lieutenant-governor, (1807-1878)

Armstrong

(1784-1850),

a

Boston

book

publisher,

had

been

1833-1835, and mayor of Boston in 1836. Leonard Woods, Sr.

was professor of theology at Andover Theological Seminary for thirty-

eight years, and a leading figure in the Congregational Church. Cornelius C . Felton ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 6 2 ) was Eliot Professor of Greek at Harvard, 1834-1860 and president of Harvard, 1860-1862.

1842

A Year of Initiation

89

Woods, sensitive, dreading to encounter the strife of the world, looking forward with as much doubt as hope. A sickness was over me the whole afternoon. I walked to the grave yard where poor — was buried. 79 A simple grave with a plain white marble stone at its head on which is her name, & her death — Sept. 3, 1836, aged 19 years. A willow tree planted beside it by her brother. I feared to be interruped there, as some persons walk there, & sat down upon a stone beyond the wall. I thought on the world of spirits where you are gone, & where you are happy, if any mortals can be happy. What a poor creature of vanity, pride & degrading sinfulness am I. I wished S. were with me that we could mourn together & talk together over this thing. I have told her the story of the dead, & she has felt with me for her. Lectured before the Societies. Felt the vanity of all earthly things & wished my lecture had been of a more serious kind. Passed the night at Mr. Taylor's, the preceptor, & left for Boston in the early cars. Drank tea, the night before, at Prof. Stuart's. The Prof, is very agreeable, but is full of new books. Mrs. Isaac Stuart from Hartford is there, a friend of S's. There, too, saw Miss Sarah Stuart, who reminded me constantly of times gone by. [AUG.] 10TH. Mr. Daggett here, from the Springs, & is to take Sarah to Hartford, on a visit. He saw Ned at Saratoga & Aunt E. with her party at Albany. Aunt E. is at Lenox & Stockbridge, visiting the Sedgwicks.

AUG. 12TH. Sarah & little Sally, with Olive,80 set off under Mr. Daggett's charge to Hartford to spend a month or more. S. has two photographic engravings of me & I one of [her]. [AUG.] 15TH.

Not having heard from Hartford, write to S.

[AUG.] 17TH. Letter from S. Little S. has been ill, from her journey. Poor little lamb. S. is to write often, until she is well. Answered her letter. Ned returns from Burlington. Read me his oration. Admirably written, as it seems to me. A young man called for advice in his private affairs who told me he had read my book, "Two Years", while he was tending in a druggist's shop at Birmingham in England. As I would not receive anything for my advice, which was not professional, he insisted on my accepting a little silver pencil case, about an inch in length, & complete in all its parts. [AUG.] 21ST. SUNDAY.

Read

Henry

Martyn & Jer. Taylor. In the

evening, write to S. 79

Sarah Woods, the girl whose deathbed confession of love for Dana moved him, after his return from the sea, to a more serious engagement with religious experience. R0 Olive was the Danas' maid.

Beginnings

90 [AUG.]

22ND.

Letter from S.

Little S. is better.

Meeting of the Alumni at Cambridge. Oration by Judge Story. Prayer by Dr. Woods. Dinner. Walk with the class of 1835, which is the one I feel myself actually to belong to.81 Twenty two of us present, & all sit down at one table together, at one table. It is eight years since I have seen most of them. We had a very pleasant time. Present — Fabens, Boylston, Hoar, Miller, Storey, Abbott, Bemis, Spooner, Edw. Appleton, Brewer, Buckminster, Cushing, Dorr, Goodrich, Jones, Robeson, Lyon, Palfray, Ritchie, C. C. Shackford & Welch. 82 Bancroft made a spirited & eloquent speech, screaming like a demon, Hillard read some fervid poetry, Mr. Allston made a short speech which few heard, Ben. R. Curtis made a neat & handsome speech, Judge Davis made a reply wh. nobody heard, Judge Shaw & Gov. Davis were dull, Prof. Greenleaf was neat, &c.83 I was called out to answer for the classes subsequent to 1830. From all I can learn my speech was successful. [AUG.]

23RD.

81 Dana left the Class of 1835 when he went to sea in 1834. On his return he joined, and graduated with, the Class of 1837. 82Francis Alfred Fabens (d. 1872) practiced law in San Francisco after 1854. Ward Nicholas Boylston (1815-1870), a physician, moved early from Boston to manage family estates at Provincetown, Massachusetts. Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, a lawyer, is mentioned earlier. Charles William Storey (1816-1893) was a Boston lawyer and clerk of the Massachusetts house, 1844-1850. George Jacob Abbott (1812-1879) was Daniel Webster's secretary, and later a member of the U. S. Consular Service. There were two men named Bemis in the Class of 1835: Charles V. (1816-1906), a physician, who was for many years director of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and George (1816-1878), evidendy not related, who is mentioned earlier. Allen Crocker Spooner (1814-1853) was a Boston lawyer. Edward Appleton (1816-1898) was a civil engineer and in 1869-1870 one of the state's first railroad commissioners. Thomas Mayo Brewer (1814-1880) was a physician and, after 1851, editor of the Boston Atlas. William John Buckminster (1814-1878) was editor of the Massachusetts Ploughman. Thomas Cushing (1813-1895) spent his life as principal and classics tutor of the Chauncey-Hall school in Boston. Theodore Haskell Dorr (1815-1876) was a minister until 1874. He died in a mental asylum. James L. Goodrich left no record. There were two men named Jones in the Class of 1835: Daniel (1813-1844), a businessman at Nantucket, and Frederick (1813-1892), a physician at New Ipswich, New Hampshire. William Rotch Robeson (1814-1892) was a Boston merchant. Henry Lyon (1814-1900) was a physician until 1851, when he entered business. Charles Warwick Palfray (1813-1900), editor of a newspaper in Salem, died on the same day as Henry Lyon — May 13, 1900. James Ritchie (1815-1873) traveled around the United States as a teacher and minister, eventually setded in Roxbury, where he was mayor. Charles Chauncey Shackford left no record. John Hunt Welch (1815-1852) was a lawyer and Boston merchant. 83 George Bancroft, George S. Hillard, Washington Allston, Governor John Davis, and Simon Greenleaf have all been mentioned earlier. Benjamin Robbins Curtis (1809-1874) was appointed to the U. S. Supreme Court in 1851, resigned in 1857 in a dissent from the Dred Scott decision, returning to the practice of law. John Davis (1761-1843) was a judge of the U. S. District Court in Massachusetts, 1801-

1842

A Year of Initiation

91

[AUG.] 24TH. Went out to Commencement. Walked in the procession & dined in the Hall. Sat next to Dr. [J. G.] Palfrey, & Dr. Francis.84 Dr. P. says that Prof. Kingsley & the N. Haven gentlemen are right in their controversy with Pres. Quincy as to the origin of Yale College. So, he thinks, is Prof. Ford. This is a good deal for a doctor of Unitarian divinity at Harvard to say.85

Phi Beta. Oration by Wm. B. Reed of Philad.86 Like it very much, on the whole, especially its spirit. Dinner. Lord Ashburton present; just returned from making the treaty 87 at Washington. He is a firm, manly, independent, strong minded looking old gentleman. Lord John Hay,88 commander of the Warspite frigate, is with him. I like Lord [AUG.] 25TH.

1841. Lemuel Shaw ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 6 1 ) , Herman Melville's father-in-law, had been chief justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts since 1830. 84 Convers Francis ( 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 6 3 ) , a minister, joined the Harvard faculty in 1842, remaining until his death. 85 In 1840 Josiah Quincy published a two-volume History of Harvard University, the design of which was to demonstrate the essentially liberal theological origins of Harvard (Quincy was a Unitarian) and, by contrast, to show that the Mathers and Yale College were reacting against this liberality. Of Cotton Mather, for example, he remarks: "An individual of ungovernable passions and of questionable principles; credulous, intriguing, and vindictive; often selfish as to his ends, at times little scrupulous in the use of means; wayward, aspiring, and vain; rendering his piety dubious by display, and the motives of his public services suspected by the obtrusiveness of his claims to honor and place; whose fanaticism, if not ambition, gave such a public encouragement to the belief in the agencies of the invisible world, as to have been one of the chief causes of the widest spread misery and disgrace, to which his age and country were ever subjected." History, I (Boston, i860), 346. James Luce Kingsley, a Yale faculty member, replied in a long, three-part commentary: "Review of Quincy's History of Harvard University," The American Biblical Repository, 2nd ser., 6 : 1 7 7 - 1 9 5 (July 1 8 4 1 ) ; 6:384-403 (October 1 8 4 1 ) ; 7 : 1 7 5 - 2 0 7 (January 1842). He concluded: "All, whose knowledge of the subject does not extend beyond the limits of this work . . . would rise from reading it necessarily with the conviction, that Yale College had been from the first, whatever the author may have intended, the seat of narrow sectarianism, bigotry, and all uncharitableness; and this, without one redeeming quality. Not believing this correct, we have felt it to be a duty to state briefly our own views thus far, and hence the preceding observation." Ibid., 7:206 (January 1842). 86 William B. Reed (1806-1876), a lawyer, deserted the Whig party in 1856 to campaign for Buchanan and was appointed U. S. Minister to China ( 1 8 5 7 - 1 8 5 9 ) . His bitter and open opposition to the Civil War was to cost him his social and professional standing. 87 The Anglo-American treaty, known as the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, settled boundary disputes on the Maine-New Brunswick border, at the head of the Connecticut River, and at the head of Lake Superior. Other clauses pertained to extradition and to the free navigation of the St. John River. 88 Lord John Hay ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 5 1 ) lost his arm in battle at Hyeres Roads in 1807. He became a rear admiral in 1 8 5 1 .

Beginnings

92

John's face very much, after the first sight. He has lost his left arm, — in battle, it is said. Speeches at the dinner are mostly upon peace, the treaty, &c. Introduced to Mr. Reed, Prof. Reed, his brother, & Dr. Bethune,89 all of Philadelphia. Promised to call & see them. Called out for a speech, being one of the Vice Presidents of the day. Was well received. Invited to C. G. Loring's to meet the Messrs. Reed, Daniel Lord Jr.90 of N. York, &c. Got wet through & could not go. Sorry, because Lord Ashburton &c. present. Walked into Boston over the bridge. This evening, a year ago, was my wedding. Thought much & solemnly of dear S. & all the happiness one year have given us. Letter from Moxon, enclosing one from Capt. Jones, both complementary upon my review of Cleveland's voyages in N. A. of July.91 AUG. 26. Letter fr. S. Write to her at Wethersfield. Write again to S., that she may get it in Hartford on Wed., the day of Caroline Woodbridge's wedding.92 Letters to & from father. Mr. Wm. B. Reed of Philad. (Phi Beta Orator) called, & spent some time. Well-informed, delicate, agreeable man. Subscribed to Sheridan's gymnasium & boxing school. Find my strength & activity decreasing, wh. will never do. Must be looked after. Daniel Lord Jr. called — spent half an hour. Talked very sensibly upon Admiralty jurisdiction & other matters of law. [AUG.]

30TH.

[AUG.] 31ST. Spend an hour sparring & exercising at Sheridan's. Afternoon, look up law for Lightbody v. DeCamp. J. T. Hodge called, on his way to Plymouth, preparatory to going to Cuba, Has been passing the summer in the Cherokee country in Georgia, with Mr. Bullock & the Eliots. Mr. Lord told me that the whole of the defense of Munroe Edwards was 89Henry Hope Reed (1808-1857), professor of rhetoric and English literature at the University of Pennsylvania, edited the Complete Works of Wordsworth (1837). George Amory Bethune (1809-1886) was a physician, specializing in treatment of the eye and ear. 90Daniel Lord, Jr. (1795-1868) was an influential New York lawyer. 91 In the North American Review 4:144-200 (July 1842) Dana reviewed Richard J. Cleveland's A Narrative of Voyages and Commercial Enterprises (Cambridge: J. Owen, 1842). Cleveland's was one of the many voyage and travel books which appeared in the wake of popularity created by Two Years. 92Caroline Woodbridge, a Hartford friend of Sarah's, married a Mr. S. B. Grant.

1842

A Year of Initiation

93

Evarts'; & that Crittenden told him it was impossible that anything could have [been] done better. 93 SEP. 3.

Took tea at Prof.

[Ε.

T.]

Channing's with Mrs.

[Robert]

Sedgwick. [SEPT.] 4. SUNDAY.

Read Jer. Taylor.

Church all day.

Communion.

In the evening read my old correspondence with S. — SEPT. 5.

Evarts called with E . R. Hoar & spent half an hour.

[SEPT.] 7.

Met Mr. Choate 9 4 just returned from the U. S. Senate. H e

says that Webster will resign the Sec'ship of State. Had a very tedious & anxious session. Called on Dr. [Joel] Hawes (of Hartford)

-

A dear letter from S. Answered it. [SEPT.] 10. Met Dr. Lieber (Political Ethics) at Sumner's. Invited to dine with Dr. H o w e (teacher of blind) to meet Sumner, Hillard, Horace Mann & Lieber. 9 5 Prevented fr. going by a case. [SEPT.] 1 1 . SUNDAY.

Sermon

at

Congregational

Shepard " T h e morning.cometh & also the day".

96

Church

by

Prof.

Unusually impressive,

& a good deal of literary merit. [SEPT.] 14.

All day engaged in defending John P. Briggs on an indict-

ment for manslaughter, tried before the Municipal Court, Judge Thatcher. An exceedingly interesting case. Briggs is a young man of 2 5 or 30, recently married, & his wife new in the city. He is son of Dr. Briggs of 83

The Munroe Edwards reference probably concerned a U. S. Supreme Court case involving William M. Evarts. John Jordan Crittenden (1787-1863) had been President Harrison's Attorney General in 1841 and was presently in the Senate, from Kentucky. He was a highly celebrated lawyer. 94 Rufus Choate (1799-1859), perhaps the most gifted personal-injury and criminal lawyer of his time, had been appointed in 1841 to fill Webster's Senate seat when the latter became Secretary of State. 95 Francis Lieber (1800-1872), political scientist, founded the Encyclopaedia Americana (1829-1833) and since 1835 had been on the faculty of South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina). In 1857 he was to accept a chair at Columbia University. Samuel Gridley Howe ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 6 ) conducted the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Massachusetts. An abolitionist, he also promoted public school and prison reform. He married Julia Ward in 1843. Horace Mann (1796-1859), celebrated as a public school reformer, had served in the Massachusetts house and senate. In 1848 he would go to the U. S. Congress and in 1852 to Antioch College as president. 96 George Shepard (1801-1868) was professor of sacred rhetoric at Bangor Theological Seminary, 1836-1868. His text was "The morning cometh, and also the night" (Isa. 2 1 : 1 2 ) .

94

Beginnings

Portland, deceased, & his mother has married a Mr. Pease of Portland, w h o has the reputation of being a hard, close man, & of having been neglectful of his step-children. In consequence of this neglect, added to wild habits, he [Briggs] has been a wanderer. H e was mate of a ship & in the line of promotion. H e had a careless scuffle with a drunken Irishman, in which each was excited & Briggs threw him. B y the fall the Irishman's ancle was dislocated & he reed, a cut on the nose, & some other slight injuries. B y these injuries the Irishman was laid up for several days but was recovering, when he was seised with delirium tremens & died. An indictment for manslaughter is preferred, & it is sought to charge Briggs, on the ground that though the wounds w e r e not mortal, they caused the delirium wh. caused the death. — It is the most exciting trial I was ever engaged in. T h e w i f e & mother of the prisoner present, & the whole burden of the case on my shoulders, while the Court is set against the prisoner, & the prosecuting officer uses every advantage he can get b y cunning or brow-beating to secure a conviction. T o feel that the rights of a prisoner are not respected & that you are a great deal at the mercy of a weak, irritable, prejudiced, negligent judge, is exceedingly trying. T h e only chance is with the jury. [SEPT.] 15TH. Hardly sleep a wink last night from excitement & indignation. T h e judge is quite deaf, & misunderstands the evidence constantly, & often in material points, sometimes ludicrously, & more often seriously. H e thinks the case closed when the government evidence is in, & hardly takes any notes of the evidence. T h e case went to the jury at 11 A. M. & at 4V2 P. M. they had not agreed upon a verdict. T h e Court adjourned to 9 o'clock Friday. Letter from Mr. Arts, Am. Consulat Amsterdam, thanking m e for my book, &c.

SAT. SEP. 17. Set out for Hartford, to bring S. home. L e f t Boston at 6Y2 A. M., reached Springfield at 12 M. L e f t in the steam boat for Hartford & reached the wharf at 4 P. M. As w e were hauling into the wharf one of the crew came near falling over board, & a man on the wharf said that two men had been drowned an hour before. I asked their names & found that one [was] Thos. L. Williams, nephew of Ch. Jus. W. 9 7 & with w h o m I had a slight acquaintance. H e had been walking down State st. at 3 o'clock that afternoon, & at half past three they were dragging for his body. Took the coach for Wethersfield where S. is, & reached Miss Marsh's just before dark. Met S. after an absence of five weeks. Also little Sally. 9 7 Chief

Justice Thomas Scott Williams has been mentioned earlier.

1842

A Year of Initiation

95

Mrs. Watson, the three Miss Marshes98 & Miss Mary Watson, there. Also Miss Beiden. [SEPT.] 18. SUNDAY. All day at church at Wd. In the afternoon the funeral of poor Thorn. Williams. He was lying in the tomb in 25 hours after he passed down Main st. in Hartford, to go boating. His widowed mother, of whom he was the last surviving son, & his 3 sisters were at church. Four young men from Hd. were pall-bearers. [ S E P T . ] 19. Rode with S. to Newington Mountain. Returned at 1 P. M., & found Mr. Daggett, Elis. & her child just arrived. They spent the afternoon & went to Hd. after tea. Mr. Danl. Buck," a friend of the family, was buried in the P. M. Walked into the grave yard & upon the hill with S.

20. Went with S. to Hartford. (Called last night on Mrs. Steven Chester. There, Miss Betsey Chester, Mrs. Beiden, & Mrs. Caleb Strong (Rev.). Also on Mrs. Phillips.) Called in Hd., with S. upon Mrs. Danl. Wadsworth, Mrs. David Watkinson, Mrs. Prof. Jackson (Emily Ellsworth), Mrs. Jared Flagg. Called upon us the Webbs, Miss Kate Terry, Mrs. Matson (El. Strong) & Mrs. Childs. 1 [SEPT.]

[ S E P T . ] 21. Mrs. Watson, Mary & Miss Nancy Marsh came over fr. Wd. to stay until we left. Called upon Mrs. Thos. Chester, Mrs. [Lydia Η. Η.] Sigourney, Mrs. S. B. Grant (Car. Woodbridge), Mrs. Dixon (El. Cogswell), Mrs. Tudor, Mrs. Killean, the Misses Webb, Mrs. Chs. Terry. 2 In the evening, went to John P. Putnam's wedding. (Married Henriette

98

T h e three Miss Marshes are Abigail, Lydia, and Nancy, sisters of Sarah's mother. " D a n i e l Buck was a Hartford merchant. 'Mrs. Strong, formerly Catharine S. Mitchell of Wethersfield, married Caleb Strong of Montreal on M a y 26, 1840. She died before 1 8 4 6 . Daniel Wadsworth married Martha W . Moore in Hartford in 1 8 2 4 . David Watkinson ( 1 7 7 8 - 1 8 5 7 ) retired with a fortune in 1 8 4 1 from his Hartford merchant house. Abner Jackson ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 7 4 ) was to remain as professor of intellectual and moral theology at the Hartford Theological Seminary until 1 8 5 8 . He was president of Hobart College, 1 8 5 8 - 1 8 6 7 , and president of Trinity College, Hartford, 1 8 6 7 - 1 8 7 4 . Sarah R. Montague married Jared Bradley F l a g g ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 9 9 ) , portrait painter and Episcopal clergyman, in 1 8 4 1 . The mother of Montague Flagg, the painter, she died in 1 8 4 4 . Catherine E . (Kate) Terry married Leonard P. Bacon ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 8 1 ) , minister and professor of revealed religion at Yale, in 1 8 4 7 . 2

Margaret Bull married Thomas Chester (b. 1 7 6 4 ) , Yale, 1 7 8 0 , in 1 7 9 5 . Elizabeth Cogswell was married to James Dixon ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 7 3 ) , U. S. House, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 4 9 , U. S. Senate 1 8 5 6 - 1 8 6 9 . Amelia (b. 1 7 9 1 ) and Frances (b. 1 7 8 4 ) Chester were the daughters of Joseph and Abigail Chester of Hartford. Julia Woodbridge married Charles A. Terry of Hartford in 1 8 3 6 .

Beginnings

96

daughter of Hon. Th. Day).3 Talked with Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Dixon, Mrs. Matson, the bride, Mr. Gallaudet, Matson & Prof. Jackson, Alfred Smith, Judge Mitchell, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Day, Mrs. Dr. [Joel] Hawes, Grant, Dixon &c. &c. Mr. & Mrs. [Ο. E.] Daggett & Mary went with us. S. was dressed in her wedding gown. Went to Court House. Judge Smith Thompson4 was holding the U. S. Circuit Court. Argument between Hungerford & McCurdy v. Perkins upon a question whether Admiralty has jurisdiction in this country over contracts to carry freight between States. Not decided. P. M. called with S. on several persons to me unknown. Mrs. Thos. Chester had called & invited us to tea for tomorrow. Cd. not accept, as leave town. [SEPT.] 2 2 .

[SEPT.] 2 3 . FHIDAY. Left Mr. Daggett's at 7 A. M. with S. & the baby & Olive for the steam boat. Mr. Daggett went to the boat with us. Cold & raw day. In the cabin nearly all the time. Little S. kept very quiet. Dinner at Warrener's (Springfield) — admirable — fit for any gentleman of fortune to invite his friends — never saw a better. His reputation for dinners is very high. Leave in the cars at P. M. Olive with little S. in the Ladies' Saloon. S. & I in the next car, so that S. could go in easily when necessary. Delightful journey. The country looked beautifully as we went thro' it, & S. & I enjoyed it much together. By 8 o'clock, were safely in our room at Mrs. Atkins' in Roxbury.

[SEPT.] 24. At my office again. [SEPT.] 25. SUNDAY.

Church all day. S. in the P. M.

Daniel Webster's speech at Fanuieul Hall.5 I cd. not go, having a lame arm & being afraid of its being injured. All come home in ecstacies with it. Manly, outright, dignified, independent & statesmanlike. He seems to be the only statesman in the land. By his side the rest appear no larger than push-pin politicians. Ned says that "there seemed [SEPT.] 30TH.

3

John Phelps Putnam ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 8 2 ) , lawyer, was a judge of the Superior Court from its establishment in 1859 until his death. Thomas Day ( 1 7 7 7 - 1 8 5 5 ) , a judge of the Hartford county and city courts from 1 8 1 5 to 1833, was Reporter for the Connecticut Court of Errors, 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 5 3 , publishing twenty volumes of Reports, as well as forty volumes of English works on law. 4 Smith Thompson ( 1 7 6 8 - 1 8 4 3 ) served on the U. S. Supreme Court from 1823 until his death. Supreme Court justices conducted the circuit courts during this period. ®Webster, at this time Secretary of State, spoke at a meeting called to honor him for his part in the recently completed Ashburton treaty with England. He spoke on the international obligations of the United States, and against repudiation. See Webster, "Reception at Boston," Works, II, 1 0 9 - 1 4 0 .

1842

A Year of Initiation

97

to rest upon his countenance a sublime sadness". The speech has made a great sensation. The petty politicians & President-makers are confounded, while all sound, conservative, patriotic & honourable men who have no plot in their politics than to serve the country & keep their own honour are edefied & encouraged. Call fr. Rev. Chas. Dana of Alexandria D. C. OCT. 1. Ned goes into partnership with me. To have V4 of the profits & bear V2 the expenses, — for 6 mos. — as an experiment. Close my accounts for the year & find that they are as follows — Gross receipts from business for 1 yr. — 2573.60 Expenses of business " " 435-6° Nett profits $2138.00 Total of expenses for the year — Reed, from lecturing & writings

1565.23 189.74 $1375-49

OCT. 5. Call from Epes Sargent® Wishes contributions for his Magasine. S. comes to call on Mrs. J. W. Stuart. — News of Dr. Charming's death. [ocr.] 6. Rody of Dr. Channing brot to the city.7 All his friends present. Father & Charlotte come up from Rockport. [ocr.] 7. Dr. Channing's funeral. Prayers at the house at 1 P. M., & services at the church at 2. The church crowded & the whole congregation passed round the aisle to see the face of the deceased. An eloquent discourse from Rev. E. S. Gannett.8 Body carried to Mt. Vernon. Besides his widow & children, there were present, his four brothers, his two sisters — Mrs. Rogers & Mrs. [Jonathan] Russell, Wm. C. Russell & Geo. Gibbs fr Ν. Y., all his nephews & nieces in the city, Wm. H. Channing® & e Epes Sargent ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 8 0 ) , journalist and editor of textbooks and literary anthologies, published verse and drama of his own as well. He may have been asking Dana for contributions to Sargent's New Monthly Magazine, which ran for six months in New York City in 1843. 'William Ellery Channing ( 1 7 8 0 - 1 8 4 2 ) , first cousin of Dana's father. See Genealogy. 8 Ezra Stiles Gannett ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 7 1 ) had long been an assistant to William Ellery Channing at the Federal Street Church and succeeded to the pastorate there. 9 See Genealogy for the Channing family interrelationships. Mrs. Robert Passac Rogers was the wife of a Boston lawyer; William C. Russell was a New York City lawyer; George Gibbs ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 7 3 ) , was an ethnologist and author of studies on Indian languages (the dead Channing's wife was a Gibbs); William Henry Channing ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 8 4 ) was a Unitarian clergyman, nephew of the deceased, and author of a biography (1848) of his uncle.

9«

Beginnings

his wife, all the Dana family except Uncle Francis, the Stedmans &c. A large portion of the clergy & other distinguished persons. The countenance was very placid & delightful. He died at the setting of the sun on a sabbath evening. [ocr.] 9. Rev. Mr. Lannean, missionary at Jerusalem, spent the day with us & preached on the subject of his mission. He stated that Bethany had entirely lost its original name, & was now called Laseria, after Lasarus whom Jesus there raised from the dead. A striking evidence that it had been early noted for the miracle. 21. Introduced to Mr. Godley,10 an English gentleman, educated at Oxford, where he took high rank, a high tory & a very sensible, well bred & benevolent man. He seems remarkably well disposed to be pleased with everything in America. He is a Carlton Club man, & belongs to the upper class in birth & fortune. His property is in Ireland. [OCT.]

[ocr.] 23. A good sermon fr. Rev. Mr. Howe from the text "And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, & his window being opened towards Jersusalem he prayed & c . . . . as he was wont".11 One of his points was that Daniel did no more than he was wont. If he had gone out of the way & done any thing to show a defiance of the king, it would not have been an acceptable prayer to God. He did only what he had done before, & what was at all times, independent of the decree, a matter of conscience with him. The last week argued Wentworth v. Nickerson and the sch[ooner] Harriet, — both cases of seamen's wages, before Judge Sprague.12 Lost them both, & they are the first Admiralty cases I have lost since Judge Sprague has been on the bench, 18 mos. Also defended Capt. Watson & Peter Miller, master & ch. mate of the brig Choctaw, & the Jasper s crew, upon criminal indictments in the U. S. Courts. The Jaspers crew & Miller were convicted, & Capt. Watson acquitted. 10 John

Robert Godley ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 6 1 )

was originator of a plan for Irish population

relief through emigration to Canada; founded a community settlement at Canterbury, New

Zealand,

and lived

there,

1850-52;

afterward

Income-Tax

Commissioner

in

Ireland and Under-Secretary of War. n

T h e King James Bible, from which Dana seems to have taken all of his references,

says: "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime" (Daniel 6:10). 1 2 Peleg

Sprague (1793-1880), after a period of service in the U. S. House ( 1 8 2 5 -

1829) and Senate ( 1 8 2 9 - 1 8 3 5 ) , was in 1841 appointed to the U. S. District Court of Massachusetts, where he served until 1865 with very great distinction. Almost blind, all of his opinions came in the form of addresses.

1842

A Year of Initiation

99

The week before, argued, Blood v. Soule in C. C. PI.,13 & got a verdict. The coming week am to defend Briggs for Manslaughter in Municipal Court, to defend a seaman named Lilon in U. S. Court, & to argue Riedel v. Kessler in C. C. PI. ocr. 25. Began Riedel v. Kessler in C. C. Pleas. Ned opened the case. Bolles14 for the defense. It is a case of great interest & lasts until Frid. 28th, occupied all the time of each day from 9 A. M. until 7 P. M., excepting an hour & a half for dinner. The case is an action brought by the father [charging] the seduction of his daughter, a girl of 18. The Ptf. is a German, a carpenter by trade, & exceedingly poor, imperfectly understanding the language, with a family of six children, all except this daughter & a son, being under 12 years of age. This daughter, Emily, was a very pretty, intelligent & forward girl, of whom they were quite proud. She learned the trade of a dress-maker, & lived at home, going out to work in families or sewing at home. A young German tradesman, Kessler by name, engaged in the selling of leather in Devonshire street, introduced himself as a suitor of this girl & was favorably received by the family, who took some pride in having so genteel a husband in prospect for their daughter. Kessler introduced himself by means of a physician whom he told that he wanted to be married. After a couple of months or so of courtship, a few things excited the uneasiness & finally the suspicion of the parents, & still more of the elder brother. Emily used sometimes to spend the night at houses where she had been sewing in the day; & on one or two occasions it was discovered that she had not been at the places where she had mentioned. The brother accidentally went to Kesslers store one night, & seeing something suspicious was led to watch, & found his sister coming out of it early in the morning. He taxed her with it, & she left him & did not return home. A habeas corpus was addressed to Kessler, & on a day or two after-wards, the girl returned home, apparently by her own consent. An action was commenced for the seduction & the property of Kessler was attached. Efforts were made to induce him to marry the girl, but he refused unless the suit shd. be first dropped. The father was advised not to drop the suit until marriage, for if the attachment were taken off, Kessler (who was proved to be a dissolute man & without anything to connect him with Boston) would, no doubt, go away. Month after month elapsed & Kessler would not marry, when the parties came to me to take up their suit. After an effort to procure a marriage, wh. failed in such a way as to assure me that K. 13 This is one of the several forms of abbreviation that Dana habitually employs for the Court of Common Pleas. 14 John Augustus Bolles ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 7 8 ) the next year became Massachusetts Secretary of State. Later he was Solicitor General of the Navy.

100

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was not sincere, I got ready for trial. Emily came to my office with her mother & told me the whole story of her seduction which corresponded exactly with the testimony of her brother & other persons. A few weeks after this interview, Emily disappeared from her father's house, & nothing could be learned of her for more than two months. But a few days before the trial we traced her to a house in the North End, at which Kessler was known to resort. The trial came on, & after introducing all the evidence for the ptf.; the defendant said he shd. rely a good deal upon the fact that we had not produced the daughter who was the best witness & the non-appearance of whom raised presumptions ag. us. I then offered ev. to show that the girl had been & was under the dft.'s control. Bolles objected to this, but the Court ruled it in. We traced her into their hands. This was at dinner time of the second day. The first thing after dinner, they introduced the girl herself upon the stand & she swore positively that she had never been seduced or had any improper intercourse with the Dft. I crossexamined the poor creature & on the cross-examination she swore positively & solemnly that she had never admitted the fact of her seduction to me nor to Mr. Rantoul15 (the first Attorney of the parties) nor to any one else. I then called Mr. Rantoul & two others persons who testified that she had at various times before she last left home told them the whole story precisely as she had told it to me & as testified to by other witnesses. This broke her down completely, & made it evident that to seduction & every other deception & crime the defendant had added that of prevailing upon her to commit the crime of perjury. It was a dreadful scene, — the father & brother being both present. The defendant also attemped to prove alibis, but they failed with the jury, as the result showed. Bolles argued the case very ingeniously, but in an injudicious &, as I cannot but believe, unprincipled manner. My reply occupied two or three hours. The Court room was crowded & there was intense interest manifested in the case, & altogether in favor of the Ptf. Judge Wilhams, in a concise, simple, clear & eloquent charge, told the jury that it was the most painful case he had ever been called upon to try. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, with $1033.33 damages. The verdict was received with great satisfaction by all the auditors, & throughout that & the next day, it was the great topic of conversation in & about the Court house. I never knew a civil action to call such general interest. 1B Robert Rantoul, Jr. ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 5 2 ) had practiced law in Boston since 1839. From 1845 to 1849 he was U. S. District Attorney for Massachusetts. In 1 8 5 1 he was elected to fill the Senate seat vacated by Daniel Webster and the same year was elected U. S. representative, in which office he died. A brilliant lawyer of antislavery sentiments, his memoir to the Boston Bar was written by Dana.

1842

A Year of Initiation

101

After giving in her perjured testimony, the poor girl went off in a cab, into the possession of Kessler, we don't know where. A. O. Aldis16 has been in town fr. St. Albans, Vt.; also John W. Smith fr. Providence. NOV. 2. Having engaged a house, No. 7 W. Cedar st., we leave Mrs. Atkins, Roxbury, & come into town, first to spend a week with Aunts & father in Chesnut st., during our preparations for house keeping. Leave Roxbury in a coach with S., little S., & Olive, with our luggage, having sent our little furniture previously to Cedar st. Well established at aunts & all very attentive & kind to little S. [NOV.] 6. MONDAY. Elisabeth, the good, kind, faithful creature, has left Mr. Daggett & her child & come to help S. to put her house in order. We are all staying at aunts, & all engaged in furnishing the house. The owner, L. M. Sargent17 allows me $100 for a furnace & the rest $420 for 2 yrs., & $450 for the next 3. [NOV.] 9. WEDNESDAY. Lecture this ev. at Gloucester. Leave in the cars at 3% for Salem & thence take stage coach to Gloucester. Take Dickens' "American Notes"18 with me. Reach G. at 7; put up at the house of two elderly maiden laides [sic] by the name of Whittemore. Everything is very neat & comfortable. The house has window seat, & beams below the wall. Lecture at 7%. Good audience & very attentive. Subject "Knowledge is power" or "the foundation of influence". Go back to [the Misses] Whittemore's, & at retire. Read Dickens in bed until past midnight. (In the stage coach, going down, I defended the British Constitution against a Boston lawyer named Barstow,19 who had come down on an electioneering tour). Next morning return & reach Chesnut st. at % before 12.

NOV. 10.

This ev. at a large party at Edmd. Dwight's.20

ie A s a O. Aldis, University of Vermont, 1829, was a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court by 1 8 5 7 . Later he was the U. S. Consul to Nice and president of the Southern Commerce Commission. 17 Lucius M. Sargent ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 6 7 ) , ardent prohibitionist, regularly contributed essays and poems to the Boston Transcript under the signature "Sigma." 18 American Notes, based upon his recent visit, was published by Dickens only a week or so before this entry. 19 Simon Forrester Barstow (d. 1 8 8 2 ) , after a twenty-year career as a Boston lawyer, entered the U. S. Army in 1862, where he rose to the rank of brigadier general. Accepting a captain's commission as a regular, he remained in service until retirement in 1879. 20 Edmund Dwight ( 1 7 8 0 - 1 8 4 9 ) , Massachusetts legislature.

a Boston merchant, served many terms in the

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Beginnings

[NOV.] LI. FRIDAY.

Dined

at

Mr.

Ticknor's

at

5V2. Present,

beside

Mr., Mrs. & Miss T., 2 1 D o n Calderon de la Barca, Spanish embassador at Washington & a man of letters, Greenough, the sculptor, Longfellow the poet. Prof. [C. C.] Felton, Prof. Norton, Hillard, Prescott (Ferdinand & Isabella), B. R. Curtis, Josiah Quincy Jr., Benj. Guild & son, & F. C . Gray. 22 Very agreeable time. All think Dickens' book entertaining & clever, & all like Webster's Faneuil Hall Speech. Mr. Ticknor said that Jer. Mason 23 told him that he thot W . a greater man than ever, & he had always thot him the greatest man he ever saw. (Story of a man who snored so loud that he was obliged to sleep in the next room for fear of waking himself up. Also of a man w h o was so tall that he had to stand on a ladder to shave.) [NOV.] 12. SAT.

All this week engaged in getting house ready.

[NOV. 13.] SUNDAY.

Sermon at St. Paul's fr. Rev. Mr. Vinton

"Come

unto me" &c. 2 4 Spend the ev. pleasantly at home, — father, aunts, N e d & Charlotte, S., Elisabeth & myself. MONDAY. [NOV.] 14.

Moved into our house in W . Cedar st., the parlour

being unfurnished. S. is obliged to keep her chamber, & El. & I employ ourselves

(she all her time &

I my

leisure time) in

getting

up

the

furniture. Father too ill to lecture in N. York. Read Dickens' "American Notes". He is very amusing, & certainly no man can give individuals & localities with such distinctness & peculiarity 2 1 George Ticknor and his wife, Anna Eliot Ticknor, had two living daughters at this time. The one referred to here is probably Miss Anna Ticknor. 2 2 The only identified members of this company not noted earlier are: Horatio Greenough (1805-1852), the influential sculptor, whose studies were guided by Washington Allston. At this time he was at work upon his colossal "The Rescue" ( 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 5 1 ) . Andrews Norton (1786-1853), now retired from the faculty of Harvard Divinity School, published in 1837-1844 Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, one of the earliest critical studies of the Scriptures in America. He was Charles Eliot Norton's father. Benjamin Guild (1785-1858) practiced law in Boston. His son, Samuel Eliot Guild (1819-1862), was also a lawyer and was to serve in the Massachusetts house in 1850. 23 Jeremiah Mason (1768-1848) was a lawyer, New Hampshire Attorney-General, 1802-1805, U. S. senator, 1813-1817, and a Portsmouth bank president before he retired to an exclusive Boston "chamber practice" of law in 1838. Ticknor's sentiments about Webster never wavered, and when Dana later entered the world of Free Soil politics his close friendship with Ticknor was destroyed. 24 Alexander Hamilton Vinton (1807-1881), an active Low Episcopalian, who took orders in 1835, had been pastor of St. Paul's in Boston since 1841. He left in 1858 and held pastorates in Philadelphia, New York City, and, in 1869, again in Boston. His text was: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).

1842

A Year of Initiation

103

as he; but whenever he comes to abstractions or to generalising, or indeed to any deductions or reflections of his own, he is below par. His style then becomes swollen & vaporous. He strings adjectives together in the most ordinary style of the intense mediocrity or forcible feeble of political paragraphing. The book will make him unpopular without adding to his reputation. He is not a gentleman, & his genius is in a narrow line. In that line he is insurpassable, to be sure. His journey to America has been a Moscow expedition for his fame. His friends here say he was exceedingly thin skinned as to the attacks from the newspapers; & his book shows it too plainly. I have thought his management of the International Copyright question very ill judged. His letters have been careless, pretentious, & with a kind of off-hand, slang-ey, defying tone, which a man with a well-balanced mind & the delicate perceptions & self respect of a gentleman could not fall into. [NOV.] I6TH. El. goes back to Hartford, promising to send Mary [Watson] in her place. [NOV.] I8TH. All day yesterday & a part of to-day in the case of Gerrish v. Emeleth, in C. C. PL Gained a verdict for $ 7 5 0 . This was considered quite an affair, as every one predicted a defeat. Gohian amused the jury by the story of the old woman who had two sets of blankets, one marked U. B. for upper blankets, and the other marked U. B. for under blankets. The democrats seem to have carried the state. I only hope they wont do much mischief; but am very much afraid of their destructive doctrines; especially as to the R. I. question. [NOV.] 19TH.

Mary comes in the even, cars fr. Hartford.

Engaged all day in defending John P. Briggs on a charge of manslaughter. Judge Thatcher was very severe upon the prisoner, & was evidently bent upon his conviction. Fortunately the jury saw this & were not influenced by his leanings. The trial last[ed] half thro' Tuesday & was very exciting. I had a constant battle with the judge throughout. He insisted upon cross-examining the witnesses for the defense in a manner wh. I thought was insulting to their character (two of them were respectable physicians) & I protected them. The jury acquitted Briggs of the manslaughter & found him guilty of an aggravated assault. The judge was evidently angry with this verdict & showed it so plainly that some of the newspapers took notice of [it], & two of the jury spoke to him to deprecate a severe sentence on Briggs. At first the judge refused to take bail & said he should sentence the prisoner immediately; a thing unprece[NOV.] 2 1 S T .

104

Beginnings

dented in our Courts. With some difficulty I got the sentence delaid a few days. NOV. 24. THUBSDAY. Thanksgiving. Snowed hard all day & I staid at home all the morning trying to compose a lecture upon the foundation of influence. Dined at Chesnut st. S., little Sally & Mary went in a carriage. It was the first snow little S. had ever seen, having been born in June. A few drops of it fell on her face as I took her from the carriage. At dinner we had father, Aunts El. & Sarah, Charlotte, Ned, S., Mary & myself. Cousin Sophia [Dana Ripley] & cousin Mary were unwell & could not come. In Ev. dropped in at Mr. Jos. Willard's.

Judge Thatcher sentenced Briggs to pay a fine of $100, & costs. This was quite moderate. Invited to lecture at Hartford. Evarts calls. Looks well. His espoused is staying here & he is on a visit. [NOV.] 26TH.

[NOV.] 27TH. ADVENT SUNDAY. Sermon fr. Rev- Mr. Vinton on the second coming of Christ. Ned spends the ev. with us. Read Jer. Taylor during the day. He carries the doctrine of justification by works rather too far for some parts of scripture, as it seems to me. [NOV.] 29. Evarts & Ned take tea with us. By E.'s account, the New World & other literary papers in Ν. Y. are much more unprincipled in their criticisms & general course than I had supposed. Evarts is a peculiar man. His intellectual gifts are undoubted. Success & admiration have attended him at every step. Yet there is a coldness & a certain kind of assumption about him wh. is not agreeable to many. At the same time he is deferential & never pretends to a talent or a knowledge which he does not possess. Also, there is something interesting & attractive about him, &, (wh. is a good sign) he is liked by young men of his own age & pursuits, who would naturally be his competitors. He seems to have strong feelings & has done some unquestionably generous things; yet one feels that he is ambitious & feels a doubt whether his heart is really interested in anything. I feel more pleasure in thinking of him & speaking in his favor than when in his presence. There is a want of sympathy. Everything is intellectual. Yet there is a fascination about him, & I feel great pleasure in knowing that he is in town, & take pains to see him, yet have little satisfaction in his society.

DEC. 1. Poor little bird died to-day. It is just about one year since Ned gave him to Sarah. He has been in our room ever since, & we have

1842

A Year of

Initiation

tended him daily, watched his motions, listened to his voice & become so much attached to him that his death is a sad loss. Little Sally, too, liked to watch him, & it oftened [sic] quieted her, w h e n she was uneasy, to carry her to the cage. Birdy was well last night, but this morning about 10 o'clock seemed drooping & dull. S. took him in her hand, cosseted & nursed him for an hour or more, gave him sweetened water, & he, at last raised his head, flew from her hand, fell d o w n upon the floor, gave one struggle & died. W h e n I came home, there was his empty cage, with the seed & water all in order, & his poor stiff, cold body lying on a cushion. W e all feel sadly about it. S. cries a good deal. It makes a weight on our spirits wh. w e cannot get rid of. I have taken him to a bird fancier's to be stuffed & preserved. It will b e some satisfaction to keep so perfect an image of him. C a n so much feeling & intelligence, & so many sensations & capabilities perish with the body of the poor bird? W h o knows? I don't like to think so. [DEC.] 2. Read the trial of Sullivan & others, engaged in the prise fight between Lilly & M c C o y , in N. York, in wh. the latter was killed. 26 It is without any exception the most loathsome & yet pitiable recital, I ever met with. Poor M c C o y fought 124 rounds, several of wh. he fought with both his eyes blinded, from the blows he had received. His seconds lanced his eye, to let out blood so that he cd. see. O n c e or twice he raised the lid of his e y e with his hand. T h e last rounds, he came up late, but yet held on. Once when carried off he said to his seconds, "Nurse me, nurse me!". The most affecting thing was w h e n his poor half witted brother came to the place with a basket containing fruit, spirit, spunges &c. for his brother, & the managers refused to let him in. In half an hour his brother was dead. I cd. not help crying over this touch. There is something overcoming in the sufferings of a simple person, oppressed & ill-treated b y others, which w e can hardly resist.

T h e picture of this poor, anxious, half-witted brother, with his basket of provisions wh. he had carefully prepared, denied admission, & then hearing of the death, — has been before me ever & anon for days. W e ought to have such things in our knowledge that w e may b e reminded of the depravity of human nature. DEC. 3. Heard Choate for a f e w minutes arguing a case in the C. PI. C't. H e was defending a stable keeper in an action for letting a horse 25The

fight, held in a vacant lot somewhere between Yonkers and Hastings, N e w

York, on September 13, 1842, caused a popular outcry against boxing which effectively drove the sport underground in that state until 1896. Chris Lilly, an Englishman, and T o m M c C o y , an Irish-American, fought a grudge fight for 120 rounds — or two hours and forty minutes. M c C o y was knocked out and never regained consciousness.

ιο6

Beginnings

badly harnessed. There is something peculiar in Choate's style, difficult to account for. He is full of bad taste & bathos; yet he produces a great effect, & while you listen to him you are aware that this & that is bad taste & fustian, yet you can't help attending to him, he makes you sympathise with his case, & there is always an admirable argument running through the whole, though covered over with these ill-sorted & gaudy flowers. Many of his worst things have a fervor about them which takes hold upon you. "Safe, sound, satisfactory, second-hand harness" was one [of] his sentences; & with a voice trembling with emotion & a death like energy, he says "You heard the evidence, gentlemen, the horse squatted down! Yes, he squatted down". The jumping from the chaise was a "crisis", &c. &c. A speech in perfectly good taste might not be half so efficient. Got our poor little bird from the "bird-fancier's", & we are to keep it in a case. There is usually some streak of sentiment & tender feeling in a man who employs himself upon delicate animals. This man, a square-built, broad-faced Englishman, [talked] very pleasantly about birds, spoke of what he had suffered from seeing them die, & said "I had the finest cry that ever I had in my life, when [I] lost a canary that used to lay by my bed-side. I was a boy at that time". [dec.] 4 t h . S u n d a y . S. not well & stays at home. Communion in the morning. Sermon in the afternoon from "Who is this that forgiveth sins also?"26 In ev., read Mr. Daggett's sermon in answer to the Miller-ites, who predict the end of the world in 1843. It is a plain, forcible argument, & in good style.

[dec.] 7TH. Met Mrs. Sigourney (L. H.) at Mrs. Baldwin's.27 Present, S. T. Armstrong & lady, Judge [Samuel] Hubbard & lady &c. Same ev. met Miss Leslie, sister of the artist, at Mr. Jas. Willard's. [dec.] 8 t h . Defended J. Bryant for assaulting with a knife tiie mate of the Clarissa Perkins. Verdict. Not guilty — [dec.] 1 3 T H . T u e s d a y . Little S. was baptised this day, at St. Paul's church. Sarah & I with Aunt Betsey & father were sponsors. Poor Charlotte could not come to take her part, as my letter did not reach her in time. We are all sorry for this. But little S. behaved beautifully. Not a sound did she make from the time she entered the Church until she left it; except one or two low pleasant noises when first brought before the altar. She smiled sweetly in Mr. Vinton's face while he held her; & looked like a little pearl, in his arms. 2 e " A n d they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, W h o is this that forgiveth sins also?" ( L u k e 7 : 4 9 ) . 2701ive Melvin was married to Joseph Baldwin in Hartford in 1 8 3 8 by Rev. Joel Hawes.

1842

A Year of

Initiation

ιογ

She gained great celebrity for her appearance & behavior. She wore the cap & dress which my mother worked for my little sister Susan, & wh. Charlotte gave to S.. We feel as though she belonged to God & as though his blessing was actually upon her if we do our duty & have faith. Nearly all our family & friends were present. [DEC.] 14TH. Defended an Irishman named David Keefe for assaulting his wife with intent to kill. The ev. was so strong ag. him that I only argued the possibility of its not being done with a murderous intent. He was convicted. I satisfied the Court that he was a temperate, industrious & faithful man, & he was sentenced to 1 y'r. in State Prison. I had sued Capt. Perkins & his brother the mate of the bark Clarissa Perkins, for assaulting two seamen named Singleton & Parsons. Singleton is likely to die of his wounds; so I made complaint & had the Capt. bound over criminally. I was obliged to this because the Distr. Atty. declined acting. I can conceive of no reason except that in arguing ag. Bryant he got his feelings settled in favor of the officers. [William] Dehon, who defended Perkins, alluded to my forwardness in urging the complaint ag. the master, as an interference. I took him to task for this, & we had a long talk wh. resulted in my feeling more affection & respect for Dehon than before. He is a good fellow & has honourable feelings.

[I] often have a good deal to contend with in the slurs or open opposition of masters & owners of vessels whose seamen I undertake to defend or look after. It is more unpleasant when this is retailed by the counsel. Young lawyers are apt to take up the excitement & prejudice of the clients, wh. they ought to allay & keep free from. I never have trouble with the upper class of merchants, but only with the small grinding machines & petty traders who save by small medicine chests, & poor provisions. [DEC.] 1 7 m . Longfellow gave father & myself each a copy of his "poems on slavery". 28 Saw a letter from Hoyt fr. London to Mr. Allston in wh. H. says that Rogers, the poet, asked him "Have you read a wonderful book by a young American, 'Two years before the mast'? It is the best book of the age, &c. &c." 29 28Poems

on Slavery was published in 1842. Rogers ( 1 7 6 3 - 1 8 5 5 ) , intimate of Fox and Sheridan, was one of the most popular English poets of his day. He declined the laureateship in 1850. Elizabeth Davis Bliss was the widowed mother of two sons when she became widower George Bancroft's wife. She died in 1866. In her Letters From England (quoted in Richard Henry Dana Ill's introduction to the 1911 edition of Two Years) she tells of having breakfast with Rogers and a party of friends in 1847. Rogers insisted that Two Years had more poetry in it than almost any modern verse, and proceeded to recite more than a page of the scene (pp. 42-44) which describes the death of a man at sea. 29 SamueI

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[DEC.] I8TH. Heard an ev. lecture fr. Rev. Ε. N. Kirk. He is certainly an eloquent man. That is, he keeps your attention fastened upon him without the possibility of wandering, pleases your ear & eye, interests your feelings & sympathies, & produces apparently just the state of feeling in his audience wh. he wishes. House crowded.30 Mrs. Sigourney (the poet), who was present at little Sally's baptism gave her a cap & sent to her the following verses

Blossom, from a poet's stem Bathed in Zion's sacred dew, Be thy full unfolded gem, To its early promise true, — Through each season's changeful test, Through the sun beam & the shade, Bare that blessing in thy breast Which this morn was on thee laid. After this beginning, Child, Be thy whole probation here, — Gentle, peaceful, undefiled, Circled by affections dear, — Spirits of the holy dead Watch thee with unsleeping eyes, — Faithful in their footsteps tread To thy baptism in the skies. L. H. S. On Thursday ev. were at a party at Mrs. Wm. Minot's given for her daughter-in-law, late Kate Sedgwick.31 S. wore her wedding dress. I was introduced to a daughter of J. Q. Adams, who spoke of her father's feeling towards our family. She says her father is a very good natured, pliable man at home. A Mr. Shippen of Penn. desired an introduction to me. Gave a flattering acc. of the popularity of my book in Penn. DEC. 21. Went to Providence to lecture. Left in the cars at 3V4 P. M. Read the newspapers & "Guesses at truth" on my way. The newspapers 30 Edward

Nonis Kirk (1802-1874) had just come to Boston from New York to

accept a Congregationalist pastorate. He was a controversial figure, frequently conducting evangelical lectures and revivals on behalf of missions, the temperance cause, and the antislavery movement. 31 William

Minot, Sr. ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 7 3 ) was a Boston lawyer whose son, William, Jr.,

became a prominent trust and estate lawyer. Kate was Catherine Sedgwick, niece of the author, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, daughter of Robert Sedgwick and Elizabeth Dana Ellery Sedgwick.

1842

A Year of Initiation

10 9

have the news of the splended victories of the English in China & Afghanistan.32 Reach Uncle Wm.'s, [Smith] Angel St., at 5%. Charlotte is well & her eyes better. Mr. Durtnell33 takes me in a coach to the lecture-room. There is a pouring rain, yet the hall is two thirds full. Several persons express their pleasure at the lecture & their sympathy with my views. Subject is "Knowledge is power" or "The sources of influence". After lecture spent an hour or so with Mr. Dunnell at his mother's. Introduced to Mrs. Geo. Richmond & other ladies.34 Also Mr. Albert G. Greene,35 a literary man, & his daughter. Mrs. Dunnell asked us all emphatically & with a loud voice if we would not take some Blue monge; also whether a certain report had been conformed. At the lecture, beside Mr. Greene, saw Mr. Bradlee a young lawyer, Dr. Parsons,38 an old friend of my father's &c. Thursday morning went into the C. PI. Court House δε heard a little argument on a law point, wh. arose in the course of a jury trial, between the Atty. Gen. Albert C. Greene37 & Mr. Atwell. They are both very able. Atwell is a coarse, meaty fellow, with a sensual & vulgar face & very rough manners, ill dressed & affecting you as being devoid of principle. The Atty. Gen. is the only man whom I saw at the bar who had the dress & manners of a gentleman. With gold spectacles, a neat suit of black, watch chain & seal & a ring on his finger, & courteous manners, he seemed a pearl among swine. I was introduced to Saml. Ames, a well educated & able young man, who has been assisting the Atty. Gen. in the State trials & is likely to succeed to the office. He is a thorough conservative, & so is his friend the Atty. Genl. Atwell38 was the leader of the radicals; but his falling back in Dorr's rebellion makes his party careful of him. 32 The English were just concluding the "Opium War" in China, and in Afghanistan were at last regaining control of a violent civil war which, for over a year, had cost them heavily in men and money. 33 Joseph Dunnell ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 6 6 ) , member of an old Rhode Island family. 34 Probably Ann Eddy Richmond, wife of George Martin Richmond, a Providence manufacturer, and daughter of Judge Samuel Eddy. 35 Albert Gorton Greene ( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 6 8 ) , poet, jurist, book collector, author of "Old Grimes" ( 1 8 0 8 ) and other poems. His daughter married Rev. Samuel White Duncan, of Cleveland, Ohio. 36 Theophilus Parsons ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 8 2 ) , Dane Professor of Law at Harvard, 1848-1870, was the extremely well-known author of almost innumerable works on law and religion. He was a determined Swedenborgian. 37 Albert Collins Greene ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 6 3 ) , attorney general of Rhode Island, 1 8 2 5 1843; U. S. Senate, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 5 1 . 38 Samuel Ames ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 6 5 ) went on to a career as a jurist. Samuel Y. Atwell ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 4 4 ) was a successful Providence lawyer.

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Saw two of my law school acquaintances at the bar: Wm. Potter, son of old Elisha R. Potter,39 & Knowles. K. looked so shabby, uncouth & almost beastly that I hardly recognised him; yet it must be chiefly external. Perhaps as he has set up for a radical his dress & manners are assumed ad cap. Called with Charlotte on Mrs. Geo. Rivers (Geraldine Russell), Mrs. Robt. Ives, & Proff. Goddard.40 Mrs. G. was an Ives, who, with Brown & one or two other families, seem to be the aristocracy of the place. Proff. G. is a clear headed, well read & tasteful man, with a strong element of conservatism in him. John [W. Smith] got quite renown for his courage in the Dorr rebellion. He was the first to volunteer to go out from the arsenal & reconnoiter the advancing forces; & the next day, when the attack was made on Dorr's camp, a body was ordered to approach by a narrow lane at the head of wh. two loaded cannon were planted with men behind with lighted torches, threatening to fire; & the column hesitated an instant, when John stepped forward. His example encouraged others & a front rank was formed wh. marched directly into the cannons' mouths. Uncle Wm.,41 on the other hand, with ultra peace principles & democratic to the hub, agreed to the revolution being attempted by violence, & yet when unsuccessful & himself imprisoned, he begged his son to get bail for him, & seemed to lose all self command & screamed all night long that he was in the infernal regions. He is very calm & placid; but if he should get into power, would repay his opponents with a vengeance. He would show no quarter. Returned in the 3V4 P. M. cars; Charlotte to remain until her eyes are relieved. Find S. & little S. well. DEC. 23. FRIDAY. At 4 P. M. dined with Dfavid] Sears, Beacon st. Present, Commodore Nicholson (U. S. N.), Martin Brimmer, the Mayor elect, Ch. P. Curtis, Ch. Codman, F. C. Gray, Dr. Hayward, R. B. Forbes, Truman & Rev. S. K. Lothrop.42 39 William Potter graduated from Harvard in 1 8 2 5 . His father, Elisha Reynolds Potter ( 1 7 6 4 - 1 8 3 5 ) , U. S. congressman, 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 1 5 . 40 George Rivers (d. 1 8 5 4 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 6 , was a lawyer. His wife was a daughter of Mrs. Jonathan Russell of Milton. Mrs. Robert H. Ives, who was Harriet Bowen Amory, married a prominent Providence civic leader. William Giles Goddard ( 1 7 9 4 1 8 4 6 ) was professor of moral philosophy at Brown ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 3 4 ) , where he remained until 1 8 4 2 . H e was editor of the Rhode Island American, 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 2 5 . 41

WilIiam Smith, brother of Dana's mother, was John W . Smith's father. J o h n B. Nicholson ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 4 6 ) , an intimate friend of Washington Irving, served with distinction in the W a r of 1 8 1 2 . Martin Brimmer ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 4 7 ) was a merchant who served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 3 8 - 1 8 3 9 , and as mayor of Boston in 1 8 4 3 . Charles Russell Codman was a prominent Boston merchant. George Hayward ( 1 7 9 1 42

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After dinner, spent an hour in the dining room. Mrs. Sears & her distinguished daughter Mad. D'Hauteville, were present. Had a pleasant & informing conversation with F. C. Gray; also with Mr. Brimmer, who is very well bred & has the manner of high society. These gentlemen, probably without one exception at the table, are thorough conservatists. In English politics they rather leaned to toryism. Commodore Nicholson told me that when he entered the navy as a midshipman it was the fashion to make voyages in the merchant service to get a knowledge of practical seamanship; & that during a furlough he went on a voyage before the mast in a merchant ship to S. America, & had beaten & carried hides as described in my book. Mr. Forbes invites us (the Commodore & myself) to visit his new ship, the Paul Jones, the next day. DEC. 24. At 12V2 visit the 'Paul Jones' in company with Commodore Nicholson. Find Capt. Faucon, 43 who commanded the Pilgrim on the coast of California, going in her as Chief Mate. His losing the Florida by rashness had thrown him out of a master's berth. The P. J. is the finest merchant vessel I have ever seen. She is very sleek & of a beautiful model, & perfectly finished. She has also the best accomodations for seamen I have ever known on board a merchant vessel. Twelve berth running fore & aft, & four a thwartships, places for four hammocks besides. Two tables, good lockers, with provisions for ventilation and [an] abundance of light. Capt. Faucon said he expected to get French John,44 who was in the Alert, to go as boatswain of the P. J. Soon after I left the P. J., met another of the Alert's crew, Harry White, 45 in Ann st. 1863), a physician, served as a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention of 1853. Robert Bennet Forbes (1804-1889) made a fortune in the Chinese opium trade, lost it in the 1837 panic, returned to the Orient and more than recouped his losses by heading the firm of Russell and Company. After his return to the U. S. in 1840, he wrote, designed ships, and became a civic leader. The "Truman" reference is unclear, but it may be to Phaon Truman (d. 1871) who served in the Massachusetts house in 1839. 4 3 Edward H. Faucon (1806-1894) had been master of the Alert when Dana was on the coast of California in 1835-1836. Whatever his difficulty with the Florida may have been, he went on to command more than one vessel during the Civil War in the Union blockade of the Carolinas. 4 4 French John was the nickname for one of Dana's shipmates, who did not, for some reason, get his name on the crew lists (which have been preserved). In the 1911 edition of Two Years Dana records that French John later left the sea, and for years kept a sailing boat for hire at Boston's Granite Wharf. The description of French John as the prototype of the "handsome sailor" in Two Years may have provided Melville with a model for Billy Budd. See R. F. Lucid, "The Influence of Two Years Before the Mast on Herman Melville," American Literature, 31:243-256 (November 1959). 4 5 Henry

White was listed in the 1834 crew list as living in Boston, age 28.

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DEC. 25. SUNDAY. Christmas coming on Sunday, we have no great dinings. St. Paul's is very tastefully dressed. Especially an inclined cross over the picture, & a star hanging over the altar. Last night dressed our house a little. Letter from Mrs. [Robert] Sedgwick inviting me to come to her house when I lecture in Ν. Y. [DEC.] 26TH. MONDAY. To celebrate Christmas, we had our friends to dine with us, — Aunt Martha & Mr. Allston, Aunts C[harlotte] & S[arah], Father, Ned & cousin Mary. Dined at 4. First course, raw oysters, in the shell with lemon to squeeze on; 2nd., soup; 3rd., roast turkey, with apple sauce, potatoes & squash; 4th., roast duck with cranberry sauce, potatoes & celery; 5th., mince & squash pies, & custard. After this, olives, old cheese & crackers put on the table, for about 10 m. Then the dessert, of nuts, raisins & apples. Took plenty of time & were 3% hours at table. There is no pleasanter way of passing time among friends when you [wish] to be easy & sociable. The occupation of attending to something on your plate relieves awkwardness & excuses occasional silence. The course of dinner also makes breaks wh. axe pleasant. All were well & seemed to enjoy themselves. [DEC.] 27. Ned got decrees in two cases in Admiralty wh. he had argued, Hayden v. Gracin, & Carterley v. Gracin. [DEC.] 29TH. Little S. vaccinated. She did not utter a cry, or make any noise. All the world is talking about the Somers mutiny & the execution of Spencer. The prevailing opinion (I have not met an exception) is that Mackensie will justify himself. I have little doubt of it.4® 4e This case has been documented in Harrison Hayford (ed.), The Somers Mutiny Affair (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959). Captain Alexander Slidell Mackenzie (1809-1848) was in command of the U. S. Navy brig Somers on December 1, 1842, en route from Africa to the island of St. Thomas, when he had three of his crew hanged at the yardarm for conspiring to mutiny. One of the executed men was Philip Spencer, a 19-year-old midshipman, son of the then Secretary of War, John C. Spencer (1788-1855). The abrupt, not to say impolitic, action caused great reaction in the United States, and when the Somers arrived in New York a court of inquiry was ordered to determine whether the executions had been necessary or had been the product of a momentary panic on the part of Mackenzie and his officers. Subsequently Mackenzie was arrested by order of the Secretary of the Navy and tried by court-martial for willful murder. He was acquitted. Melville, whose first cousin, Guert Gansevoort, was a lieutenant on the Somers, followed the case carefully and used it as a partial source for Billy Budd. Dana's connection with the case was established through the New York Sedgwick family, to which he was related. The Sedgwicks were very close to Mackenzie and his wife — they may even have been related — and it seems quite probable that Mrs. Sedgwick's invitation to Dana of

1842

A Year of Initiation

[DEC.] 3 1 S T . Getting ready for a visit to N. York. Intend to leave Monday P. M., lecture in Ν. Y. on Tuesday ev., & at N. Haven Thursday ev., & return via Hartford on Sat. God keep my wife & child. Rev. Manton Eastburn is consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts. Sermon by Bishop DeLancey.47

December 25, 1842, was designed to draw him into the controversy on the side of Mackenzie. If this was her design, she was entirely successful. 47 William Heathcote De Lancey ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 6 5 ) , who took Episcopalian orders in 1 8 1 9 and was for some years provost of the University of Pennsylvania, was chosen first bishop of the diocese of Western New York in 1839. Manton Eastburn ( 1 8 0 1 1 8 7 2 ) , Columbia, 1 8 1 7 , was consecrated assistant bishop of Massachusetts on December 29, 1842. Since 1 8 2 7 he had been rector of the Church of the Ascension in New York City. Two months later, upon the death of Bishop Griswold, he became bishop of Massachusetts.

3. Washington Allston3s Death 1 8 4 3 JAN. 1 , 1 8 4 3 . SUNDAY. Dear S. presents me with a gold pencil case, with this note "for my dearest, to use always for the sake of his wife". Dear S., your heart is full of affection & warmth, as your head is of sound thoughts & pretty fancies. Sermon at St. Paul's in the morning by Rev. Ferdinand E. White,48 my class-mate. A very serious & well written discourse; delivery in an earnest & solemn manner. [JAN.] 2ND. At 4 P. M., having taken leave of S. & all that is dear at home, set off for N. York via Norwich. Found in the cars a party from Baltimore who had [been] visiting in Boston, two of them at Geo. Shattuck's. George introduced me, & I found them very pleasant companions. They were Miss Elisabeth Frick, whose brother was a class-mate of mine, Miss Bathurst, & Miss Buckler. The latter was very pretty & very clever, with a little of the spoiled child about her. Miss Frick was unusually pleasing, as was her brother. They were under the charge of a Mr. Buckler, who had been voyages to India & S. America.49 Just after I had been introduced to them, Hillard came into the cars with Miss Elisa Robbins, who was going to Ν. Y. He introduced me & gave an intimation which made it necessary for me to offer to take charge of Miss R., who was going without any escort. This I did very unwillingly, for Miss R., beside being noted for forcing herself upon people, & especially literary persons, is disagreeable to many, & labors under the disadvantage of having had a doubtful reputation during her youth. She did very strange things, & there were reports generally circulated of such a nature as would be ruinous, if proved. But there was no positive evidence against her & she had the impudence & resolution to face them down. And after being slighted & avoided for 20 years, she has, by talent, literary efforts, [stratagem], firmness & perseverance, 48

Ferdinand Elliot White ( 1 8 1 4 - 1 8 8 5 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 5 , was converted to Roman Catholicism in 1 8 5 1 and for a long time was principal of a private school in New York State. 49 William F . Frick has been noted earlier. Miss Bathurst may have been the daughter of Matthew Bathurst (c. 1 7 7 7 - 1 8 4 7 ) , a Baltimore merchant. Miss Buckler was one of the two daughters of Dr. John Buckler of Baltimore, either Elizabeth (b. 1 8 2 0 ) or Mary Theresa (b. 1 8 2 7 ) , who in 1 8 4 5 married painter Richard Caton Woodville. Thomas Hepburn Buckler ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 9 0 1 ) , Baltimore physician, may have been the escort.

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succeeded in making herself tolerated, though but barely. She has remarkable conversational powers, & very soon made herself very entertaining to the whole company. Among other anecdotes of her residence in England, she told an interesting one of a visit to Chiswick, to see the duke of Devonshire's villa. She found there an old domestic who had been years in the house, & w h o had attended upon both Fox & Canning, 5 0 w h o died there, in the same room with an interval of 21 years between their deaths. The old domestic showed the room & said "When I saw Mr. Fox brought into that door (pointing to it) he was the largest man I ever had seen". Her story was that Fox submitted to an operation wh. relieved him, & in the evening was in the drawing room, entertaining the ladies. He returned to his chamber at night & never left it again. Miss R. said that the old woman spoke particularly of Canning's beauty, & among other remeniscenses of him, pointing to a table, said "There he kneeled & read prayers to the family, the Sunday before he died". It seems the duke had no Chaplain, & Canning read. O w i n g to a violent snow storm w e did not reach Norwich until past midnight, & then had to take stage coaches seven miles to the boat, which was kept below b y the ice. There were 6 or 8 coaches & it was picturesque to see the light peering through the storm as w e w o u n d our w a y in a line around & over the little hills on the route. W e reached the boat at about 2V2 A. M., & having selected our berths, warmed ourselves &c., had an excellent supper of coffee, oysters, steak, & toast. After supper I walked about, & at 4, turned in. The storm having abated & the weather cleared, w e started at about % past 4, on our w a y to N. York. [ J A N . ] 3RD. T h e weather was clear & cold all day & the wind dead ahead. After a late breakfast & a long toilet & shaving, I put on my Halifax sea-rig, of cap & jacket, & took to the deck. T h e ladies came up & joined me a f e w minutes, but it was too windy & they soon went below. After this, I employed myself with reading the report of the case of Prigg v. the State of Pennsylvania [16 Pet. 539 (U. S.)], from the Peters' R[eports]. About noon, a man called "Elder Hines" came round & presented each of the passengers with a tract to prove that the second coming of Christ was to b e in this year, 1843. Soon after, he requested leave to address the company upon the subject. W e readily assented, & 50 Charles James Fox (1749-1806) and George Canning ( 1 7 7 0 - 1 8 2 7 ) , two of the most eminent English statesmen of their times, clashed repeatedly during the William Pitt administration of 1796-1799. Canning died after a long illness. Fox, who died of dropsy, was stopping at Chiswick on his way to St. Anne's, his home, when he died. Their host on these occasions was their mutual friend, William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858), who assumed his title five years after Fox's death.

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he talked nearly an hour, until the dinner bell rang, with all earnestness & apparently perfect sincerity to prove to us that the end of the world & the second advent would take place in the course of the year. He relied solely upon the interpretation of certain passages in Daniel, about days, & weeks & times & half times, & great hours & little hours &c. Yet the greater part of his time was [taken] up with rebutting the arguments drawn from such passages in the New Test, as these — "No man knoweth the day nor the hour",51 "The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night",52 &c. He said it was true we did not know the day nor the hour, but we knew the year. This was a fair specimen of his argument. After dinner we drew in towards Ν. Y., & made fast to the wharf at about 4Vi P. M. Having taken leave of my Baltimore friends, I placed Miss Robbins in a hack & drove to Mrs. Sedgwick's in Ninth's street. (We dropped Miss R. at her boarding house, & my duties ended). Mrs. Sedgwick looks beautifully, though thin. Nothing can exceed the cordiality of her welcome. I could tell her that Ellery had taken tea with me a few evenings before. Miss Catherine was also there, & exceedingly kind & cordial. Also, all the girls, from Lissy down to little Helen.83 Having performed my toilet in the large & well furnished chamber allotted to me, with a fire in it, & taken tea, Mr. Cuthbert C. Judon, Sec. of the [Mercantile] Soc., called in a coach & took me to the tabernacle, where the lecture was to be delivered. The house was filled, there being apparently about zooo people present. I gave them "Knowledge is power", with the opening of my lecture on "The sources of influence". Immediately after the lecture, Wm. Watson, John Watson, Mrs. John Marsh & Evarts54 came up. Wm. took Evarts, John & myself to his room, where we spent a very pleasant hour. 51

"Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh" (Matt. 2 5 : 1 3 ) . 52 "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night" (I Thess. 5 : 2 ) . "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (II Pet. 3 : 1 0 ) . B3 William Ellery Sedgwick ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 7 3 ) was Mrs. Robert Sedgwick's son. Miss Catherine is Catherine Maria Sedgwick ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 6 7 ) , sister of the late Robert Sedgwick, and a pioneer in the creation of the American domestic novel. Her works were praised by Bryant and Hawthorne and were extremely popular. Mrs. Robert Sedgwick had five daughters, including Elizabeth Ellery Sedgwick (Lizzy), who in i860 married Professor James Francis Child, and Helen, who died in 1 8 5 1 . B4 Dana is with Sarah's two brothers, the wife of Sarah's Uncle John, and William M. Evarts.

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Returned to Mrs. Sedgwick's. JAN. 4TH. WEDNESDAY.

After breakfast went to William's office, which

is that of the U. S. Distr. Atty., Ogden Hoffman, 5 5 to whom he is assistant. Called with him upon Mrs. W m . S. Johnson 66 in Warren St., who was a Wolsey of N. Haven, & a friend of S.'s. She was engaged. Returned to the office. Evarts dropped in for half an hour. Invited me to dine with him at Delmonico's, which I was obliged to decline, as Mrs. Sedgwick had invited O'Sullivan 5 7 to meet me at her house. Called upon Bryant 5 8 at the E v . Post office. He was seated at a table covered with papers, & giving him barely a place to put a single sheet of paper for writing. H e seemed ill at ease & abstracted. I am told he is usually so at his office. It is no place for him. Called on Ch. W . Hoffman, at the Custom House, where he has an office. Talked over the Somers mutiny & Capt. Mackensie. He sympathises with M. very much, & has a horrid idea of Spencer's father, the Sec. of War, 5 9 whom he thinks capable of feeing the papers to attack M. S a w Mr. Ogden Hoffman, who invited me to go on board the N. Carolina, & attend the Court Martial. Called upon Josiah Howe, Henry Nicoll & Theod. Sedgwick Jr. 60 Went with William & John [Watson] on board the N. Carolina to see the Court Martial. There, in the cabin, at the head of a table, sat Commodore Stewart, the President of the Court, & at his sides, Commodores Dallas 56

Ogden Hoffman (1793-1856) was in the U. S. Congress, 1837-1841, and was U. S. attorney for the southern district of New York, 1841-1845 and 1853-1855. 5e Mrs. William Samuel Johnson, wife of a New York lawyer. A marginal note in the manuscript adds "stone?" after her name. 57 John Louis O'Sullivan ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 9 5 ) , journalist and diplomat, in 1837 established the United States Magazine and Democratic Review in New York, founded and edited the New York Morning News, 1844-1846, and in 1854 w a s named Minister to Portugal by President Pierce. He was a leader in the Democratic party. 58 As editor of the Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant was a leading radical Democrat, a political position which at that time Dana abhorred. He later discovered a common political ground with Bryant on the antislavery issue, but Dana and most of his friends would always have preferred to enjoy Bryant's poetry without having to encounter his journalism. 59 John Canfield Spencer (1788-1855) served in the U. S. house, 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 1 9 , had become Secretary of War in 1841, and was Secretary of the Treasury, 1843-1844. 60 Josiah Howe ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 5 8 ) was a New York lawyer. Henry Nicoll ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 7 9 ) practiced law in New York, and went to the U. S. house as a Democrat, 1847-1849. Theodore Sedgwick, Jr. ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 5 9 ) w a s a lawyer and writer on legal subjects, his most important work being A Treatise on the Measure of Damages (1847). He reviewed Two Years Before the Mast for the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1840. His father was Robert, Catherine Maria Sedgwick's brother.

ι ι 8

Beginnings

& Jones.® 1 At one end of the table sat Commander Alex. Slidell Mackensie, & at the other Mr. Midshipman M. C. Perry, (nephew of Ο. H. P.)62 who was testifying, & standing at the stove was Ogden Hoffman, Judge Advocate. Mackensie is a calm, resolute, plain, modest man of about 40, entirely without any swagger or assumption, & with the appearance of being careful & conscientious. I looked with no little interest at old Commodore Stewart, the veteran of the war of 18x2-14, & the captor of the Cyane & Levant in the Constitution. After leaving the N. Carolina, we went on board the Somers. She is a small, rakish 10 gun brig, of a beautiful model. One needs to see this vessel to appreciate the defenseless situation of the officers. With no poop deck, no armed cabin, & without a marine on board; with only a flush deck fore & aft, & officers & crew living in the between-decks, separated only by a bulkhead, & no means of getting on deck but by the ascent of the companion way, the officers were very much at the mercy of a few resolute men possessed of the deck. I was also satisfied that there was no safe place to put half a dosen conspirators in irons, where they could have been separate from the crew & yet be well guarded. From the Navy Yard we went to Henry St., & all called upon Mrs. John Marsh. Called upon Miss Julia Ward,83 32 Bond st. Dined at Mrs. Sedgwick's, with Geo. Pomeroy & John O'Sullivan. Nothing talked of but the Somers Mutiny. All are well disposed toward Mackensie. Mrs. Mackensie64 (wife of the commander) called upon Mrs. S[edgwick] & I was introduced to her. She is a sensible & rather handsome Charles Stewart (1778-1869) distinguished himself in the War of 1812, was currently commander of the Pensacola Navy Yard. Alexander James Dallas ( 1 7 9 1 1844) had been in the Navy since 1805, served on the President in 1812, had cruised against West Indian pirates. Jacob Jones (1768-1850), in the Navy since 1799, was at this time on duty as commander of New York harbor. The North Carolina was his flagship. 62 01iver Hazard Perry (1785-1819), hero of the battle of Lake Erie, was "O.H.P." Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858), who in 1852 was to negotiate the treaty with Japan, had a son on the Somers, Matthew Calbraith, Jr. (d. 1873), who was a passed midshipman in 1841, and who achieved the rank of captain in 1867. His mother was Mackenzie's sister. 63 Julia Ward (1819-1910) married Samuel Gridley Howe that same year. A leader in woman's sufferage and peace movements, she composed her "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in 1861. ^Catherine Alexander Robinson Mackenzie married the Commander in New York on October 1, 1835. Her father, Morris Robinson, was a prominent New York lawyer. Her son, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie (1840-1889) died a brigadier-general, famous as an Indian fighter. el

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woman. She spoke of her husband's case, & said that as soon as she saw him upon his arrival she perceived that he looked dreadfully, & asked him at once "what is the matter?". He turned her off by saying that he had had no sleep, & that they had experienced bad weather &c. &c. He did not mention it to them, until all the papers had been sent to Washington. After dinner called with Miss Catherine, upon Mrs. Banyer & her sister Miss Jay, (Bond st.) daughters of the great John Jay. They are intelligent, religious & well bred ladies of the old school, & spend a large fortune charitably. Mrs. Banyer said she had öfter heard her father speak of my grandfather, whom he used to call Mr. [Francis] Dana, as he knew him before he became judge. Called at Mr. Bryant's. At home is a different man from what you find at the office. His wife & daughter, Mrs. Godwin,65 were present. Mrs. G. is apparently about to be confined. From B.'s, I went to Mrs. Geo. Gibbs',66 & thence to Danl. Lord Jr's, in St. John's Square. Danl. Lord is the most prosperous lawyer in Ν. Y.; but appears to be only a little, dapper, talking, smart man, of an ordinary range of mind. He has excellent qualities & a high moral character & integrity. Passing down Broadway, the name of Anthony st., struck me, & I had a sudden desire to see that sink of iniquity & filth, the "Five Points". Following Anthony st. down, I came upon the neighborhood. It was about half past ten, & the night was cloudy. The buildings were ruinous for the most part, as well as I could judge, & the streets & sidewalks muddy & ill lighted. Several of [the] houses had wooden shutters well closed & in almost [each] such case I found by stopping & listening, that there were many voices in the rooms & sometimes the sound of music & dancing. On the opposite side of [the] way I saw a door opened suddenly & a woman thrust into the street with great resistance & most foul language on her part. She seemed to be very drunk & threatened the life of one woman who was in the house, calling upon them to turn her out too, & saying "I'll watch for you". Her oaths were dreadful, & her drunken screeches & curses were so loud that they could be heard several squares off. As I passed on I still heard them behind me. Next there passed me a man holding up under his arm a woman who was so drunk that she could not walk alone & was muttering senseless words over to herself. Men & women were passing on each side of the street, sometimes in numbers together, & once or twice a company of half a dosen mere girls ran Frances Bryant, the wife of Parke Godwin, was the poet's oldest daughter. T h e wife of George Gibbs, who has been noted previously, was Laura Wolcott, daughter of Oliver Wolcott, mother of George and Oliver W. Gibbs. 6B

ee

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rapidly, laughed & talking loud, from one house into another. These I gradually found were dancing houses. Grog shops, oyster cellars & close, obscure & suspicious looking places of every description abounded. Passing out of Anthony st., at the corner of one next to it, a girl who was going into a small shop with a shawl drawn over her head stopped & spoke to me. She asked me where I was going. I stopped & answered that I was only walking about a little, to look round. She said "I am only doing the same", & came down from the doorstep towards me. I hastened my pace & passed on. Turning round, I found she had followed me a few steps & then gone back to the shop. The night was not cold, & some women were sitting in the doorways or standing on the sidewalks. From them I received many invitations to walk in & see them, just to sit down a minute, &c., followed usually by laughter & jeers when they saw me pass on without noticing them. At one door, removed from sight & in an obscure place, where no one seemed in sight, two women were sitting, one apparently old, probably the "mother" of the house, & the other rather young, as well as I could judge from her voice & face. They invited me to walk in & just say a word to them. I had a strong inclination to see the interior of such a house as they must live in, & finding that the room was lighted & seeing no men there & no signs of noise or company, I stopped in almost before I knew what I was doing. The room had but little furniture, a sanded floor, one lamp, & a small bar on which were a few glasses, a decanter & behind the bar were two half barrels. The old woman did not speak, but kept her seat in the door way. The younger one, after letting me look round a moment, asked me in a whisper & a very insinuating air, putting on as winning a smile as she could raise, & with the affectation of a simple childish way, to "just step into the bed room: it was only the next room". Here I had a strong desire to see the whole of the establishment, yet some fear of treachery or fouled play. I had more than $50 in my pocket, a gold watch, gold pencil case, gold double eye glass, & other things of value & being well dressed, I might be looked upon as an object for plunder. I had, too, no weapon; not even a cane. When adventure is uppermost, however, we seldom weigh chances. The house I perceived was very small & it being comparatively early & people passing in the street I had little fear, & went in. The bed room was very small, being a mere closet, with one bed & one chair in it, the door through wh. we came & a window. There was no light in it, but it was dimly lighted by a single paine of glass over the door through which the light came from the adjoining room, in wh. we had been. The bed stead was a wretched truck, & the bed was of straw, judging from the sound it made when the woman sat upon it. Taking for granted that I wished to use her for the

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purposes of her calling she asked me how much I would give. I said "What do you ask?". She hesitated a moment, & then answered hesitatingly, & evidently ready to lower her price if necessary, "half a dollar?" I was astonished at the mere pittance for which she would sell her wretched, worn out, prostituted body. I can hardly tell the disgust & pity I felt. I told her at once that I had no object but curiosity in coming into the house, yet gave her the money from fear lest, getting nothing, she might make a difficulty or try to have me plundered. She took the money & thanked me, but expressed no surprise at my curiosity or strangeness. Perhaps they are used to having the visits of persons like myself from abroad & who wish to see the inside of such places. I thought of asking her how she came into such a place & trying to drop a word of warning as to her horrible end; but it was getting late, I had no more time to waste, & I felt a little uneasy at my situation. The thought crossed my mind, if anything should happen to me, if a row should take place in the neighborhood, a descent [be] made by the police & I taken up among others, or I should meet [with] injury or an accident which should render me helpless, I could ill account for my being found in such a place. I therefore left the room, & passing through the front room, & by the old woman who still sat at the door, was at once in the street. Looking round I saw the girl speak to the old woman & heard them laugh. My outside coat had been buttoned tight all the time I was in the house, yet I instinctively felt in my pockets & about my person to see if all my property [was] safe. Nothing was missing & I went rapidly on toward Broadway. As I retrod the ground very nearly the same scenes presented themselves; & I observed that there were a great many girls of from 8 or xo to 1 2 or 14 years of age in the street & going in & out of the houses. The greater part of the women in this course of life are victims of seduction, from other places, & from respectable situations in life, who come or are enticed by cunning to the city; yet it seems there are some who are bred up to vice from out of its midst. From these dark, filthy, violent & degraded regions, I passed into Broadway, where were lighted carriages with footmen, numerous well dressed passers by, cheerful light coming from behind curtained parlor windows, where were happy, affectionate & virtuous people connected by the ties of blood & friendship & enjoying the charities & honors of life. What mighty differences, what awful separations, wide as that of the great gulf & lasting for eternity, do what seem to be the merest chances place between human beings, of the same flesh & blood. "There but for the grace of God goes John Newton!" There, but for the absence of a temptation, or an opportunity, or but for the presence of restraint, or

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the interference of an accident, live & die many a respected & seemly & happy woman. Cecil well says, there is more to tax the faith & confound the understanding between Temple bar & St. Paul's, than from Genesis to Revelation.67 And when I reached Ninth st., the servant opened for me the parlor door, & there, seated round a pleasant fire, sat a family solely of women, one the beautiful mother of five daughters, all of whom were yet to try the world & be tried by it, another a distinguished writer of moral stories & a firm believer in the general goodness & safety of her race, & two young girls, of fifteen or sixteen, just coming into womanhood; — I felt as though I was wandering in a dream, made up of strange extremes & unnatural contrast. How wonderful, wonderful, fearful, fearful are the relations of man with man, & man with God! "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults".68 Am I any better in the sight of an all-seeing God than these filthy wretches? I have done things worse in me, than brought some of them to that condition; & their subsequent course has been matter of necessity, inevitable.

jan. 5th. Thursday. Having bid good bye to my dear friends on the night before, I rose early & reached the N. Haven boat at 7 A. M. Passing the Navy Yard I saw a man pointing out the Independence, 60 guns, as the Somers. I took an opportunity afterwards to ask him what vessel that was in the stream. He announced, the Somers, wh. gave me an opportunity to point out the Somers to him as the little brig lying in by the wharf. He could hardly believe it was so small. I made a point upon that in favor of McKensie. Reach N. Haven at 12V2 & drove to the Tontine. The situation of this town is certainly very picturesque; lying on the water side between two of the boldest cliffs I ever saw, which seem to overhang the bay, yet itself on a plain, it has the appearance of peacefulness & shelter, as if placed in a sunny pleasant nook & guarded by a tall giant on each side. After dinner Geo. Flagg 69 called & invited me to look at his pictures. He is improving, as he thinks, & seems in excellent spirits & confident in his own powers in his art. He certainly seems to me to be painting «"Richard Cecil ( 1 7 4 8 - 1 8 1 0 ) , The Works of the Rev. Richard Cecil, Μ. Α., ed. Josiah Pratt, I V (London, 1 8 1 1 ) , 3 1 1 . " A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment and to exercise his faith in the state of things between Temple Bar and St. Paul's, than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelation." Cecil was the biographer of John Newton ( 1 7 2 5 - 1 8 0 7 ) and may have attributed the "There but for the grace of G o d " remark to him, although the usual attribution is to John Bradford (1510-1555). 68 Psalms 1 9 : 1 2 . 69 George Whiting Flagg ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 9 7 ) , noted as a genre painter, became a teacher of art in 1 8 5 1 .

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exceedingly well. While at his room, he showed me a little caste of the crucifiction from an old artist. I made this remark, which struck Flagg very much, & which was original, so far as I am concerned, for I never heard it before. While looking at the naked body, carved with all the power of art, giving to every limb & feature the expression of anguish & patience, the thought crossed my mind, — art has never given the true character of the scene. Christ was executed in his common, every day clothes, like a mere malifactor, without anything of grandeur or poetic intent in the circumstances of his person, but with everything to add humiliation, & to make the person common & despised. This seemed one additional fact in the entire humiliation of our Saviour.70 No sooner had I said this than Flagg sprang at the idea as if it had been a flash of new light, & striking his hands together, but with great solemnity, said — "I'll paint a picture so. I'll try it", & then asked me if I had ever heard the remark before. I told him I had not, & he said no picture has ever been painted in that way. I asked him if it was not too adventurous, whether the idea could be conveyed without making the scene too common & vulgar; whether it ought not to be idealised. He said no, & seemed determined to try it. If he succeeds it will be a great thing. I have thought often of it since; & it seems more true & more dreadful the more I think of it. Proff. Silliman called & invited me to tea. Also, Rev. Mr. Cleaveland called, whom I knew at Andover eleven or twelve years ago, Proff. Olmsted & Mr. Colton, author of Tecumseh & other poems. 71 Took tea at Proff. Silliman's. His son & his wife were there, Proff. Gooderich, Rev. Mr. Bingham 72 from the Sandwich Island Mission, & a number of ladies. Mr. Bingham sang "From Greenland's icy Mountains" in the Sandwick Island tongue. Delivered a lecture before the Lyceum. Subject, "The sources of influence", with parts of my lecture on "Knowledge is power" interspersed. Next morning called at Judge [David] Daggett's. Spent nearly an hour talking over matters of politics &c. with him. He has a great horror of 70 Dana adds in a note: "This was a mistake on my part. He was led away to be crucified in "his own clothes', but when they crucified Him, they parted his garments among them." 71 Benjamin Silliman ( 1 7 7 9 - 1 8 6 4 ) , professor of chemistry and natural history at Yale, 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 5 3 , is regarded as having been one of the most influential scientists of his time. One of his daughters married James B. Dana. Denison Olmsted ( 1 7 9 1 1 8 5 9 ) held the chairs of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Yale, 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 5 9 . George Hooker Colton ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 4 7 ) , author of Tecumseh: or, the West Thirty Years Since ( 1 8 4 2 ) , founded and edited The American Whig, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 4 7 . 72 Mrs. Silliman was Harriet Trumbel, second daughter of the second governor of Connecticut. Reverend Hiram Bingham ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 6 9 ) served as a Congregational missionary in the Sandwich Islands, 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 4 0 .

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John C. Spencer, Sec. of War. He believes him to have great intellect, great energy, but no principle & an unforgiving temper. Took the cars at noon for Hartford, where I arrived at 2 P. M. Went to Mr. [Ο. E.] Daggett's. Found there, besides Mr. D. & Elisabeth (who looks better than I have ever seen her, & is in excellent health) Mrs. Watson, & Aunts Abby & Lydia from Wethersfield. Miss Nancy had a head ache & could not come over. Spent a delightful afternoon & evening. In the ev. Mr. Lord (lecturer on the Middle ages) called. Not at all a pleasing man, & much less so, when regarded as a clergyman. His talk is flippant, gossiping, vain & rather uncharitable; yet amusing. He amuses his hearers, at the expense of their respect for him. Little Susan is very well. JAN. 7TH. Left in the stage coach from Hartford. Had Geo. Bancroft, the historian & politician for my companion. We. talked a good deal, & he is quite able & well informed, but not a pleasing man, & one with whom you feel very uneasy. He said that Scott's poetry would survive his novels. Our conversation was, however, chiefly political. On general principles he is not interesting, & seems to have no enthousiasm for his own principles or desire to instruct others in them, but, I suspect, uses them for his own advantage before the public at great meetings & in his writings. He was exceedingly nettled at the news which crossed us, that a Whig speaker had been elected at Boston. He said that the conservative party in America had no bond of union but fear of democratic principles being carried too far. Reached home at 7% & found Sarah well, & sitting in the parlour to receive me. Little S. looking nicely, notwithstanding a bad arm, from innoculation. W e could not determine whether she recognised me or not. Great reason for thankfulness. Carried over land & water for several hundred miles, fulfilling all my engagements, making them profitable to myself, meeting & enjoying many friends, & at last finding my dear home & its dearer inmates well & happy. Mary [Watson] had gone to a concert of the Academy & came home at ten. Charlotte came from Providence in the train that arrived at the same hour that ours arrived from Worcester, & the two trains came very near running into each other at the crossing. They whistled & backed, but barely escaped a collision. [JAN.] 10TH. Reed, a letter from Miss C. M. Sedgwick, desiring me to write to her a letter on the matter of McKensie & the Somers, which she might publish, giving a description of the appearance of the Somers, & such inferences from what I saw on board as I had stated to them.

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JAN. 11TH. Answered Miss Sedgwick's letter with a long letter carefully prepared for publication.73 Case of the ship "Farrell" in hand, in which the master & owners are charged with not supplying the crew with sufficient provisions whereby they got the scurvey & suffered exceedingly. [JAN.]

14TH.

Reed, the Ν. Υ. Ev. Post, with my letter in it, favorably

headed. [JAN.] 17TH. My Somers letter published in the Boston Atlas, Merc. Journal, Ν. Y. Tribune, Morning Post, &c.

Letter from Miss C. M. Sedgwick & Mrs. Robt. S., with reference to my Somers letter. All very kind & complimentary. [JAN.]

23RD.

[JAN.] 25TH. Left at 1Y2 P. M. in the cars for Portland to lecture before the Lyceum. Missed dinner & had no time to dine on the road, or to get anything to eat. Arrived too late for tea, it being 7%, & the audience had been waiting nearly half an hour. So I was led from the cars into the desk, unwashed & without food or any refreshment or sustenance. Gave them the lecture upon "The Sources of influence". After the lecture, Judge Shepley74 introduced himself & invited me to his house. Was 73 The letter, dated January 1 1 , 1843, runs over five thousand words. Since it has been reprinted completely in Adams (I, 50-58), and substantially in Hayford, Somers Affair, pp. 102-106, it is not necessary to reproduce it here. The concluding paragraph, as reprinted in Adams (and excluded from Hayford), is a recapitulation of the letter's argument: With us, in Boston, I have heard but one opinion; but in New York there have been some misunderstandings and misconstructions, as I think. You will not suspect me of inclining in favor of a despotic use of power at sea; yet, I assure you, that, having seen the Somers, and felt the defenceless situation of the officers; knowing that, besides Mackenzie, there was but one commissioned officer on board, and that of the warrant officers, the eider are but young men, and the younger but lads; knowing that there were no marines on board, and that some of the forward officers, upon whom great reliance is usually and somewhat necessarily placed, were implicated in the conspiracy; that there was no chance for escape, nor of aid from abroad, nor in concessions; and that the guilty persons, whether arrested or free, whether discovered or secret, would naturally make a desperate effort before reaching the land; and remembering the public duty the officers had to perform to save the lives of those committed to their charge, and to prevent at all hazards the success of these hostes humani generis; I am willing to believe that we shall all finally be satisfied that the execution was an act of solemn necessity. We look for the remaining evidence with anxious interest. 74

George F. Shepley ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 7 8 ) practiced law in Portland and was a judge of a local court. He was U. S. attorney for Maine in 1848 and from 1853 to 1857 served as a colonel during the Civil War, and in 1869 was appointed circuit judge of the U. S. Court.

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obliged to refuse, as I must leave in the early cars of the morning, & was engaged to spend the evening at Mr. Ch. S. Daveis. 75 Also saw Mr. Chickering (Rev. John),76 Mr. Howe whom I met at St. John & others. At Mr. Daveis', besides himself & lady, there were, his son Edw. H., a lawyer, his son Gilman, a physician, his son in law D. Green Haskins & his lady, another daughter, & two Messers Longfellow, brothers of the poet. 77 Mr. D. is well educated, a good Greek scholar, a civilian of no small study, & a man of some wit & sentiment. His son Edw. is clever. Left at Yi l i , having eaten as many oysters & crackers as I dared. Called at 6, breakfast at 6Y2 (Cumberland Hs.) & cars at γΥι. Saw nothing of the town except while riding to the station on the seat of the coach. It seemed compact, regular & handsome. The harbour is said to be beautiful. In the cars, had a Lieut. Robinson of the Navy; intelligent & with simple manners; no martial nonsense about him. At Newburyport met Rev. Jona. Stearns,78 & Rev. Th. Fox. Mr. Fox told me some anecdotes of a Mr. Curson, whose adventures, he said, were much more romantic & varying than those of Cleveland. 79 At Portsmouth, got a view of the sloop-of-war Saratoga, bound to Africa. On my passage down, read "As you like it". On the passage back, read "Winter's tale" & part of "Two gentleman of Verona". Can always read with great pleasure in the cars. [JAN.] 26TH. Lectured in the ev. at Brighton. Was introduced to the audience as " 'Squire Dany from Boston". The president also gave the audience notice that "a reformed drunkard, a N. York woodsawyer, 7B Charles

Stewart Daveis

(1788-1865),

a lawyer, had done diplomatic duty in

Holland in 1829, served in the Maine senate in 1841, and was a trustee of Bowdoin College. 76 John

White Chickering (1808-1888) held a parish in Portland, 1835-1865, and

for years was secretary to the Congressional Temperance Society in Washington, D. C. 7 7 Edward

Henry Daveis ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 9 0 9 ) practiced law in Portland, 1841-1860, and

then became a banker, president of a gas company and of a railroad. John Taylor Gilman Daveis ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 7 3 )

practiced medicine in Portland, 1841-1873, was presi-

dent of the Maine Medical Association 1857-1858. David Green Haskins (b.

1818)

took Episcopalian orders in 1847, had churches in various Maine communities, and in

1876 became

Maine's

Commissioner

of Education.

One

of

Longfellow's brothers living in Portland was Samuel Longfellow

Henry

Wadsworth

(1819-1892),

who

was ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1848, and served in Massachusetts,

New

York, and Pennsylvania. He wrote poems, hymns, and a life of H.W.L. 78 Jonathan

French Stearns (1808-1889)

(1886).

was pastor of a church at Newburyport

from 1835 to 1849, and of another at Newark, N. J., 1849-1888. 79 Samuel

Curson

(d.

1845?)

never published his " J o u m a l

of a Voyage to the

North West Coast, 1798-99." A photostat of the manuscript is at the Massachusetts Historical Society. According to the MHS catalog, the original is owned by Elizabeth Hoxse of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Miss

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named Hadduck, & an odd fish, with one eye, & lame", would address the people upon the subject of total abstinence. I dare say that there was more curiosity to hear him, than to hear my lecture upon "the sources of influences". They attended well, however, but not one word was said to me when I got thro'. Either they did not like me, or did not know what to think. I did not speak with much faith, as my subject was abstract & they seemed to be the most illiterate audience I had yet seen. They had no one to take my horse, & none of the usual civilities extended to a lecturer. [ J A N . ] 28TH. Suffering from a boil, so that I cannot walk. The day is snowy & I stay at home. This is the first day I have spent at home (except Sundays) when well, since I opened my office. It is delightful thing, with nothing to do but to read, write & be attended to. The course of reading to which for a year I had given only the odds & ends of evenings, I could now pursue for hours. Wrote to Evarts, & others, & notes to the office. Read in Mitford's Greece. 80 Cousin Mary [Watson] came to spend a week with us. [ J A N . ] 29TH. Still laid up with my leg. Finished Jer. Taylor's Holy Living & Dying. 81 Began "Confessions of St. Augustine". S. went out in the morning; staid with me in the afternoon. Father called to see me & to play with the baby. Ned took tea with us & waited upon the two Marys to hear Mr. Kirk. Commodore Nicholson told me that he was a junior lieut. of the United States, under Decatur, when she took the Macedonian, & that Decatur, on parting with him, gave him one piece of advice, as a parting legacy, "never trust to luck". "I can say this" said D. "because I have been called the luckiest man in the Navy. The reason is, I never trusted to it". Cousin Mary spends this week with us.

FEB. 2. Rode to Milton to lecture in the ev. A clear cold night, & I in an open sleigh. Went to the house of a Mr. Campbell where my classmate Dr. C. C. Holmes 82 is boarding, with his newly married wife. Thence to the lecture room. Two small hard coal stoves, one on each side of the desk at wh. I stood, with a pipe running over my head, & a malignant heat coming from them, beating upon my brain, which to a 80 William Mitford ( 1 7 4 4 - 1 8 2 7 ) , The History of Greece, 4 vols. (London: Cadell & Davies, 1 8 0 8 ) . 81 Jeremy Taylor's The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living (London, 1 6 5 0 ) , and The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying (London, 1 6 5 1 ) , were published together as a single volume as early as 1663. 82 Christopher Columbus Holmes ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 8 2 ) , Harvard Β. Α., 1 8 3 7 , Μ. D., 1840, practiced medicine in Milton until his death.

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person just from a cold, was particularly stupefying. Gave the lecture upon "American loyalty". After I had done, a great many persons came up to me & expressed their hearty concurrence in its doctrines & their gratification at hearing them uttered. Riding back Mr. C. pointed out a house wh. he sd. was built by a young man who had drawn $10,000 in a lottery, & who ran thro' the whole before his house was completed. S. & Mary, at a party at Dr. Shattuck's, for wh. I returned too late. [FEB.] 3RD. Leonard Woods [Jr.], father & Rev. Mr. Thompson & lady of Roxbury, dined with us to-day. Had a very pleasant time. Leonard talked admirably upon his hobby "the Christian Church", Roman, Protestant episcopal, Congregational, &c. Father met him well on the point of the central power of the Romish establishment, which L. had partially defended. L. sd. that the Catholic clergy had made the best statesmen because of their learning & their being free from the family interests & care for their descendants wh. had been the cause of so much favoritism & contest. This we denied, alleging that governors shd. have something more at stake & be more in connexion with the interests & sympathies of other men. Leonard had been invited to dine with Mr. Brimmer, the Mayor last week & neglected to answer the invitation. On the ev. of the day before the dinner, Mr. B. sent him a note saying that he had reed, no answer to his invitation & did not know what to expect. To this Mr. Woods wrote an answer reminding Mr. B. how those things were managed in Paris (where he had last seen Mr. B.) on an invitation to dine at Court, which was never answered, it being presumed that such an invitation could not be declined, & Mr. W. had looked upon this invitation from His Honor the Mayor somewhat in the same light. Mr. Brimmer was so much pleased with the answer that he told Leonard he deserved to have the freedom of the city in a gold box. This is a fair instance of Leonard's readiness. Spent the ev. at Mrs. Wm. Minot's (Kate Sedgwick's) where was a small party of about 20 or 30. Sarah, Charlotte & Ned, of our family, the Minots, Mr. Chas. Sedgwick, Miss Helen Davis (who could not sing, having a bad cold), Miss Fanny Appleton (looking superbly, in black, & jet ornaments), John Forbes & lady, Miss Mary Dwight, &c. &c. Mr. Byington, a lawyer in Berkshire, & Geo. T. Davis of Greenfield.83 83 Charles

Sedgwick was a brother of Robert and Catherine Maria Sedgwick of

New York and was married to Elizabeth Dwight. John Murray Forbes

(1813-1898),

brother of Robert B. and son of Ralph B., entered the family interests and was a shipping merchant and capitalist. George T. Davis ( 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 7 7 ) , a Whig who turned

1843

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Charlotte sang two songs in her best style. "Bella Cypriana" & "Se intendo sia mio cor" [?] Kate Minot sang the "Gypsey laddie" & played ä beautiful Polish air which I had heard her sister Bessy play in N. York. Had a very pleasant evening. [ F E B . ] 4TH. Accepted an invitation to lecture at Hartford on the 8th. Concert of the Academy of music at the Odeon. Crowd so great that every seat was filled more than half an hour before the time, we sat in the aisle. All the world was there. The Ticknors, Nortons, F. Appleton, Mr. Longfellow, Abbott Lawrence's set & Miss Leslie, Leonard Woods [Jr.], & Ingham the artist with our party.84 The pieces played were the Overtures to Masaniello & L'Estocque, a concerto on the violin, & Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C. minor. At the Minots Fanny Appleton said Charlotte had the only poetical voice she had heard. I can understand it well, for she sang with sentiment. Mr. Minot (Wm., senior) told me that I reminded him very much of my grandfather. I was the same height, wore my hair in the same manner, had a figure very much like his, & his carriage. Mr. John Pickering had told me the same.85 [ F E B . ] 8TH. Left at 7 A. M. for Hartford to lecture before the Young Men's Institute. Read, on the way, the newspapers, Taming the Shrew, & a part of Cymbeline. Reached Springfield at the usual hour. There found John C. Park,86 who had gone up the day before to lecture at S., & been detained until late at night on the road (or rail, as they say in England), & arrived too late to lecture, & as no Albany train had come in he could not return. I had my usual luck as to passages, & got in to Hartford at about 6 P. M. The ride from S. to Hd. was very cold, but the company kept themselves lively by conversation & music. One of the female passengers gloried in being the wife of a man who played the trombone in the N. Haven band, & another had for her husband a singing master. A young man fr. Hd., who had a strong military spirit & belonged

Republican, served in the U. S. House, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 3 , in the Massachusetts senate, 1 8 4 0 - 1 8 4 1 , and in the state legislature, 1861. He practiced law in Greenfield. 84 Miss Eliza Leslie ( 1 7 8 7 - 1 8 5 8 ) wrote fiction and cookbooks, contributing frequendy to Godey's Lady's Book and Graham's Magazine. Charles Cromwell Ingham ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 6 3 ) was a painter and writer. 85 William Minot ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 7 3 ) was a prominent Boston lawyer, son of George Richards Minot. His reference is to Dana's grandfather Francis Dana. John Pickering ( 1 7 7 7 - 1 8 4 6 ) , American secretary to the Minister at Spain during Dana's grandfather's lifetime ( 1 7 9 7 ) , eventually gained fame as a lawyer and as an authority on American Indian languages. 86

John C. Park ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 8 9 ) was a lawyer and became a judge of a local court.

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to a volunteer company, sang base. Two thin faced, sallow & black eyed girls on the back seat were fr. Boston & pupils of Lowell Mason,87 & were anxious to show off their superior science before the provincials. O f t in the stilly night" was the first tune they joined in, & it was amusing to hear them, in the extreme of Mason's worst style, throw all their force upon the consonants, & especially the s'es & final is. They made one syllable of "stilly" & the final t in "night" went off like an explosion. The country girls, in their ignorance, sang much better. An apparently intelligent young woman on the back seat related, seemingly with faith in its probability, a story of a woman's having been put in a state of Mesmeric or magnetic sleep & going to heaven & hell, & undertaking to tell whom she found in the one place & whom in the other. The thing was seriously discussed by the company & some gravely expressed their disbelief of it, but not without hesitation. It seems as though, with this & Miller-ism,88 there were more fanaticisms abroad than ever. Found Mr. Daggett & El. well, & Mrs. Watson delightfully, & Aunt Nancy well & bright, having come over to hear my lecture. Lecture at 7. Subject "Sources of influence". Very well attended to, & applause quite loud & general several times. This, I was told, had rarely if ever happened before. All expressed their interest in the subject, & my near friends said all I could wish of my performance. I took no small pride in doing well before an audience in S.'s native town. After lecture returned to D.'s. Sat up until past one o'clock. A Mr. Parker, an intelligent young man, spent part of the ev. with us. FEB. QTH. Left at 7V2 in the coach for Springfield. A passenger, was a Mr. Jer. Fowler of Qubec, Me., formerly of Hartford, & lately a member of the Maine Senate, — a shrewd, plain-sense, honest man, of the middleclass. Two passengers, Hd. men, shop-keepers, talked of nothing but business, this concern & that concern, & how much A. B. & C. were worth. Dined at Warrener's. I was the only person at table, & had for my sole use (or rather, choice) mock-turtle soup, roast chicken, boiled chicken, roast beef, with every usual vegitable, apple pie, minced pie & lemon pudding, custards, calf's foot jelly, ice cream, apples & nuts. All these things, too, in the nicest order & at the usual price of a traveller's dinner, 50 cents. 8 7 Lowell Mason (1792-1872), music teacher and hymn writer, founded the Boston Academy of Music in 1833; composed "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." 8 8 The Millerite sect, which had a considerable following, preached that the world would end in 1843.

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Reached Boston at 6V2, & found all well. At the latter part of the ride, found in the cars, Dr. Saml. G. Howe 89 (of Greek, Polish & benevolent memory) & Ben. Rotch,90 being a committee of the legislature to visit our benevolent institutions. [FEB.] 10TH. At Mr. Ticknor's in the ev., with S. We had the usual company of Dwights, Eliots, Guilds, Mrs. [Andrews] Norton (the loveliest of the post meridian ladies) & her two lovely daughters, Fanny Appleton, dressed in black & looking like a princess, reserved & self possessed, Dr. [S. G.] Howe, Hillard, Leonard Woods [Jr.], Theod. Lyman, 91 Nathan Appleton, Prescott (Ferd. & Isabella), Miss Julia Ward (of Ν. Y.) &c &c. Mr. Ticknor told me the following anecdote of John Adams,82 [which] I believe to be literally true, from Mr. T.'s great accuracy in all such matters & I am sure I give his very words. He said that he took an English gentleman out to call upon Mr. A. at Quincy, during the year 1825, just before his death, & while the election of his son (J. Q.) was undetermined. The old man with (as Mr. T. called it) his habitual indiscretion, talked politics. As the election depended mostly upon the vote of Ν. Y. state, Mr. T., to keep up the conversation, said "Mr. President, how do you think Ν. Y. will go?" At this the old man drew himself up & answered — "Sir, I have known Ν. Y., man & boy, seventy years, & she has always been the Devil's own incomprehensible". Mr. T. sides with Webster in his present position, & says he (W.) will be before hand with Congress & settle the Oregon boundary question, in London, before Congress can do much harm by their bill.93 As T. is en rapport with W., I give some heed to what he says. 89 Samuel Gridley Howe, noted earlier, had participated in the Greek revolution of 1 8 2 7 - 1 8 2 9 , supported the Polish republican movement, and was an active reformer. 90 Benjamin Smith Rotch ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 8 2 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 8 , served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 4 3 - 1 8 4 4 . 91 Theodore L y m a n ( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 4 9 ) served in the Massachusetts house and senate, 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 2 4 , was mayor of Boston, 1 8 3 4 - 1 8 3 5 , and was noted as a philanthropist. 92 John Adams ( 1 7 3 5 - 1 8 2 6 ) , second President of the United States, 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 0 1 . 93 Daniel Webster was attempting a compromise with the British on the matter of the Canadian-Oregon Territory boundary, and took a moderate position. All territory west of the Rockies was held, at this time, to be free territory, open for settlement by either the United States or Great Britain. This situation, based upon the Convention of 1 8 1 8 , was not resolved by Webster and was to supply Polk, in 1 8 4 4 , with a major issue of his campaign. Polk demanded American settlement of the Oregon country and, in 1 8 4 6 , accepted Lord Aberdeen's Oregon Treaty, which set the boundaries of the territory and Canada at the 49th parallel, except at the western terminus of that line, where it was to swerve southward around Vancouver Island and out through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

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Mr. Τ. thinks the downfall of the federal party was solely owing to mismanagement. Finished the argument of the Mary Pauline case [Fed. Case 9 2 2 4 ] , begun yesterday, before Judge [Peleg] Sprague. For ability, courtesy & humanity, Judge S. has not his superior 011 any bench that I know of. [FEB.] I I T H .

[FEB.] 12TH. SUNDAY. It is just 8 months to day that little S. was born. In the afternoon heard an admirable sermon fr. L. Woods [Jr.], on the postponed justice of God, from a text in Eccles. 8. nth. "Because sentence upon evil works is not executed speedily, &c".94 The first distinguished between that judgment of God in the natural course of things & the positive judgment, or those specially sent for each case. The former he said were never delayed, but were always acting & that regularly & instantly. Any intemperance in eating or drinking, or any other violation of the established physical laws, instantly sowed a seed of evil, greater or less; & so any harboring of profane or impure or foolish thoughts, instantly wrought ill to the moral constitution. But the positive judgments of God are not so easily perceived, so regular (to appearance, of course), nor so immediate. The prosperity of the wicked & the sufferings of the innocent are a mystery for faith to conquer, but wh. we can somewhat explain by our reason; & so far "assert eternal Providence, & justify the ways of God to men".95 The classes of cases in which the wicked were not cut off, & God's possible reasons for it, he divided somewhat in this manner.

x. Adam did not die on the very day that he ate the fruit; but the discipline of labour & suffering was reserved for him for his own good & as an example to the world of the evil effects of sin & of the possibility of repentance & amendment; also that he might people the earth. 2. The world was not destroyed by the flood until many years after the flood was threatened, to give time for repentance, & for the complete safety of Noah & his family. Also, to test Noah's faith under a delayed fulfillment. 3. The cities of the plain [were] not destroyed, until Lot had escaped to the mountain & entered into Zoar. Also the long predicted destruction of Jerusalem was delayed, until the small company of Christians had escaped & were safely assembled in the city of [Pella]. 9t "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccles. 8 : 1 1 ) . 9B Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 25-26.

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These are God, delaying general punishment while the elect & innocent are secured. So, the threatened punishment of the Egyptians was delayed until the people of Israel were gathered into Goshen & their door posts stained with blood to avert the destroying angel. And at the end of the world, it will not be until the angels have been sent & gathered together the elect from the four quarters of the Globe, that destruction will come upon the unbelievers. So discriminating will be God's judgments, that two men shall be working in the field, the one shall be taken & the other left. Two women shall be grinding at a mill, one shall be taken, & the other left. Next. God often reserved noted sinners to be monuments of mercy & grace, & instruments of good. Had Saul of Tarsus been struck down when he journeyed toward Damascus, breathing out threatenings & slaughter against the Church of Christ; or St. Augustine, in the midst of his early profaneness & dissoluteness, the church would have lost the services of its grandest inspired & uninspired labourers. And in secular history, had Miltiades been instantly cut off for his cruelties in the Chersonens, or Cimon, for his libertinism at Athens, the world might never have seen the battles of Marathon & Eurimedon, which saved Europe from Oriental despotism. God often uses great sinners to be inflictors of evil, as judgments, upon other sinners, & for this reason they are spared & clothed with power. Sometimes sinners are allowed to go on until their crimes & impieties have come to head, that they may be made signal instances of punishment. Thus Herod was smitten & eaten of worms at the very moment of his highest pride & blasphemy; & it was in the midst of the splendid revelry of a Babylonian banquet that the handwriting appeared upon the wall, while the enemy were already thundering at the gates. The punishment of a great national sin is sometimes dealt out gradually from generation to generation. What is the mystery of God's judgment ag. the Jews & of the condition of the African race? Of these two people, many individuals are innocent, interesting, faithful men, yet they have been marked for persecution, servitude & contempt, for centuries. The judgement has reached beyond the colour [of] the skin, & extended to the physical & intellectual formations. May not these be owing to some primeval, traditionary judgment? This view, to be sure, has its difficulty; but is it not as rational as any other that has been advanced? Under the influence of Christianity, human justice is dealt out more in the manner of the Divine. In early times, judgment & punishment followed instantly upon accusation. Justice seemed to be solely vindictive.

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The execution of our Savior, wh. took place on the forenoon of the same day of his apprehension & trial, was by no means an unusual instance of rapidity. But now, instead of the flashing eye, the disheveled locks & the heaving bosom, eager to pounce upon its victim, Justice sits, with no less of calmness than of dignity, & awaits, in her own temple, the approach of the criminal, who is summoned in to her presence, & there, after time of perfect preparation, is carried thro' the stately forms of prosecution & defense, admirably calculated to sift out the truth & to give delays & chances for passion to cool, where too the injured parties can neither be judges nor executioners, according to the maxim "avenge not yourselves";96 & then, after conviction & sentence, full time is allowed for repentance & the making of peace with God & Man, & the settling of wordly affairs, & the guilty man is conducted through [a] yet more solemn ceremony, & by unprejudiced, disinterested hands, often with commiseration, perhaps with tears, is offered up a sacrifice to violated law & offended justice. He brought out with great force the truth that it is only as God's vice gerents, by his authority, as ordained of God, that we derive our right to deal with the lives, liberties & persons of others; that the parent, master, civil or ecclesiastical officer, can punish at all. FEB. 1 5 T H . WEDNESDAY. This afternoon, at about 5 o'clock, died the Rt. Rev. Bishop Griswold.97 His death occurred in a singularly interesting & striking manner. On account of the age & infirmities of the bishop, an assistant & prospective successor had been consecrated, Dr. Eastburn. It had been very stormy for several days. This afternoon it ceased snowing, & just before night, the venerable old man walked out to call upon his assistant, at a considerable distance, upon some business of the church. Just as he reached the threshold of the door, he fell, & was taken speechless & almost motionless into Dr. Eastburn's study; & there, in five minutes more, breathed his last, in the arms of his successor, to whom he left, as it were, his sacred mantle.

The simple, apostolic character & appearance of the old man, secured for him the veneration & love of all. All the Episcopalians who had been confirmed in Mass., R. I., Ν. H., & Maine, for the last 30 years, had received confirmation from his hands. In 1813 he joined my father & mother in marriage, & in 1838, he confirmed my sister & myself. 96 "DearIy beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 1 2 : 1 9 ) . 97 Alexander Viets Griswold ( 1 7 6 6 - 1 8 4 3 ) was the first Protestant Episcopal bishop of the eastern diocese, was consecrated in 1 8 1 1 , and had since the year before been assisted by Manton Eastburn.

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[ F E B . ] 1 7 T H . Letters to Mrs. Robt. Sedgwick, Miss Cath. M. Sedgwick & Wm. Watson, & an answer to the Ν. Y. Merc. Lib. Assoc., which had made me a life-member, & presented them with [Richard J.] Cleveland's voyages. In the ev. John P. Putnam & lady (daughter of Th. M. Day Esq., in Hartford) took tea with us. Also Ned & Charlotte.

FEB. 18. SAT. Funeral of bishop Griswold at Trinity Church. A great crowd of solemn & interested mourners. Church dressed in black. [FEB.] 1 9 T H . SUNDAY.

St. Paul's dressed in black, for the bishop, &

a funeral sermon. [FEB.] 20TH. 3 P. M. Meeting of the directors of the Cambridge bank. Committee of 5 appointed to examine the concerns of the bank, & to report as to the expediency of winding it up. After the Meeting Rufus Fisher talked with me about my father & gr. father [Francis Dana], He remembered my grandfather's funeral. That, he said, was the only time he had ever seen the elder Pres. Adams, who was one of the pall bearers. Spent the ev. at Dr. Salter's. Present, Leonard Woods [Jr.], Mrs. Bruen & daughter, Misses Gardiner (Hallowell Gardiners), Miss Julia Ward, Mary Ward, Marian Marshall (looking beautifully), Dr. Coale, father, Ned, Charlotte, S., Mary, Mrs. Ripley (cousin Sophia) &c. 98 [ F E B . ] 23RD. Party at Aunts in the ev. Julia Ward had a cold & did not come. Sumner was engaged. Hillard, [C. C.] Felton, Dr. Coale, Rev. Mr. Searle, John Codman, Aspinwall," Judge Phillips, Miss Gardner, Miss Ticknor, &c. Frank Dana came to know the truth of my difficulty with Sampson v. S. Wilder. 1 Showed him my letter to Mr. Rockwell in my letter book, wh. satisfied him, as it has all others who have read it. [ F E B . ] 2 4 T H . Ned argued Schultz v. Welch & got a verdict, very unexpectedly to me. [FEB.] 25TH. Cousin Sophia, Cousin Mary, Aunts E. & S. & the Misses Willard dine with us. I call upon the Professors Silliman at the U. S. Hotel. They at tea. !,8 The Misses Gardiner were the daughters, presumably, of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hallowell Gardiner, at this time living in Augusta, Georgia. The others in this entry, whose identities are known, have been noted earlier.

" J o h n Codman ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 7 9 ) , Bowdoin B.A., 1 8 2 7 , Harvard M.A. (hon.), 1 8 4 3 . William Aspinwall ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 9 2 ) practiced law in Boston. He served in the Massachusetts legislature, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 2 . 1 Francis Dana, Richard's cousin, has been noted earlier. The "difficulty" in this matter remains unclear, and Dana's extant letters show no correspondence with a Mr. Rockwell.

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Have been regularly to Sheridan's [gymnasium] almost every evening for three weeks. [FEB.] 26TH. SUNDAY. Little S. showed her first tooth this day, at 8 months & 14 days. She showed no signs of pain or sickness. An excellent missionary sermon fr. Mr. Vinton fr. the text "Why criest them unto me? Say unto the children of Israel that they go forward".2 Reading Wilberforce's Pract. View, for Sabbath reading; Mitford's Greece, in evenings; & Greenleafs Evidence] at the office.3

FEB. 27. Went to Cambridge on business. Called at Prof. [Ε. T.] Channing's. He says that [Jared] Sparks confirms the English account of Franklin's red line map,4 & adds that Webster took him to Maine to represent the map story to the leading men there as an inducement to them to send their commissioners to treat with Ld. Ashburton unembarrassed by instructions, & that such was the effect of the map upon them. It was used for the same purpose with the Senate to induce them to ratify the treaty, & with success. Yet he justifies Webster. He says that [John] Adams was the only one of the commissioners who knew anything about the line. That Franklin knew but little about it, & might have made a mistake in so long a line. That Webster's confidence in our claim was somewhat shaken by this map, but yet he believed our claim to be right notwithstanding the map. Yet he felt that the discovery would add to the British scale, & prevent our obtaining a decision from an umpire. He therefore determined upon a compromise wh. he would not otherwise have agreed to. He also used the map in Maine & in die Senate, not to show to senators & commissioners that our claim was proved to be bad, & we must take all we can get; but simply to convince them that there were two sides to the question, & that the British had a stronger case than we supposed. He did not communicate it to Ld. Afshburton], because he looked upon it as merely cumulative evidence on their side 2 " A n d the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (Exod. 1 4 : 1 5 ) . 3 William Wilberforce ( 1 7 5 9 - 1 8 3 3 ) , A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country Contrasted with Real Christianity (London, 1 7 9 7 ) ; Simon Greenleaf, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence (Boston: Little & Brown, 1 8 4 2 ) . 4 In 1 7 8 2 Benjamin Franklin had drawn a red line on a map for the French foreign minister, showing the northeast border between the United States and Canada as it had been agreed upon between the victorious Colonies and the English. In the absence of the original map, and in fear that it actually supported the English claims, Webster made what was regarded as a sagacious compromise in the WebsterAshburton Treaty (noted earlier). In 1 9 3 2 the original map turned up in the Spanish archives. Had the details of the real map been known in 1842, the Webster compromise would have been seen to be unnecessary, since the genuine map supports the claims of the American extremists in the controversy.

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wh. we were not bound to furnish, for they might have equally good arguments in ev. in our favor unknown to us.5 Spent the ev. at Aunts. Present, Prof. Brown® of Dartmouth Col., Professors Silliman of Yale, Cousin Sophia, Dr. Shattuck Jr., &c. [ F E B . ] 28TH. Wrote to Geo. R. Young. Lectured at Roxbury. "American loyalty". Seven or eight persons came up to me & expressed their gratification at hearing such views, & their sympathy with them. They really seemed to be quite excited on the subject. M A R C H 1. Called with S. upon Miss Hillhouse of N. Haven, & Mrs. Bruen, & Lissy Sedgwick, who is here from Ν. Y. [ M A B C H ] 3. Judge [T. S.] Wilhams decided Riedel v. Kessler in my favor. Also gave me $250 in the suit of a sailor named Palmer ag. Capt. Stetson. [ M A B C H ] 4. Settled the matter of Elisa Butler v. Franklin Hancock. A very interesting case. The poor girl, a pretty & simple girl, easily persuaded but with good principles & feelings, went to live in the family of John Hancock, the unworthy descendant of the old patriot.7 The whole house, she told me, was a den of iniquity. The old man & his sons equally bad, rich & licentious. She lived there four months resisting every kind of temptation, & at last left to save herself from crime. After leaving, the younger son, Franklin, who she said had treated her better than the others had, found out her place, called to see her, took her to ride, pretending important business, drove her out of town, & in a place where no help could come, partly by enticements & partly by threats of exposure wh. would disgrace her forever, accomplished his purpose.

A month or more afterwards, finding herself sick & feeling wretchedly, she called upon Dr. Stedman.8 He heard her symptoms & made her confess her fault. She told Hancock of her situation. He oifered to take her to a secret house where she shd. be taken care of. She was in some fear & consulted Stedman. He dissuaded her & got her a place with a woman of good character where she passed the time of her confinement & gave birth to a boy. I procured a warrant ag. Hancock in a bastardy 5 Dana adds in a footnote: "This was so. R. Peel in defending the Treaty in Parliament showed a map which gave it to us." The actual Red Line Map was, of course, missing at this time. e Samuel Gilman Brown ( 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 8 5 ) was professor of oratory, philosophy, and political economy at Dartmouth, 1 8 4 0 - 1 8 6 7 , and president of Hamilton College, 1867-1881.

7 1

( 737~1793)•

Hancock's descendants seem not to have distinguished themselves. Charles H. Stedman ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 6 6 ) , who practiced medicine in Boston, served in the Massachusetts senate in 1855. He was related to the Danas through his mother, who was an Ellery. 8

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suit. H e d o d g e d the constable for a long time, b u t w a s c a u g h t at last, g a v e bail, & upon our pressing a trial settled the case f o r $300. W i t h this I p a i d all the girl's expenses, & h a d left about $175 to p u t in the Savings Bank for her child. She called at the office this P. M. to settle about the money, & said she h a d procured a place as a w e t nurse, b e i n g able to take another child beside her own. W h i l e there she told me, in a modest & delicate manner, the main facts of her seduction, to show that she w a s not herself a voluntary victim, & added that she felt herself to h a v e b e e n saved f r o m infamy b y the kindness & firmness of Dr. Stedman. 9 Mrs. Cort, formerly Miss M a r y A n n M o r g a n of Hartford, n i e c e of Mr. John W e b b has b e e n spending a f e w days w i t h us. [MARCH] /ΓΗ. L e c t u r e d at Dorchester "American Loyalty". C a m e [home] & w e n t to a small party at Mrs. Bruen's. Present, Mrs. B. & daughters, Pres. [L.] W o o d s , Mrs. A b b o t t L a w r e n c e & son, Miss [Elisa] Leslie, Alex. E v e r e t t & lady, 1 0 Mr. B o w d o i n , Miss Marian Marshall, Mr. & Mrs. John G. T a p p a n , Miss T a p p a n , Miss Hilhouse (N. Haven) & the t w o Sillimans.

This morning an old negro called at m y office to inquire about the family. H e had lived in m y grandfather's family & w i t h Judge T r o w b r i d g e , & k n e w them all w e l l . 1 1 H e m a d e m a n y inquiries about old times, & told m e several anecdotes of the old people. I asked him if m y grandfather w a s not a small man in stature, "Yes", said he, "& a firm man", w i t h great emphasis on the w o r d firm. H e sd. Judge T r o w b r i d g e was not m u c h if any taller. MARCH 8. F o u n d Mr. John Marsh at the house, on my return fr. my office. H e will spend some days w i t h us. [MARCH]

QTH.

M e e t i n g of stockholders of the C a m b r i d g e Bank. Re-

port of the committee w a s in f a v o r of w i n d i n g u p the bank, & a resolution w a s offered to call a meeting in April for that purpose. This w a s opposed b y the directors, & lost b y 124 to 119. Of. the 124, some w e r e in favor of w i n d i n g up, b u t not until the autumn. W m . J. H u b b a r d , 1 2 chairman 9 Dana adds in a note: "In 1863, this woman's son, bearing a selected name, is a salesman, & left to be a lieut. and qu. master in a vol. regiment. He does not know his father." 10 Alexander Hill Everett (1791-1847). A scholar and diplomat, he served in the Massachusetts legislature, 1830-1834. n D a n a is referring to his grandfather Francis Dana. Dana's great-grandfather, Richard, married a Trowbridge. J 2 Willi am Joseph Hubbard (1802-1864), a Boston lawyer, served in the Massachusetts house in 1834 and in the state senate, 1840-1842.

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of the committee, managed the whole affair admirable. It could not have been better done by anyone. Father spent the ev. here. [MARCH] IOTH. Ev. at Mrs. Ticknor's. The usual company. Had half an hour's conversation with Don Calderon de la Barca, formerly Spanish Embassador at Washington. A well instructed, well bred, well principled man, with a heart apparently kind, honest & simple. At least, so he struck me. I have not been so much pleased with a man for a long time. He is also unfortunate, wh. excites our sympathy, & the more because his misfortunes have come upon him from his simplicity as to cunning of men, & from his fidelity to principle. I wish much to see more of him. [MARCH] I 6 T H . A boy left a package upon my office table, upon opening which I found it to be a commission to act as Justice of the Peace. I was glad to have reed, this without the mortification of applying to the Gov. or his council for it, as some young members of the bar reluctantly did. Elis. Sedgwick spent the day with us. Kate S. (Mrs. Minot) & her husband, & Charlotte & Ned took tea, & did Mr. John Hosher (accidentally), who spoiled the ev. pretty effectually. [MARCH] I8TH. Argued a point of Admiralty practice before J. Sprague, B. R. Curtis vs., as to whether a settlement made with a seaman in an assault case after an entry & appearance on each side, without the knowledge of his proctor, & apparently to the seaman's disadvantage will be upheld. To be decided on Monday. Dined at Mr. Ticknor's. Mr., Mrs. & Miss T., Mr. & Mrs. Crafts, Longfellow, S. & myself. Ten in the company. We had, as always at that house, a very pleasant time. The conversation turning upon Canning, it was argued that he often did things theatrically. Mr. Crafts said that he was in the House of Commons when Canning announced that an English army had been ordered to Portugal. Mr. Crafts said that nothing was known of the matter except by a few who were in the secret, & Canning, after a grand speech in wh. he detailed the state of affairs in Portugal & awakened the sympathy of his hearers for the ancient ally of England, announced that the Guards were under orders to march, the next morning, for Portugal. Accordingly, the next morning they were paraded in the Park & took leave.13 13 O n December 1 2 , 1 8 2 6 , Canning announced to the Commons that "the troops are on their march for embarkation" to Portugal, in a successful bid to secure the Portuguese government against invasion and insurrection. H. W . V . Temperley, Life of Canning (London: James Finch, 1 9 0 5 ) , p. 202.

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"Yes", added Mrs. T., "& the day following the papers announced the number of barrels of Cologne & packages of white kid gloves which had been ordered to follow them". "They may laugh, but the Guards have always fought well", said I. To this all assented. Mr. T. said that he was in the house when the opposition were badgering Canning for neglect in not opening a package from Liverpool, whereby a man was hung who ought to have been reprieved & to have had his sentence commuted. "He got over it as well as a man could, but it was a bad affair", said Mr. T. It seems the packet should have been opened & attended to by Canning, both as member from Liverpool, & as minister. He had not done so, & consequently the time elapsed, & the man was hung. Canning excused himself on the ground that he had been over powered by public business, & stated that it was understood in L. that all matters wh. demanded instant attention shd. have a private mark, wh. this had not, &c. "Yet", sd. Mr. T., "Canning was known to be very negligent of business", & related an anecdote illustrating this which he sd. he had from the man to whom the thing happened. There were some papers to go to India which C. was only to look over & sign. One opportunity & the proper one for sending had passed, already & nothing had been done. The gentleman in whose department the matter lay, at length obtained a promise fr. C. that he wd. come to the office & read them on a certain day, in season for the second opportunity. The day arrived & C. came; but he was so listless & out of the humor of the thing that the gentleman saw there was no use in trying to go on; yet he began to read, when C. started up & said "Come P. , I'll tell you what it is, let me go today & I'll treat you to Astley's". The gentleman saw that it was in vain to attempt the business, & C. took him to Astley's.14 Mr. T. defends Webster in the matter of the red line map. He says that there were numerous maps published at the time of the treaty & soon after, some of wh., & those used in debates in Parliament, gave the line to us. That the present disputed territory was not thot of any consequence & attracted no attention from the Commissioners. Also, that Franklin knew little about the geographical limits, that matter being left to Adams. Moreover, that before Ld. Ashburton came, it was agreed between the governments that the old treaty line shd. be given up as hopeless & a new conventional line made. Those are the arguments in Webster's favor. He says he is sure that Webster wd. have disclosed the map, had he thot it conclusive. 14A

celebrated London eating-house.

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M A R C H 1 9 T H . SUNDAY. At the Mariners' Church in the evening. A large comet has been visible in the heavens for several days past. Last night between 7 & 8 it was very clear & bright. The nucleus was just at the western horison, when I saw it, & the tail stretched half across the heavens. The tail is as bright & clear as the rays wh. shoot up toward the zenith during the northern lights. It is supposed to be seventeen millions of miles in length; & truly a grand sight it is, to see this length of light laying itself across the heavens & imagine its distance, sise & rate of motion.15 [MARCH] 2 1 . Spent the ev. at Abbott Lawrence's. S. & Mary went. Sir Chas. Metcalfe, the new Gov. Gen. of Canada, who arrived in town yesterday, dined with his suite at the Mayor['s]. They were invited to the party at Lawrence's. Sir Chas. could not come, being officially18 engaged at the British Consul's, but three of his suite came, Captains Browning, or Bowring, Balfour & Higginson. I was introduced to the two former. Browning is a vey handsome fellow, tall, straight, not stout built but athletic & active, no doubt trained riding, shooting, fencing & all other exercises of the English gentry. He is of the guards & a high tory. They leave town tomorrow morning. Reed., last week, an invitation to address the literary societies of Dartmouth College at Commencement. Declined, because I wish my time now for reading.

This aft., being Sat., went to the circus, where there was an entertainment for children. The feats of these tumblers & athletes were so wonderful that after a little while, the first admiration being over, everything seemed to be possible & matter of course & I lost all sense of surprise, wonder or pleasure. The dresses & attitudes were very showy by the strong gas light, & the performances gave me some idea of the perfection to wh. the athletic exercises were brought among the Greeks. It was painful, however, to see the little children training up to these feats, especially as we believed that they are frightened & flogged into many of them. A simple country fellow who stood behind me, repeated aloud all the jokes of the clown to his companion, & freely expressed his simple admiration of all he saw. It broke up about six. The children seemed delighted with the show. [MARCH]

25TH.

1B This comet, designated by astronomers only as " T h e Great Comet of 1 8 4 3 , " is analytically described, and some other contemporary accounts of it are given, in Charles P. Oliver, Comets (Baltimore, 1 9 3 0 ) , pp. 3 8 - 3 9 . le Dana first wrote "officiously," but crossed it out in favor of "officially." Charles T. Metcalfe ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 4 6 ) was Governor-General of Canada, 1 8 4 3 - 1 8 4 5 ; had been Governor of Jamaica, 1 8 3 9 - 1 8 4 2 .

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This ev. went to a Mormon meeting. The sect of Mormonites, or "latters day saints", as they call themselves, have made so much noise, that I resolved to hear from their own mouths what doctrines or shows they were able to make, by which to collect so many followers, some of whom seem to be sincere persons. The meeting was in the Boylston Hall, & the room was crowded. A noisy, vulgar, ranting, screaming fellow, ignorant & with a beastly expression of countenance, was holding forth to 5 or 600 persons, of both sexes & all ages, most of whom had a respectable appearance, though the elements of fanaticism were plainly exhibited in their countenances. The preacher took his text from the Bible, & I found that they made the Bible the standard & professed to hold all the points of the most orthodox Christianity, including baptism & laying on of hands. The distinguishing trait of their faith seems to be a belief that the "latter days" of visions & revelations have come, & that important revelations explaining & applying the Bible have been made to several of their prophets. The preacher contended that [the] soul consisted of two elements, each immortal, body & spirit. He had a mass of unintelligible stuff about Christ's resurrection; &, in fine, his whole discourse was a mere disjointed series of screamings & whisperings upon matters sacred & scriptural, profane & moral, with hardly the usual connection of children's talk. The audience listened attentively for an hour. The bawling was at times almost deafening. [MARCH] 26TH.

After his discourse was over, the ceremony of laying on of hands was performed upon five converts. Two priests stood over each person laying their hands upon his head, & made a long extempore speech, varied in each case, half prayer, half exhortation, at the top of their voices & in that peculiar high pitched, even flowing strain wh. the ranters affect. It was a shocking scene. I had no question of its being blasphemous & immoral. The priest, I was persuaded, was a thorough villain, & the converts were some deluded & some as bad as their teachers. Of the confirmed persons, one was a demure looking old man, one the ugliest old woman I ever saw, & two others were very dressy & suspicious looking young women. The preacher appointed baptism for Tuesday ev., & a pic-nic for Wed. ev. It was a singular view of human nature to see so many people led astray so easily. A few evenings before this, I had been to a meeting of the Millerites, a sect who believe that the world is to come to an end in 1843. They have a large hall for public worship, lectures every evening, & crowded audiences. Their preacher had a map on wh. was represented the vision of Daniel, with all the beasts & figures, with their names & dates, all

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proving the end to be in 1843. He, too, had a full & attentive audience of respectable looking people, tho' the elements of fanaticism & at the same time of sincerity were more plainly visible in their faces than among the Mormonites. These people were apparently under an honest delusion. The Mormons, hardly so. After such exhibitions of the various extent to wh. fanaticism & contrariety of dissent [are] carried, one is almost prepared for a worship prescribed by law. M A R C H 27TH. Capt. Mackensie sent me his defence, in a small pamphlet form. Ev. at aunts. Lissy Sedgwick, Mary (William) Charming, Mary (Walter) Channing, Elis. & Ann Charming, & our family there. Return early because S. is not well. S. & Ch. have been reading Miss Burney's Diary, & Macaulay's article upon Warren Hastings. 17 [ M A R C H ] 28TH. E V . again at Aunts. Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Minot Jr., Mr. Gray, an artist, Mr. Wm. Rogers, Miss Julia Minot,18 Lissy Sfedgwick] & our families. [ M A R C H ] 29TH. This morning, awoke with a severe pain in my left foot, with a swelling & inflammation of the Achilles tendon, so that I could scarcely walk. I limped to my office, when the pain became so severe that I went at once to Hewett, the bonesetter & sprain eurer, a quack, as he is called by the faculty, to be attended to. He examined the place, said it was a strain & gave me a bottle of stuff to rub on, wh. he said would cure me at once. I rode home, my foot being now so bad that I could not stand upon it, & at about 4 P. M. first applied the liniment. After tea my pain was relieved & I could stand upon my foot, though walking was still painful. The last thing at night I applied the liniment again. [ M A R C H ] 30ΤΗ. The next morning all pain had left, & the foot was so well that I walked to my office. Another application at noon ended the matter, & I walked with a boot on as well as usual. " F r a n c e s Burney's Diary and Letters of Madame d' Arblay ( 4 vols., London, 1 8 4 2 ) were published posthumously under her married name. In 1 8 4 6 two more volumes were added. Thomas B. Macaulay ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 9 ) first published his Warren Hastings essay in the Edinburgh Review, 7 4 : 1 6 0 - 2 5 5 (October 1 8 4 1 ) , as a review of G. R. Gleig's Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, First Governor-General of Bengal ( 3 vols., London, 1 8 4 1 ) . T h e review was included in Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, Contributed to the Edinburgh Review ( 3 vols., London, 1 8 4 3 ) . 18 H e n r y Peters Gray ( 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 7 7 ) , portrait and genre painter, became president of the National Academy of Design in 1869. William S. Rogers ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 6 4 ) served in the Massachusetts house 1 8 3 5 - 1 8 3 6 and 1 8 3 9 . Julia Minot was a sister of William Minot, Jr.

1

4 4

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The rapidity & regular progression of the case was truly astonishing. The application was simply a rubbing of the liniment upon the tender parts with the hand for about ten minutes, three times a day. The liniment is partly vegitable, & is his own invention & a secret. APBIL ι. Severe snow storm & very cold. Sold all my aunts' bank stock, except about $2000, & invested the proceeds in real estate, the banks being in so bad a condition. The old phrase "as safe as a bank" is now obselete. S. has been suffering from tic douloureux for several days. Frank19 tried this ev. to magnitise it away, but without any effect. [APRIL] 3. Spent the forenoon in Court hearing Choate & [Franklin] Dexter in U. S. v. LeCraw, indicted for withholding provisions from his crew. Choate made a good argument, but flowery, over-strained & extravagant. Dexter was admirable. That man always seems to come down upon his case. He seems to be a gentleman practicing law, & not a mere lawyer. Calm, courteous, liberal & high minded man. A very troublesome case of professional difficulty has been harrassing me for a week or two. A captain & mate of a merchant vessel were complained of for causing the death of the steward, a poor negro. The facts, as testified to by the men at the preliminary examination, were these. That the master & mate flogged the steward badly about 4 P. M. for insolence &c. That the steward then went about his business, for an hour or two. That he was again, about 8 P. M., flogged, kicked & beaten badly by the master alone, so badly as would have caused the death of many men, as the crew believed. That after this last beating, the captain ordered the mate to assist in taking the steward into the cabin. The mate did so. They lifted him in, he groaning like a dying man. After this the crew saw no more. There were no passengers & no one in the cabin but the master & officers. The Second Mate was in his state room & swore that he knew nothing of the matter. The next morning, when cook went to call the steward, he found him dead. The cook told the master & officers, & they went to his berth, & there found a glass stopple. They then went to the medicine chest & the laudanum bottle was missing. They then said that the steward poisoned himself. The crew doubted this story.

The preliminary exm. took place & the master & mate were bound over to appear before the Gr. Jury. In the interval the mate came to me & told me that he wished to ask my advice & to retain me as his counsel. He said he had a distinct defense fr. his captain & must have separate advice & defence. He then told me confidentially, as his counsel, the whole story. When he had assisted the master in taking the steward into the cabin, they set him in a chair & found him dead. The captain then 19 Frank

is Francis Dana, Richard's cousin.

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said — Then I am in difficulty. You must assist me. They then took the steward, laid him in his berth, the captain got the laudanum bottle from the medicine chest, poured out the laudanum, & placed the empty bottle & stopper by the side of the berth; & then they went to bed. This was the case. All the facts testified to by the crew sustained its probability. It was stated solemnly, & was somewhat unfavorable to the communicator of it. Here then was, as I could not doubt, a case of manslaughter, if not of murder. Yet my knowledge of the facts came to me in the sacred character of a professional communication. I could not use them against my client. The law, as well as my own sense of justice & of the reason grounded in the policy of the profession, would forbid my divulging it. Unless a man can be safe in making a communication to his counsel, there would be an end of defenses ag. every charge. I had received it too fr. a man who had a right & was able to keep his own secret under the implied, if not express promise of secrecy. On the other hand, unless some use was made of the mate's testimony, the master would go unpunished. I did all in my power to persuade the mate to go to the prosecuting officer & divulge the story & promised him my assistance & assured him that he would be safe; but he would not become state's evidence, & he sd. it would ruin him with his employers, who were connected with the master, & being a foreigner he had no where else to look for support. In this state, I had to stand by & see the case changed from a charge of homicide to one of mere assault & battery for want of sufficient evidence. I did, several times, in conversation, express a strong opinion to a prosecuting officer (grounded on the evidence in court alone, however) that an indictment for manslaughter would be sustained against the master. But he could not risk it. The trial comes on this week. I am to defend the mate; & that I can do with a clear conscience, for I believe him innocent even of an unjustifiable assault, but to stand by in silence & see a guilty man escape when the weapon to convict him is in my own hand is hard indeed. I have struggled ag. a desire to divulge, in some secret manner, the truth & the means of getting at it to the prosecuting officer. But I feel it would be wrong. I am merely unfortunate in possessing this painful knowledge. [ A P R I L ] 4 T H . Mr. Allston dined at Chesnut st. I met him in the afternoon; accidentally, at Mr. Dexter's office. It was delightful to hear Dexter, who the day before was in the height of forensic contest, quietly & with real feeling & zeal talking over the beauties of art with Mr. Allston. Took tea in Chesnut st. with Mr. Allston & Aunt M. Charlotte sang. Mr. A's favorite is "Se intendo" [?]. He said the feelings that song calls out cannot be spoken in words, they can only be breathed or sung.

ιφ

Beginnings

Called with S., at noon, upon Mrs. Patrick Jackson Jr., Mrs. Ch. G. Loring, & Miss Brimmer.20 It was a beautiful day & we met a great many people, among others old Mr. Otis (Harrison Gray), walking with servant to support him, wrapped in furs & a quilted garment. Called upon Robt. Bartlett.21 He has been taken suddenly with an inflammation of the lungs, & has left Cambridge to make a voyage to Cuba. He sails tomorrow in the ship Massasoit for Havannah. The disease has reduced him & he looks ill & has some cough, but is quite confident of a speedy recovery. His mind is in an interesting religious state; rather Swedenborgian, I should judge. He has been reading the Oxford tracts, & an article in the British Critic upon "Reserve in communicating religious knowledge" has particularly pleased him.22 His mind is certainly an interesting one. [APRIL] 5TH.

APRIL 7 T H . Trial of Capt. Brewer & Mr. Reed for an aggravated assault, in U. S. Ct. began. All this day upon the evid. [APRIL] 8TH. I made my argument for Reed, beginning at 1 1 A. M. & ending at Y* before 1. There was a large audience, & I was conscious of having done well. Among my hearers was Harrison Gray Otis [Sr.], After I was thro', I put some questions to him respecting the accuracy of some statements in Bradford's Ν. E. Biography.23 This started him off upon old times. He spoke of Saml. Dexter,24 & said, "You know we thot he bolted soon after the war. He didn't quite come up to the Frank Dana school". Mr. Otis never spoke a sentence without contriving to work in something complimentary, or gratifying to the feelings of the person conversing with him.

Mr. Loring (Ch. G.) spoke [thro'] this morning, about 4% hours in defence of Brewer. It was a remarkable argument for clearness, method & fairness in stating the testimony. Mr. Loring's only [APRIL]

IOTH.

20 Mrs. Patrick Jackson, wife of a Boston businessman, was the daughter of Mrs. Charles G. Loring. Miss Brimmer was Mayor Martin Brimmer's sister. 2iRobert Bartlett ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 4 3 ) , a Latin tutor at Harvard, 1 8 3 9 - 1 8 4 3 , died of tuberculosis six months after Dana saw him. 22 The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review, 3 1 : 2 0 5 - 2 4 3 , ( 1 8 4 2 ) , carries a long essay-review of five works, the general tide for which is " O n Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge." 23 A l d e n Bradford ( 1 7 6 5 - 1 8 4 3 ) , Biographical Notices of Distinguished New England: Statesmen, Patriots, Physicians, Lawyers, Clergymen, and (Boston: S. G. Simpkins, 1 8 4 2 ) . 24

Men in Mechanics

Samuel Dexter ( 1 7 6 1 - 1 8 1 6 } , an eminent lawyer; U. S. House, 1 7 9 3 - 1 7 9 5 , U. S. Senate, 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 0 0 , Secretary of Treasury, 1 8 0 1 .

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fault is that he always identifies himself with his client & throws the whole weight of his own personal character into the scale, by expressing in the most solemn manner his convictions of his client's innocence. If such convictions are founded upon the evidence wh. has appeared in the case, counsel are less fitted than any one else to form an impartial judgment; & if these convictions are derived from any other source than evidence before the jury, the expressions of such convictions are improper. They are usually derived from intercourse with the client & his friends, & are not much worth; but when solemnly given out by a man of great weight of personal character, they have an undue influence. Also, there is something like palaver in the maimer in which he brings the moral duties, religion, the Tribunal above, death, life, the domestic relations, all to bear upon a client's cause, in every case. In this case he said "I have known him too long & too well to believe him capable of such a thing", while only a week or fortnight before he was asking me who Capt. Brewer was, having had no previous knowledge of him. Also, when he knew that if the mate were put upon the stand his testimony wd. convict Brewer at once, & while he declined an arrangement wh. might make the mate a witness, from this knowledge, yet he asserted to the jury his belief that Brewer cd. answer not only to this tribunal but to [the] tribunal above for all his acts in this matter. He made my blood run cold by his constant Deus intersits. Yet he is a thoroughly conscientious man. He believes what he says at the time he says it; but he ought to break the habit. He is, without any exception, the most courteous opponent, the fairest examiner of a witness, & fairest stater of evidence I ever knew. The jury were out until 10 P. M., when, being unable to agree, they were dismissed. After their dismissal, it was known that they stood 11 to 1 for acquitting the mate, & 7 to 5 for convicting the master. I was in great fear that Brewer would be acquitted; & felt relieved when he was not. Throughout my argument, I expressed no opinion & made no points in favor of Brewer. I was not obliged to, & could not. [APRIL] 14TH. Although this was Good Friday, the Court was held, & I was obliged to attend all day, having the next case on the docket. I felt very solemnly about it for several hours, & hope I may have profited nearly as much thereby, as if I had been in Church. Found Mrs. [J. T.] Hodge at Chesnut st. [APRIL] 1 5 T H .

Benjamin v. Hastings was begun, I for Dft.

Beginnings

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Wrote to Capt. Mackensie. 25 [APRIL] 17TH.

All day in Benjamin v. Hastings. Court adjourned at

7%. At 9% began, at home, to make up my brief, which occupied me until 2 o'clock at night. [APRIL] I8TH.

This A. M . made my argument in B. v. Hastings. Verdict

for Ptf. In the ev. I talked with one of the jury upon the cause of the verdict. He sd. that the jury had no doubt that Mr. H. had been cheated abominably by his carpenters, & they did not believe the testimony of Moses Ricker, but as Mr. B. had superintended the house for a moderate sum & actually done labor & duty he was entitled to his compensation unless Mr. H. cd. show positive negligence. Of this there was doubt, as it was difficult to trace the departures fr. the contract to B.'s knowledge, or to show great negligence in him for not knowing them. Moses Ricker, who cheated H. in his house so grossly & whose testimony was thrown out by the jury, is a member of a Baptist Church, &: was too conscientious to make oath, & accordingly affirmed. [APRIL] 21ST. Mr. Fitz Hiigh from Geneseo, who married a daughter of Wm. Dana's, called at the office with his son who is to enter Yale College. 26 Dined with him at Chesnut street together with Prof. [Ε. T . ] Channing & lady & Lissy Sedgwick. W e had a pleasant time, & were glad to find him an intelligent, gentlemanly man, possessing high character, as well as wealth & influence. APR. 22ND. Argued case of Farwell. B. R. Curtis opposing. Went out to Cambridge with S. in the afternoon. Rode out in the omnibus. Prof. Walker (the metaphysician) & Mr. Wm. Wells 2 7 were present & w e had very agreeable conversation. 25 Dana was writing to congratulate Mackensie on having been acquitted of the charges pressed against him. The decision was most controversial (see editor's Introduction to this Journal), and Dana tried in the letter to reassure Mackensie that the mixed reception of the decision in the New York press had no counterpart in Boston. In the letter Dana says, "There is an element of conservatism, and soundness in our city of which, as a Bostonian, you must excuse me for boasting." The letter is in the Dana Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society and is partially reprinted in Hayford. 2e

T h e Fitzhugh family, living in the Genesee valley, connects with the Danas through the English branch of the family. Mr. Fitzhugh evidently married a daughter of William Pulteny Dana, who was the son of Dana's Grand-uncle Edmund Trowbridge Dana, brother of Dana's grandfather, Francis Dana. Dana gives an account of the English branch of his family later in the Journal. Also see Genealogy. Mr. Fitzhugh's son, mentioned here, was Daniel H. Fitzhugh, and he was entering Harvard, not Yale. 27 James Walker ( 1 7 9 4 - 1 8 7 4 ) was professor of philosophy at Harvard, 1 8 3 8 - 1 8 5 3 , president of Harvard, 1 8 5 3 - 1 8 6 0 . William Harvey Wells ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 5 ) was an educa-

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Called upon Prof. & Mrs. [C. C.] Felton. Found Mrs. F. unwell, but in the parlor. Mr. Felton had just been to the Britannia with S. G. Howe to engage his quarters for the passage.28 F. wishes to go to Greece with Dr. H. as well he might, after all his Greek studies. Next called at Cousin Edwards' [T.] Channing. Saw him & his wife & Lizzy Sedgwick.29 L. goes to Ν. Y. on Tuesday, in co. with Felton & Longfellow, who go to Julia Ward's wedding. Walked to the Port, to see Aunt Martha & Mr. Allston. Found Mr. A. dining at 7 upon roast beef & boiled rice; & poor aunt M. sick up stairs. I sat down with Mr. A. & S. went up to see Aunt M. Mr. A. had been reading the Quarterly's Review of Dickens' Am. Notes, & the Aberdeen correspondence,30 &c. He is less of a Republican than ever, & says that if things go on as they promise now "In 30 years there will not be a gentleman left in the country". He says that the manners of gentility, its courtesies, deferences & graces are passing away from among us. Whether they pass away or no, he is a good specimen of them. Born of a distinguished family in Carolina, & educated into the feelings & habits of a gentleman, with a noble nature, a beautiful countenance & graceful person, what else could he be? No picture is more pleasing to my heart & fancy than to see Mr. Allston, seated at his parlor fire in the evening, after a day spent in his studio, his eye resting meditatively upon the fire, his beautiful countenance marked with taste & thought, the smoke from his cigar going up in little clouds & mingling among the gray curls of his hair, & then rising, to aetherialise the whole, with the social glass of wine in the table which he has placed before his visitor; — the whole is painted with warm colors in my mind. In the ev. S. & I walked in. tional reformer, first in New England, later in the West. At the time of his meeting with Dana he was teaching English and mathematics at the Teacher's Seminary, Andover, Massachusetts. 28 Professor Felton evidently accompanied Howe and his bride, Julia Ward, on their wedding trip, since this was the event for which Howe was making preparations. 29 Interlined, at a later date after "Lizzy" is "later Mrs. Child." Francis J. Child married her in i860. 30 American Notes was reviewed in The Quarterly Review, 7 1 : 5 0 2 - 5 2 8 (March 1 8 4 3 ) . The reviewer attacked the "despot-democracy" of the United States. The Aberdeen Correspondence might be a reference to an American edition of The Earl of Aberdeen's Correspondence with the Rev. Dr. Chalmers and the Secretaries of the Non-Intrusion: From 14th January to 2yth March 1840 (Edinburgh, 1840). This book, which was reviewed in The Quarterly Review, 6 7 : 2 0 3 - 2 5 3 (December 1840), has to do with the attempts of Lord Aberdeen to prevent the development of schism within the Scottish Church, and addresses the issue of authoritative control over the will of the majority.

Beginnings APR. 25. A gentleman by the name of Craney, 31 late a Lieut, in the U. S. Navy was introduced to me as wishing to study law in my office. After some conversation, in order to explain to me the fact of his leaving the service, he gave me the history of his unfortunate difficulty with the Department. It is a most sad story, if he has given it correctly, & I believe him to have done so. He entered the Navy quite young, & toiled up to a lieutenancy, which gave him an honorable competency. While junior lieut. of the N. Carolina receiving ship at N. York, Capt. Spencer 32 of the Navy, brother of the Sec. of War, came on board, bringing with him his nephew Philip Spencer, who had just received a midshipman's warrant. Mr. Craney happened to be officer of the deck & being acquainted with Capt. S., the latter introduced young Spencer to him & asked him to assist the young beginner, teaching him the ropes & looking after him in various ways. Mr. Craney was pleased with the opportunity of befriending the son of the Sec. of War & nephew of an officer of high rank, & thought it might be an advantage to himself if the young man turned out well. Soon, however, he saw that Spencer was a bad fellow & would make him trouble. He had invited him to use his state room & his books whenever he wished to, & he found that S. had abused this liberty by keeping lights in his state room after the hour allowed, & by keeping bottles of liquor under his bureau with wh. he got drunk, while Mr. Craney was in the city. He spoke to Spencer several times about it, but it did no good. At length, Mr. C. was reported to the first lieut. as having a light in his state room after hours. Mr. C. explained the matter to the first lieut., but nothing was done to the son of the Sec. One night Mr. C. was in his berth asleep when he was waked up by a noise & saw Mr. Spencer ,in his state room trying to draw a bottle from under some place where it seems he had hidden it. Mr. C. ordered him out of the room. S., who appeared to be a little intoxicated, said he would go when he chose. Mr. C. ordered him out again, & then Mr. Spencer raised his arm & struck him a severe blow as he lay in his berth. Mr. C. sprang out of his berth & pushed S. from the room. Spencer resisted & the noise brought the officers down. Spencer was ordered below. The 31 William Craney had been appointed Midshipman in 1832, and passed Midshipman in 1838. He was dismissed from the service in 1839, was reinstated September 3, 1841, and resigned February 15, 1842. The story he tells Dana may be true regarding Spencer, who was, as Harrison Hayford's Somers casebook shows, extremely unstable, but Craney himself had been dismissed long before the Spencer affair for drunkenness, absence without leave, disorderly conduct, and disrespect to superiors. 32 William Ambrose Spencer (1793-1854) had been in the Navy since 1809, w a s promoted to captain in 1841, and resigned his commission on December 9, 1843.

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next morning the first lieut. sent for Mr. C. & asked him if he intended to report Mr. Spencer. Mr. Craney said he certainly thought it his duty to do so, as the offense of striking a superior officer was the worst that could occur on board ship. The lieut. then told him that he would advise him as a friend to do no more about the matter. That it would do him no good at the department; that Spencer's friends were powerful, & he had better let it drop. After some reflection, & thinking that S. was young & after an alarm might do better, he did nothing farther. Mr. Craney had an uncommonly good sextant, & had offered to the professor of mathematics to explain the use of it to the midshipman whom the professor was instructing daily in the steerage. One day the professor asked Mr. C. to go down & explain the sextant to the young gentlemen, &, having no duty on hand, he did so. While there, in the presence of professor, explaining the instrument to the midshipmen, he received a violent blow upon the side of the face which knocked him backwards in his chair & threw him & the chair over upon the floor. This blow was struck by Spencer, who came up behind him & struck him while engaged [in] looking upon the instrument. At the same time with the blow, S. wrenched off Mr. C.'s epaulet, tearing off the button & ripping down his coat. Mr. C. sprang up, but was instantly seised by a number of those present & held back while young S. was dragged out of the room. Allowing himself time to cool, & a season for reflection, Mr. C. reported this & the previous transaction to the Department (I suppose from what followed that this report has to go through the hands of the commander of the ship.) Either Capt. Spencer, or the commander of the ship, Commodore [M. C.] Perry, sent for the professor & several of the midshipmen present, & learned from them that Mr. C.'s report was rather understated than otherwise. Comm. Perry then sent for Mr. C. & tried to persuade him not to report Mr. S., telling him that he would do himself no good by it, &c. Mr. C. sd. he cd. not pass over it. It was an offense which was punishable even by death if a Court Martial so ordered, & being committed in the presence of the midshipmen & known to the whole ship's company, his own honor [as] well as the duty he owed the service required him to do it. The Commodore then told him it would be of no use as Mr. S. had been ordered to join the John Adams at Boston; & offered him back his charges, which he had not sent to the department. Mr. C. says he instantly saw through this. Capt. Spencer finding Mr. C. determined to report his nephew had written to the lad's father & procured orders for him to join another vessel; & prevailed upon Commodore Perry to retain the charges until S. should be sent away.

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Mr. C. stated his opinion very freely & demanded that Commodore P. shd. retain the orders until the charges could be sent to Washington & S. arrested. This Com. refused to do, saying that he must obey his orders fr. the department. Mr. C. then wrote a letter to the Sec. of the Navy, detailing the whole transaction. To this he received a reply slighting the whole matter & treating Mr. C., as he thought, in a very insolent & contempuous manner. To this, I think, but am not sure, Mr. C. replied. At all events, it ended in Mr. C.'s being suspended, & Mr. S. sent upon a cruise in the John Adams. Mr. C. remained suspended for weeks on board the N. Carolina. He had been insulted & openly assaulted by an inferior officer; himself & the service in his person had been disgraced, & justice & satisfaction had been refused him; & all because of the influence of young S.'s powerful friends. These reflections so wore upon Mr. C., that he became ill. His pent up indignation & his wounded feelings allowed him no rest. Under the influence of these feelings he sent in his resignation, which was accepted. After 12 or 14 years of the prime of his life spent in the service, & almost unfitted for anything else, he was thrown out upon the world. Not long after his resignation, the news of the execution of young Spencer by McKensie, on board the Somers, reached America. Such is the story of Mr. Craney. It has made my heart ache for him. It is too strongly flavored with injustice, the triumph of wrong & the suffering of innocence not to call out sympathy & interest for the subject of it. Whether he has exaggerated the story, or not, I have no certain means of knowing; but I never heard a story told in a more precise, methodical & calm manner; subsequent events as to Spencer show its probability, & Mr. C. impressed me very favorably for calmness, self respect & candor. APR. 29. Dined with us this day, young Mr. Danl. H. Fitzhugh, from Mt. Morris, Livingston Co. Ν. Y. He is just entering Harvard College. His mother is the only daughter of Wm. Pulteney Dana by his first wife, whom he married in this country. He is therefore a lineal descendant by the female line of the great noble families of Kinnaird & Johnstone (of Armendale). He is a remarkably well formed, intelligent & genteel boy, but, I fear, rather too full of life & spirits to study hard. [Wm.] Ellery Sedgwick was to have dined with us, but did not receive the invitation. I have just finished a journal of a voyage to the South Sea islands, by a young man named Dix. He was wrecked in the Glide of Salem at the Fijii Islands, & went thro' very strange adventures. It is very well written

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& quite interesting. He writes in a modest manner & in a good moral tone.:s:i MAY 3. Sarah set off for N. York at 4 P. M. via Stonington under charge of Mr. Henry Edwards, to visit William & to see Miss Adele Lynch to whom Wm. is engaged. She took a beautiful bouquet to Adele, as a sister's present. Poor child, she could not look at little S. when she left. I went to the cars with her, & last saw her thro' the glass window of the car as she was going off. [MAY] 5TH. On coming to my office, I found among the arrivals, the Alert from California, San Diego 125 days. I hastened down to the wharf & found her just hauling in. The crew had been allowed to go ashore at night & the dock yard men were hauling in the ship. The Captain & mates were on board. She looked just as she did when I made her my home, being painted in the same manner, with the same rigging & spars. There was the same new missen rigging upon wh. we worked at Monterey, the same blocks thro' wh. we had hauled ropes so many months, the wheel at wh. w e had stood hour after hour, & every other familiar sign. I went into the forecastle. It had been enlarged by throwing in two berths on each side & a space abaft the chain locker, but all else was the same. There was my berth, & in the forecastle I happened to find a man who had occupied the same for the whole of this voyage, which had been three years & three months. I fell into conversation with him & learned from him a good deal of news about the coast. He insisted upon my accepting from him two shells wh. he had got at Monterey. From the forecastle I went to the cabin & there saw Capt. Phelps 34 & Mr. Everett the Ch. mate. Capt. P. said he had brot home all his crew except one, who was drowned at St. Barbara. In the afternoon two of the crew came to my office & we spent several hours talking over California. The substance of the information I got from them was this. Trade very dull. The Alert's voyage nearly 40 months. The Tasso not one half full. The California just beginning. The Barnstable, ditto. The 33 The manuscript was owned and copyrighted by William Giles Dix (d. 1898) and was sometimes attributed to him. Its actual author, however, was James Oliver (d. 1845), Wreck of the Glide; with an account of the life and manners at the Fiji Islands (Boston: W. D. Ticknor & Co., 1846). Oliver was a resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dix added a preface, signed with his own initials, to a New York edition published, under a slightly altered tide, two years later. 34WilIiam D. Phelps, who commanded the Alert, 1840-1842, kept a journal of his voyage, the manuscript of which is at the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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Admittance just arrived. Also a large number of vessels trading on the coast, belonging to residents there & at the Sandwich Islands. Old Wilson was still afloat & in command of the bark Index, which he had exchanged for the Ayacucho.35 The latter was now a Chilian man of war. The bark Don Quxiote on the coast, the ship Fama, & several brigs & schooners owned by residents. San Diego. Don Juan Bandini36 had been Administrator of a wealthy mission, & had retrieved his circumstances entirely. His eldest daughter, a girl of 16, had just married Stearns,37 the richest & most respectable foreign trader on the coast. Don Juan's father was dead. Estudia has gone upon a rancho of his own & was doing well. Old Capt. Fitch38 was alive & rich. Tom Ridington, who kept the pulperia, had married a little girl whom I remember to have seen in the town. Hartwell, who kept Fitch's shop was also married, & these two, together with Russell & Wilder (also married) were living at San Diego. Jack Stewart39 (one of our crew, & on the next voyage Second Mate) was settled there, & would be for life. He told our men that he had not the education to raise himself above the condition of a second mate, & he could earn a living in California much more easily. O l d Robert" who kept the Catalina's hide house when [we] were on the coast, was keeping a pulperia in the town. My informant had been once at San Juan Campestrano, & saw the bank wh. I went down for the hides, & told me that the stake was standing in its place still to which we fastened the rope.40 San Pedro was very nearly as bad [as] ever. Monterey & Santa Barbara had not seen many changes, except that Monterey had increased very considerably [&] was an important town. The greatest change had been in St. Francisco, at the settlement of Yerba Bueno. When we lay here in the Alert there was but one house 35

J o h n Wilson (c. 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 6 0 ) commanded the British brig Ayachuco in California while Dana was there. Dana meets him when he takes the 1 8 5 9 - 1 8 6 0 trip to California recorded in the Journal. 3e D o n Juan Bandini ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 9 ) , another figure in Two Years, later became a resident of San Diego and official inspector of customs for California. He died during Dana's later visit to California. 37 A b e l Stearns ( 1 7 9 8 - 1 8 7 1 ) settled in Los Angeles in 1 8 3 3 . ^ H e n r y Fitch, whom Dana referred to slightingly in Two Years, appears to have told Captain Phelps, who records the story in his own journal, that Dana had, while on the coast, entered Fitch's house while intoxicated and had been ejected for using offensive language. Fitch, a trader, had died by the time Dana returned to California in 1 8 5 9 . 39 J a c k Stewart (d. 1 8 9 2 ) , whose name Dana here misspelled "Stuart," was from Maine. He married into the Machado family and was in California when Dana returned. 40

T h e incident of hide-salvaging from the cliff takes place on pp. 2 5 0 - 2 5 2 of Years ( 1 9 1 1 ed.).

Two

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between the Mission & the Presidio. Now there [were] more than an hundred, & the trade of the town had increased rapidly. Lies, the Kentuckian, who married Donna Rosalia Estrada Vallejo, was going down in the world, from bad habits. Don Guadaloupe Vallejo, Rosalia's brother, was still in office, & very popular with foreigners. 41 Of the Kanakas, all had disappeared except Jack, who was at Monterey & old "Mr. Bingham" who was on board the Don Quixote, I think it was. Nicholas, the big Frenchman, was at St. Francisco. My informant was present when Com. Jones, in the frigate U. States, took Monterey.42 He was one of that company who had been arrested at Monterey & carried down to San Bias.43 He & the others suffered much from ill treatment, but owed all the relief they received & their final deliverance to the generous & fearless conduct of the British Consul at San Bias & [Tepic], who exerted himself for the Americans as well as the English. I found that among these seamen there was a strong feeling of admiration for the independence & activity of British consuls & ministers in that part of the world, & a good deal of dissatisfaction with those of our own nation. This may be attributed, in part, to the fact that British Consuls are salaried agents, Englishmen by birth, independent both of the people of the place they reside in & of foreign merchants & shipmasters. They are not allowed to engaged in trade. Our consuls, on the other hand, are mostly merchants who have resided in the place, & are virtually, tho' not always in fact, citisens. Sometimes our consuls are merely native citisens who are a little acquainted with our trade. Sometimes, as at Tepic, they cannot speak the English language. Being merchants, too, they are interested in behalf of these merchants & of shipmasters, whose consignments they wish to have, & are so far liable to be negligent of or opposed to the claims of seamen. 41

L i e s had come cross-country from Kentucky to Los Angeles by 1 8 3 5 . He used to entertain the sailors b y shooting bottles hung from the rigging of the ship. His wife, described as very beautiful in Two Years, was the sister of Don Guadalupe Vallejo ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 9 0 ) , who later fought with distinction against the Americans in California, and, by the time Dana visited California again, was much reduced in circumstances. 42 Commodore Thomas A p Jones ( 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 5 8 ) on October 19, 1 8 4 2 , under the misapprehension that the United States was at war with Mexico, seized the California town of Monterey. He held it for only one day, returning it with apologies and payment for damages. 43

Isaac Graham, the leader of a band of irregular troops in California, was arrested by the Mexican government in 1 8 4 0 and shipped off, with some forty of his followers, to Mexico. Many of his men were American seamen. It has been suggested that the act of the Mexican government was one of provocation toward the American settlers in the territory. See John W . Caughey, California ( N e w York: Prentice Hall, 1 9 4 0 ) , pp. 246, 248, 2 6 3 - 2 6 4 .

Beginnings MAY 6TH. Went over the estate at Cambridge Port, & spent an hour with Uncle Edmund. He gave me some anecdotes of the family which I have put under the family history. The chair he sat in, he said belonged to Judge Remington, & he should leave it to Ned.44 [ M A Y ] I I T H . This morning at about five o'clock died little Frank, eldest son of my cousin Francis Dana, — an enormously interesting, promising & lovely child, aged 7 yrs. & 7 mos. From early infancy this boy showed in his countenance & manner an unusual delicacy, refinement & sentiment of character, & these qualities never left him in the rough days of older boyhood. He would be marked among an hundred others for an intelligent, refined & gentle expression & manner which made him almost picturesque. He was taken ill on Wed., of an inflammation of the stomach, & died on Thursday morning. I sat by his body for half an hour this morning. It was delightful & cheering to see the state of mind & behavior of his father. Resignation, serenity & hope marked every expression, motion & word. This state was not forced nor unnatural, but the legitimate, steady effect of his Christian faith & experience. He knew the sinfulness, vanity & unhappiness of the world. He believes in Heaven, in a Savior & in the resurrection. These things are real to him, & not forced upon him as strange & sudden doubtings, & he is almost happy that his boy is taken from the dangers & evils of the one state, to the happiness & purity of the other. The grief of cousin Sophia & Mr. [George] Ripley is incontrollable & uncontrolled. Mr. Ripley wrings his hands & cries out like a child. He is almost insane. Cousin Sophia seems overpowered & helpless & hopeless. Having no children of their own they had made Frank their child & loved him with an undivided affection. His sabbath school teacher came to the house & brought with him little Fr.'s sabbath school class. This teacher, Mr. Bradford, told the family many interesting things about the child. He was very much attached to him & [had] taken peculiar pains with his religious education. The very Sunday before F. died, Mr. B. had talked to the class about prayer, & little F. of his own accord, stopped after the other boys went away & told Mr. B. that he meant to pray. He then went home & went directly up into his chamber & remained there for a long time. As he came down one of the family met him & asked him what he had been doing for so long a time. He made no answer, but looked seriously, tho' with a pleasant smile. O h , you have been reading", said the girl, struck with his expression. "No, I have not been reading', said F., in a subdued, gentle manner, & with his delicacy & awe upon 44

T h e following marginal note appears in the manuscript: "The high back chair now ( 1 9 0 8 ) at Manchester Road."

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religious subjects, said no more. Throughout the remainder of the day, a marked seriousness, kindness & gentleness could be seen in his whole manner. They found among his books a tract with the title "Be ye also ready". 45 This evening I spent another hour by his bedside. No one was in the room but his father. "He was born into my arms, & he died in my arms", said his father. He died just as [the] day was dawning, & with the first twittering of the morning birds. [MAY] 12TH. The funeral was this afternoon. Poor Sarah is away & will return to find him both dead & buried. At Vt before 7 the services were read in the house, & at about Yi after 7 the procession moved toward the burial ground at Cambridge. It was a solemn but appropriate & delightful hour. The moon had just risen, there were the red streaks of day in the west, business was over, the dim light hid the faces of the mourners from the gase of passers by, & a solemn stillness pervaded everything. When w e reached the yard, all got out of their coaches & went inside the yard. The two churches stood with their solemn shadows, one on each side of the yard, & the moon struck upon the various shapes of the grave stones & monuments, & threw from [them] strange & broken shadows. The sexton with his lantern conducted the body to the tomb & took it down. The father & I went in after it. It was placed upon the coffin of the boy's GrandMother, who had been buried there three years before, & to whom the boy was much attached. There he lay in the company of the dead of his own flesh & blood of five generations. His Gr. Grandparents, his Grandmother, my mother & little sister Susan. There was something interesting & consoling in seeing the remains of all one family preserved together in care, & kept in this communion, to which all of us are to be added. The coffins of the little cousins, too, resting at the top, struck the eye beautifully, & inspired an almost delightful sadness. They had never seen one another, but lie in silence to be made known at the resurrection of the just & the pure. All the family went down into the tomb, & the chief mourners said they were glad they went. It made them feel more definitely about the body & took off from the terror & strangeness of the tomb. They felt that little Frank was in a place where they had been & where they could go again. [MAY] 13TH. This morning came S. from Ν. Υ. I rose early & went to the Prov. station, where the Stonington cars came in, but she did not come in them. From there I went to the Manchester station, & there in a quarter of an hour the train came puffing in. I entered the cars & 45 Matthew

24: 44.

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soon saw S. with a calm face, full of subdued delight, ready to receive me. I could tell her that we were all well, & Sally well, & all in Chesnut st. well. As we rode home I told her of Poor little Frank. The reception of her mother by little S. was quite interesting. She had not seen her for ten days & had not seemed to miss her at all. When S. came into the room, the child was on the floor. S. went up to her, spoke & held out her arms. The child fixed her eyes upon her & would not take them off, with a grave & surprised look. At length her mother took her to her arms. The child made no spring or jump & none of the noisy signs of pleasure she usually does, but clasped her mother's neck in silence. After some time we tried to take her away, but she cried & struggled, & from that time through the day nothing but force or stratagem could get her from her mother. She had been in a state of wonder, at first & her recollection came gradually to her. Sally [Sarah] is, thank god, well, — better than she has been for five years, & has enjoyed her visit. She spent a week with William [Watson], at his boarding house, & three days in Brooklyn, at her Uncle [John] Marsh's. She dined at Mrs. [Robert] Sedgwick's & saw them several times. The children were all well & S. was charmed with their intelligence, affection & good breeding. Young Theodore dined there, & Stephens the traveler, Miss Catherine [Maria Sedgwick] & Geo. Pomeroy. S. spent a few days with her mother & her aunt Abby in Brooklyn. [ M A Y ] 1 4 T H . SUNDAY. Prayers were had in church for F.'s death, & all the family were present. The sermon was by Dr. Tyng of Philad.46 from the text "He that hath not the Son, hath not life". 47

[MAY] 15TH. [Minot].

Visited the Hibernia with S., Mary, Charlotte & Julia

[ M A Y ] I6TH. Went to N. Bedford to take depositions in Lindsay v. Delano. Left at Vt before 8; reached Ν. B. at 10Y4; engaged in taking depositions before my old school mate, now Judge [Oliver] Prescott, Mr. Page 48 contra', until 1 P. M. Called at Mr. [James] Arnold's & spent nearly an hour. Left in the % before 3 cars & reached Boston at 5%. 46 Stephen H. T y n g ( 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 8 5 ) , Episcopal clergyman, was rector of the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia, 1 8 3 4 - 1 8 4 5 , and of St. George's Church, N e w York, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 7 8 . He was a famous preacher. 47

" H e that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" ( I John 5 : 1 2 ) . 48 John Ham Williams Page ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 6 5 ) became a presidential elector in 1 8 5 2 , served on the Governor's Council, 1 8 5 3 - 1 8 5 4 .

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No lady past the charm of youth ever pleased me [so] much as Mrs. Arnold; & of all the young ladies I know there is not one whom I do not think Mrs. Arnold must have surpassed when at her age. Except my own S., who adds more vivacity & variety to Mrs. A.'s grace, kindness, ease, elegance, good sense & refinement, I cannot point to her equal. I feel, when in her presence, a more highminded & a purified man. This effect is the best test of a woman's influence. I should think her influence over a man might be boundless. [MAY] I8TH. The Advertiser of today announces, in an article headed — "To what vile uses do we come at last", that the Alert which figures in "Two years &c." is sold for a whaler & sailed for N. London. [MAY] 19TH. To Cambridge Port. Mr. Allston is very much interested in Longfellow's engagement, liking him & having always admired the beauty & character of his promised lady [Fanny Appleton]. He burst out, saying "I have a vision!". We all looked round & saw his face raised, with a mock heroic expression, & he went on "I see Longfellow up to his knees in golden clouds, with his head knocking against the stars"— Here the entrance of someone broke off the rhapsody. M A Y 20TH. Mary [Watson] left us this morning for Hartford, after a visit of nearly six months, which she has made very agreeable & useful to us. Her attachment to us & to little S. we cannot doubt to be large & sincere. She went off with tears in her eyes.

[MAY] 2IST. This day father was confirmed, at St. Paul's Church, by Bishop Eastburn. The number confirmed was great, & the services very interesting. With father, this rite was merely an index of change of view as to Church. His faith & experience has been the same during his many years communion with congregational bodies. S. was to have been confirmed, but her absence at Ν. Y. made the appointed day a surprise to her, & she had not the proper time for preparation. [MAY] 22. Call from Pres. [Leonard] Woods [Jr.], He spoke of English holidays & feasts, & of an article upon that subject in a late no. of the British Critic.49 He sd. that all holidays should have some religious connection & be regulated by the church or else a great national & historical association, & that no others were good for much or safe. That holidays had been so entrenched upon by the trading classes in England that the poor & persons in the employment of others had no days of recreation but the fasts. So that the anomaly of fast days kept as days ie

The British Critic, 3 3 : 4 1 1 - 4 4 2 ( 1 8 4 3 ) , carries an essay-review of Lord John Manners' A Plea for National Holy Days, 2nd ed. (London, 1 8 4 3 ) .

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ι 6 ο

of rejoicing was presented. He thot the poor were gainers under the old system. [MAY] 23. Dined at Chesnut st. with Pres. Woods & Prof. Woolsey50 of Yale College. Conversation upon clerical studies. Both were in favor of raising the standard of requirements in that particular in our colleges. Mr. Woods sd. that [the] colleges in England under charge of the Church had prospered greatly, while the institutions got up by the anti church scientifics & liberals had failed or resolved themselves in reading rooms & the like. [MAY] 25. Spent the ev. at Jerm. Mason's. The old gentleman spoke very affectionately of Webster & sd. he had loved him for a great many years. Speaking of these lawyers, he expressed a high opinion of the clearness of mind & sound judgement of C. G. Loring. He spoke very slightingly of the legal ability & knowledge of the late Wm. Sullivan,51 but highly of his social qualities & of his manners. Mr. & Mrs. Ticknor, Mr. Amos Lawrence & others were there. [MAY] 26TH. This ev. at a meeting in Faneuil Hall in honor of Mr. Webster, to prepare some resolutions & adopt measures for his reception upon his return. The meeting was composed of the conservative portion of the community. Mr. Brimmer, the Mayor, presided, & speeches were made by Ch. G. Loring, Theo. Stevenson & Wm. Sturgis.62 They were all very complimentary to Mr. Webster, as much so as he could have wished. Choate was prevented by sickness from attending. [MAY] 29. Address by John Quincy Adams before the Mass. Hist. Society. The old man spoke with great spirit & energy. He said that Roger Williams was a contentious, paradoxical, restless man, & he defended his banishment from Massachusetts.53 Lieut. Hunter, the inventor of a new steam vessel, called. He is here in command of the Union steamer. B0 Theodore Dwight Woolsey ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 8 9 ) , Yale, 1 8 2 0 , was professor of Greek language and literature at Yale, 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 4 6 , and president of Yale, 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 7 1 . Aside from conducting a dynamic administration, he was a prolifically published scholar in the fields of classical studies, law, politics, and theology. 51

William Sullivan.

Sullivan

(1774-1839),

prominent

Boston

lawyer, brother of

George

B2 WilIiam Sturgis ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 3 ) , a member of the powerful merchant family, was one conservative who disagreed with Dana on the question of Commodore Mackenzie's guilt, and later in the summer was to have an exchange of public letters with Dana on the subject. Sturgis, like Dana, had once shipped as a common sailor. 53

T h e Adams speech " T h e N e w England Confederacy of M D C X L I I I , " is in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3 r d ser., I X , 1 8 9 - 2 2 3 . See also Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1835-1855, II, 2 5 4 η , for Adams' own impression of the evening.

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[ M A Y ] 30TH. Called with Sumner upon Mr. John Jay, gr. son of the great statesman & son of Mr. Wm. Jay of N. York.54 He is about my age & had expressed a desire to see me. Was sorry not to find him in.

J U N E 1. This day & yesterday have been in & out occasionally at the Anti Slavery Convention. Nothing can exceed the wildness & fanaticism of that collection of people. During those two days they have been discussing a resolution offered by a man named Foster55 to the effect that the Christian church & ministry should be overthrown, & must be before the abolition of slavery can be looked for. More than one half of the speakers advocated the resolution, & nothing can exceed the bitterness & vulgarity of their attacks upon the church & clergy. Of those who opposed the adoption of the resolution, only one, the Rev. S. J. May,58 ventured to defend churches & clergymen. All the others vied with the supporters of the resolution in abusing these institutions, but contended against the expediency of the Anti-Slavery society, as such, embroiling itself in a controversy with the churches & clergymen. Two conceited, shallow-pated negro youths named Remond & Douglass,57 were among the chief speakers. They seemed to have been entirely spoiled by the notice taken of them, & evidently had but little strength of mind by nature. The expression of conceit was so evident upon their countenances as to be perfectly laughable. They were battling the watch with Garrison, Phillips,58 May, &c., as they called these gentlemen, for 54 William Jay ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 5 8 ) , son of John Jay ( 1 7 4 5 - 1 8 2 9 ) , was a New York judge until 1843, when his antislavery politics caused his removal. His son was John Jay ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 9 4 ) , who practiced law in New York City for about twenty years. He too was active in the antislavery cause. From 1869 to 1874 he was U. S. minister to Austria. 55 Stephen Symonds Foster ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 8 1 ) , Dartmouth, 1838, was a farmer and radical abolitionist, second only to Garrison in the early years of the movement. In 1843 he published The Brotherhood of Thieves, an attack upon organized religion. Dana's reaction here is of special interest because in five years he will find himself in political alignment with these men. B6 Samuel Joseph May ( 1 7 9 7 - 1 8 7 1 ) , Harvard, 1 8 1 7 , was an eminent Unitarian minister, radical in politics on more issues than that of slavery, who held a ministry in Syracuse, New York, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 6 7 . 57 Charles Lenox Remond, local Negro abolitionist leader, and Frederick Douglass, whose Life and Times ( 1 8 8 2 ) provided historians of the movement with important data, remained active in the antislavery movement for many years. 58 William Lloyd Garrison ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 7 9 ) entered the abolitionist movement in 1828, founded his newspaper, The Liberator, in 1 8 3 1 , continuing to publish it for thirty-five years. In 1 8 3 3 he organized the Anti-Slavery Society, whose convention Dana was witnessing. After the Civil War he turned to reform in other areas, including woman's sufferage, prohibition, and American Indian affairs. Wendell Phillips ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 8 4 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 1 , gained fame as an antislavery advocate in 1837, in a speech protesting the murder in Illinois of abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy. He remained a leader in the Anti-Slavery Society, of which he became president in 1865.

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all titles of courtesy such as Mr., the gentlemen, &c., are dropped by these radicals. Two or three women also spoke, but their speeches were painful from the sense they gave one of incoherency & excitement almost amounting to insanity. Phillips is a gentleman & a scholar & speaks as such. May speaks calmly & sensibly. Garrison has logic & force, but is a fanatic by constitution, & a hater of everything established & traditional, & an infidel & socialist. Phillips, however, advocates exciting the blacks to insurrection & war. All the other speakers are a nest of ignorant, fanatical, heated, narrow minded men. The resolution was rejected by a vote of 80 to 50, but it was rejected on the ground of expediency. There was evidently hardly a person in the Society who did not agree with the general tenor of the resolution. The elements of which this convention was composed are dreadful. Heated, narrow minded, self willed, excited, un-christian, radical energies set to work upon a cause which is good, if rightly managed, but which they have made a hot bed for forcing into growth the most dangerous doctrines to both church & state. They are nearly all at the extreme of radicalism, socialism & infidelity. Just as the convention adjourned, a deplorable looking man announced that in the evening there would be a convention at the Chardon st. chapel to discuss the subjects of the right of man to hold property, & the re-organization of society, — "very simple subjects", he added. In the evening I went to this convention, & there we had a new exhibition of radicalism. The speakers took the ground that no man had a right to any private property, not even to the products of his own industry. They were answered by a man named Ballou, who wound them up completely, by putting questions to them wh. they had to answer ex tempore. In this way he made them take the ground that an idle man, or a robber, who could work & would not, had the same right to my crop which I had planted & cut, as I had myself. This upset them with [the] audience, & raised a shout of applause for Mr. Ballou. Upon this, I left. On Wed. ev. S. & I went to Faneuil Hall & heard the address of Garrison to the slaves, & of Phillips to Pres. Tyler, 59 & the speeches of these gentlemen & of Wm. H. Channing. 59

President Tyler was coming to Boston to participate in the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument. Tyler was a slave-owner, and Phillips had been commissioned by the New England Anti-Slavery Society to call upon the President and ask that he free his slaves. No interview was permitted. See Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips, Brahmin Radical (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 9 6 1 ) , p. 127.

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Dined at Chesnut st. with Leonard Woods [Jr.]. He told a ludicrous story of his going to see a show of wild beasts & holding up a little boy who wished to see the monkeys, & falling over, boy & all, beyond the back seat into an arena twelve feet below the seats, & emerging an object of more attention than the wild beasts themselves. This while he was president of Bowdoin College. JUNE 4TH. SUNDAY. This ev. heard a sermon at Park st. from Dr. Beecher, from the text "the fool hath said in his heart there is no god".80 It was in his best style, full of originality, vigor & genius. He is the only preacher who puts genius into his sermons, that I have heard for a long time. His description of a world living under a mere law, without any intelligent, sympathetic being at his head, while trouble sprang from the ground & affliction came out of the dust, — was very touching.

Artillery Election. Monthly concert in the ev. at Park st. Dr. Anderson, Mr. Kirk61 & others officiated. Coming home, Mr. K. said [he] had always looked upon British Govt., as the most selfish & rapacious upon earth, but the British people he thot the best nation in the earth. "There is more moral influence than there is here". When their Govt., for selfish ends, unjustifiably seised a new country, the religious force of the people is thrown in upon it to great effect. This was said with reference to the occupation of the Sandwich Islands by Ld. Geo. Paulet.62 He condemned the act, & sd. if the Br. Govt, acknowledged it, it wd. be a lasting disgrace to them. Yet if the islands must belong to some nation, let it be England. [JUNE]

5TH.

[ J U N E ] 6TH. Elisabeth [Watson Daggett] came fr. Hd. this ev. to spend two weeks with us. Mr. D. comes for the 17th. [JUNE] 12. This being little Sally's birth day, we all went & spent the afternoon with Mrs. Atkins in Roxbury; — S. & her mother & Olive, eo

Psalms 1 4 : 1 . R u f u s Anderson ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 8 0 ) graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1 8 2 2 and immediately began working for the American Board of Foreign Missions in various administrative and editorial capacities. He retired in 1 8 6 7 and produced the five-volume History of the Mission of the American Board of Foreign Missions (18 7 2 ) . 61

62 From February 2 5 to July 3 1 , 1 8 4 3 , the Hawaiian ("Sandwich") Islands were under the provisional command of a British commission headed by Lord George Paulet, Commander of the frigate Carysfort. Paulet had pressed charges against Hawaiian King Kamehameha III to the effect that British subjects had been treated prejudicially in trade, and the king submitted the case in arbitration to Queen Victoria. Agreements were established, and the Islands were returned to the native administration. In America feeling ran high against Paulet, though the facts of the case indicate that British merchants were not without grievance in Hawaii.

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Elisabeth & myself. Mrs. Atkins & the children were delighted to see us & we had a charming time. After the long rains the sun had come out clear & bright, & nothing could exceed the freshness of the air & the richness of the foliage. Sarah was in high spirits & enjoyed herself like a child. I have not seen her look so well this many a day. It delighted my eyes & I could hardly keep them off from her. W e went up into the room where just a year before little S. was born, & her mother suffered her agony. The furniture of the room remained nearly the same, & it was very much the kind of day. W e felt a sober happiness in reviewing all these things. After tea, loaded with great bunches of flowers, we returned safely to town. JUNE 13TH. Went to Cambridge on business in co. with Asher Benjamin, the architect. 63 He had many anecdotes to tell about the men of note in the early part of the century, — [H. G.] Otis, Gore, 64 Parsons, my Gr. father [Francis Dana], [Franklin] Dexter & others. He said that the elder Pres. Adams, in speaking of the Mass. Convention of 1820 for altering the constitution, said he had heard a great deal of Webster & had seen him & thought him a great man, & expected much of him in the Convention, but that, after all this, he was entirely surprised at his power. "He was head & shoulders above them all". Mr. B. said he could take his oath that these were Mr. Adams' very words.

He said Mr. Adams spoke in high terms of my Gr. Grandfather, Richard Dana, who was dead at the time & was not known by the men of that period. Mr. B. spoke of the superior manners, dress & style of men of that day compared with the men of note at the present time. There are no such men now as your Gr. father, Christopher Gore, Rufus King, Harry [G.] Otis, Saml. Dexter, Fisher Ames &c., said he. There may be as much talent, learning & virtue, but there is not the style & finish of those men. "I remember your Gr. father, well. He was a fine looking man". I remarked that he was short. "Yes, he was rather short, but full of dignity. He was at the head of the old aristocracy of this part of the country". Read accidentally, this extract in a newspaper from a sketch of the life of Frederika Bremer. 65 "A sad reality — a deep & bitter melancholy, 6 3 Asher Benjamin ( 1 7 7 3 - 1 8 4 5 ) was noted as a New England house and church architect. His considerable influence stemmed mostly from his writings, which include: The Country Builder's Assistant ( 1 7 9 7 ) , The American Builder's Companion (1806), and The Practical House Carpenter (1830). ^Christopher Gore ( 1 7 5 8 - 1 8 2 7 ) , Harvard, 1776. A Boston lawyer who did diplomatic duty in London, 1796-1804, he was governor of Massachusetts in 1809. He served in the U. S. Senate, 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 1 6 . 6 6 Frederika Bremer ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 6 5 ) , widely traveled Swedish novelist who realistically portrayed the domestic scene. See especially The Neighbors ( 1 8 3 7 ) . Her American

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the origin of wh., in consideration of her reluctance to explain it, we can only surmise, here drew a dark cloud over the life of the young maiden. For many a year did she struggle with it, but at length she came out victorious, free & strong. 'The illusions of youth are dissolved, the springtime of life is past'. She says Ί wrote under the impulse of youthful & restless feelings. I wrote that I might write. I have resumed the pen under far different feelings'." God grant the time may never come when such things as these shall cease to affect me deeply. I dreamt of that passage in her life, her melancholy in youth, & woke with it weighing like a load about my heart. It has given a sadness which is not unpleasant, & which is profitable, to the whole day. J U N E 14. S., Mr. Daggett, Elis., Charlotte & I made a party in a carryall & chaise to Lexington to see the battle field & monument. The afternoon was beautiful, & two smart showers which passed over us made the country all the fresher & more delightful after the sun broke out. We went by the Grand Turnpike & over Wellington's hill, & returned by the old road. Took tea & spent the ev. at Aunt Martha's where were, beside our party, Aunt E., Charlotte, Ned & Mrs. [J. T.] Hodge & Julia Metcalf. Mr. Allston seemed in good spirits & talked very agreeably. [ J U N E ] I6TH. This day was set apart for the reception of Pres. Tyler & his suite, coming to celebrate the completion of Bunker Hill Monument. The regt, of Boston volunteer companies under Col. Bigelow were under orders to march to Roxbury & escort [the] Pres. to the Tremont Hs., & Henderson Inches Jr. 66 was Ch. Marshall of the whole procession. The children of all the free schools were to be drawn up across the Common & there were to be citisens on horseback &c. &c. The day was cloudy, & soon after breakfast it began to rain. From this time there was a constant drizzle, with occasional brisk showers all day. We went to Mrs. Head's67 in Tremont st. & had a good place to see all. About 1 1 , the troops came in sight up Boylston st. & filed upon the Common, & soon after the horses of the Pres.'s coach appeared, but not a sound, nor a cheer from the great multitude marked his progress. When the carriage appeared, he was to be seen standing up & bowing on one side & the other, but not an answering sound. As he passed thro' the gate there was one feeble cheer, & a respectable cheer at the corner of Winter st.; but these were all that

tours produced several books, including Homes of the New World letters were collected in America of the Fifties ( 1 9 2 4 ) . e6 Henderson B. Inches ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 8 9 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 1 , was a brother of several well-connected Boston merchants. e7 Mrs. George Edward Head, whose husband ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 6 1 ) was Between 1 8 3 6 and 1 8 4 8 he served four terms in the Massachusetts

( 1 8 5 3 ) , and her Boston physician, a Boston lawyer. legislature.

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I heard. As he went down Winter st., S. & I crossed & found our way to Dr. Channing's & there had an excellent opportunity to see the close of the ceremonies. Mr. Inches, with [Wm.] Dehon & Tucker as aid, stood on horse back in the pelting rain, & Mr. Brimmer in the Pres.'s carriage sat as stiff as a stake, looking like a martyr, holding an umbrella over the Pres.'s head. There was a respectable cheer or two as the Pres. got out of his carriage, but not a sound as he stood on the steps with his hat off, bowing to the people. Spencer, Upshur & Porter were with him, as also Robt. Tyler &c. Public opinion makes Bob a weak puppy. 68 Great fears are entertained for to-morrow. Thousands of people are coming hourly into the city from all quarters for the great day, & the military are to be encamped & quartered in the suburbs; but there is a cold northeaster, wh. seems likely to continue. Miss Mary Campbell, 69 S. & E.'s friend, arrived, to spend the 17th. In the course of the afternoon met the Ν. Y. battalion of Nat. Guards, portions of the Ν. E. Soc. of Ν. Y., the Standish Guards fr. Plymouth & other bodies of men, marching thro the streets in a dim drizzle. JUNE 17TH. Woke at 5 & sprang to the window. Clear sky & wind at the S. W. My spirits rose as far as they had fallen the day before. We all walked to the Prov[idence] station to see the Prov. military & the citisen passengers arrive. At every inlet people crowded into the city by thousands. It is said that there are 100,000 strangers in the city. Drums & fifes, & all sorts of martial sounds are heard from every direction. At 8, we cross [the] Common to go to Miss Inches', fr. where we were to see the procession. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this scene. The rain had laid the dust & given the richest greeness & freshness to the grass & foliage, the bright sun illumed all, the showy ranks of the soldiery were drawn over the lower part of the Common, the hill was studded all over with bright faces; & in all direction[s] the light dresses of women, moving or still, gave a variety & brilliancy to all the eye could contain, making a glorious pageantry wh. rarely in one man's life can be furnished. Then, too, the occasion was one wh. appealed to the hearts of all. There was no party in these proceedings, nor anything doubtful in the general interest & enthousiasm. The strangers from all parts, & especially N. e8John Canfield Spencer, father of Philip Spencer, has been noted earlier. Abel P. Upsher (1791-1844) Secretary of State, was to be killed in an accident the following year in Washington, D. C., while Dana was visiting there. Elaborate details of the event appear later in the Journal. James Madison Porter (1793-1862), was an eminent Democratic politician from Pennsylvania. Robert Tyler (1816-1877), the. President's son, was his father's private secretary, became a political leader in Philadelphia, and during the Civil War served as Registrar of the Confederate Treasury. 69 Miss

Mary Campbell, friend of Sarah and Elizabeth, was from Hartford.

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Englanders from Ν. Υ. city &c., entered with the greatest zest into all that was doing. The procession moved from the State House at loVi, under an escort of all the military. There was here 4 companies of Nat. Guard & one co. of Light Guards fr. Ν. Y. city, the Burgess Corps from Albany, in grenadier caps, & companies from all parts of Maine, Ν. H., Vert. & R. Island, & companies from all the principal towns in Massachusetts, as well as the whole military of Boston & its environs. Some of the companies from the extremes of Maine & Ν. H. made a very odd appearance, but their zeal in coming so far, & the recollection that such were the men who fought at Bunker Hill gave them an enthousiastic welcome. As soon as the procession had passed Tremont st., we all went over to Charlestown & upon Bunker Hill. By perseverance & good fortune we got upon the top of a shed fitted up for the occasion from which we could see all & hear occasionally the voice of the speaker. It was enough, however, to see Webster's face, the style & grandeur of his action, & to hear the tones of his voice without attending to the meaning of his words. The whole scene was the most grand that can be imagined. In front of all, & at the top of the hill stands the deep sunk, massive & towering monument. Around the base of the hill are the waters of the bay running into the arms of the Charles & Mystic, the distant sea, the great city lying within cannon shot, the thickly populated environs, the Navy Yard with its huge gun-studded ships, about this hill lay scattered & into the great area were crowded thousands & thousands of a free, happy & well ordered people, celebrating their national jubilee; & upon the platform, with his eye taking in the whole scene, & charged with duties of the grand occasion stood the great man of the age, with a voice, action & presence almost god-like, answering fully to the call which no other day, place or people could make. [JUNE] I8TH. Went to Trinity with Miss Campbell & heard the Bishop. In the afternoon we all heard an excellent sermon from Dr. Stone 70 at St. Paul's. [JUNE] 19TH. S. & I called upon Mr. Philip & Miss Bagley at Mr. [C. F.] Adams'. Mr. B. gave us some account of the battle. He says they left Cambridge & reached the top of Bunker by ten o'clock at night. That they were then halted two hours, the reason of wh. he did not then understand, but has since heard that it arose from some uncertainty as to wh. hill they should occupy. It was midnight before they reached Breed's. As early as 3 A. M. they were discovered & the cannonading

70 John Seely Stone (1795-1882) chusetts, 1852-1862.

was rector of St. Paul's, at Brookline, Massa-

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commenced, so that they had but 3 hours of unmolested dark. During all the cannonading only one man was killed, & they kept at their work. He says that they had nothing to eat or drink from the time they left Cambridge until the next night, — not even water. They were faint, hungry, thirsty, tired & hot. So much work in such hot weather & under such excitement made them so thirsty that they had to clear the saliva from their mouths with their hands. He distinctly remembers the British retreating to their boats at one repulse. At the third attack they raked the breast work, & there & at the retreat the great loss of the Americans took place. I remarked upon the great loss of officers the British met with. "Oh, yes", said he, "our orders were to fire at the officers". He says he saw Putnam 71 there. That he is sure of it. Called upon Miss Catherine Sedgwick at Mrs. Minot's. Speaking of McKensie, she says Cooper told her he was about publishing a pamphlet in which he should not leave enough of Mackensie to put between his thumb & finger.72 J U N E 20. Mr. Sam. A. Eliot called to invite me to take the letter from the Boston subscribers to Mackensie. I declined on acc. of engagements. The letter is written on parchment with the names of 500 subscribers, enclosed in a beautiful silver book of a large 8vo. sise, which is again enclosed in a neat morocco case. (Saml. E. Guild finally took the letter.) Mr. Daggett & E. left for Hartford, Wd. & N. Haven, on visits. [ J U N E ] 23. Family leave the house in Chesnut st. for the summer. Father returns fr. Hanover. He & Ned sleep at Chesnut st. & take meals here. [ J U N E ] 24. Drank tea & spent ev. at Aunt Martha's, with S. Meeting of holders of real estate in Cambridge Port, to take measures for building a road from Pine Grove to the causeway. 71

Israel Putnam ( 1 7 1 8 - 1 7 9 0 ) was a major general in the Continental Army at the time of Bunker Hill and distinguished himself in action there. In later years his military reputation declined. 72

James Fenimore Cooper, The Battle of Lake Erie; or Answers to Messers. Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie (Cooperstown, Ν. Υ.: Η. & E . Phinney, 1 8 4 3 ) . Though the "Preface" is dated May 16, 1 8 4 3 , the pamphlet did not come out until July or August. Mackenzie had written a biography of Oliver Hazard Perry which contained a different version of the battle from that contained in Cooper's subsequent History of the Navy ( 1 8 3 9 ) . A public disagreement between the two men ensued, and when the court-martial took place Cooper regarded the development as "the day of reckoning."

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[ J U N E ] 28. Company to spend the evening to meet Miss Cath. [M.] Sedgwick. Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Minot, Fr. Minot,73 Miss Julia Minot, Hillard & lady, Longfellow, Ch. Sumner, H. P. Gray (artist) & lady, father, Ned, Charlotte &c. Longfellow brot a bouquet from Miss Appleton to Miss Sedgwick. R. W. Griswold 74 spent the evening with us on Monday. He was very agreeable & full of literary anecdotes. He defends Nick Biddle 75 whom he admires very much. Also, he takes sides with Cooper against Mackensie. [JUNE]

29.

Wrote to Moxon & to G. R. Young.

[ J U N E ] 30. This morning a large caravan of wild animals passed thro' town, at the head of wh. was a car drawn by four elephants. The elephants made a great show & the streets thro' wh. they passed were crowded with curious lookers on. Their appearance was very picturesque & more unlike the sights we are accustomed to see than anything I could have imagined. Their ponderous tread, their great height & breadth & the rolling of their huge bodies made a peculiar & impressive spectacle.

J U L Y 4. Beautiful fireworks on the Common this ev. Went out upon the Common with S. to see them.

6. To Cambridge to mark out the Great Marsh.76 Mr. Peck & Ned took tea with us. [JULY]

[JULY]

8.

Went upon the contemplated road to the Pine Grove with

Uncle F. J U L Y 9. SUNDAY. This morning at about 2 o'cock, we were waked by a violent & continued ringing of the street door bell, & a pounding upon 73 Francis Minot ( 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 9 9 ) , Harvard, 1841, son of William Minot, Sr., became a Boston physician, and was on the Harvard Medical School faculty, 1 8 7 1 - 1 8 9 1 . 74 Rufus Wilmot Griswold ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 5 7 ) , journalist and anthologist, edited and wrote more than forty volumes. Editor of the influential The Poets and Poetry of America ( 1 8 4 2 ) , he was Edgar Allen Poe's literary executor and author of what the Dictionary of American Biography calls an "inexcusable" biographical memoir of Poe. His last years were lived in the shadow of disease and of domestic scandal. 75 Nicholas Biddle ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 4 4 ) , chronicler of the Lewis and Clark expedition, had engaged in a famous controversy with President Jackson over the independence of the banking system from government control. He was president of the (Second) Bank of the United States, 1823-1839, and his financial policy may have been what Griswold was defending. 76 Dana held real estate interests in Cambridge and presumably was engaged in following up the decision of the real estate holders, mentioned in the June 24, 1843, Journal entry, to plan a road in Cambridge.

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the wall. Sarah waked first & ran up stairs to see if the alarm came from the child's room. All was quiet there & the sounds continued. By this time I was awake & we went to the front window. It was dark & there in the street stood an empty chaise & a man upon the door step. "Who's there?" — "We want Mr. Dana to go to Cambridge immediately, — Mr. Allston is dead!" It went to my heart like a clap of thunder. For the first time in my life, I was confused upon an alarm. I could hardly breathe. In time, I was dressed & in the street. The night air was chilly & the streets were as still as death. The man had been to call up Ned at Chesnut St., & we waited for him. In a moment we heard the fall of footsteps & Ned came up to us. We got into the chaise & rode out, with hardly a word spoken. Ned said, "I left him at nine sitting at his tea table. Almost the last thing I heard him do was to ask a blessing at his table". We reached the house. I saw a light in his back parlor, where he always sat, but none up stairs. Where can he be? Where did he die. We opened the door. Aunt Betsy met us in the entry. She said a few words. He was in the back room. I went to the door & just saw his body lying along the rug in front of the fire, & Aunt S. & Ned by his side. I could not, for my life, have gone up to the body. I went to the other end of the room & looked out of the window. I moved to the other window, but could not go up to it. Never did I force myself more than when I moved gradually & fearfully up to it. And there he lay. The men who were called in had placed him upon the rug in front of his fire place. Excepting that his neck kerchief had been removed, he was dressed as usual, his gray & white curls lay about his forehead & shoulders, & his sublime countenance with closed eyes was turned upward. His candles were burning upon the table, by the side of them lay his spectacles, the remnant of his last cigar was upon the corner of the mantel piece where he always placed it. Another untouched wh. he had taken out to use next lay near it, a small plate, as usual, held the ashes of his cigar, & a few books, none of them, however, open, lay upon the table & mantel piece. Mrs. Allston had been taken up stairs. In half an hour the proper men came & I assisted them in taking the body into a room up stairs, the S. W. chamber, where I left them to make the necessary preparations. After a long time they announced that their work was done & left us. I went into the chamber. He was laid out in the decent mode of such occasions & the breaking day paled the light of the candles so that we could see but indistinctly the expression of his face. Charlotte came in in great grief & could not be persuaded that he was dead. It was but two or three hours since these lips had discoursed so gloriously to her, & those hands had embraced her. She heard breathings

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from his lips, & could not be persuaded to give up watching for signs of life. At length she closed the door & kneeled by his bed side & remained in silent prayer a long time, when she rose & left the room. She said it seemed cruel to leave him alone, & I promised to stay by him. The day was now broken, & there were the first twittering of birds & the sounds of returning motion in the world. No rising sun was to awaken him from his rest. His spirit was in an eternal sabbath, in a day to which no night cometh. The light being fully returned, we could contemplate his sublime countenance. There was the highest grandeur of intellect, with the purity & peacefulness of one in the world but not of the world. One could not but feel the absence of any signs of force in his intellect. It was rising, soaring, from one elevation to one higher, & expanding into infinite space. There was no exercise of force against other intellects; no combat; no strife for mastery, which give vigor & development to most minds, but which, compared with the growth of his intelligence, is like the shooting out of rays in horisontal lines compared with the rising upward, upward to the source of all light. Truth & beauty, for the glory of God & the elevation of man were the great objects for wh. his powers had been given him, & these he pursued, without comparison or conflict. Between six & seven, while I was sitting by his bed side, the door opened & Sarah walked in. Poor, dear, sympathetic creature, unable to bear the distress & anxieties of the sudden announcement, she had walked all the way alone. She never looked more lovely to me than when she then entered that room. "Oh, he must not die". "He must come back to life". This first made me ask myself, would I call him back if I could? No. He would come back to pain, to mental distress, to an overburdened spirit, to a frame too feeble to execute the longings of his mind, & to suffer an increase, a daily increase of all these evils, with the chance of a more painful death. At about eight I went over to announce the event to Uncle Edmund. He was in bed. I told it to him in a few words. He said nothing for some time, but lay with his eyes closed. At length he said "It is too horrible!" & after some time, he repeated — "It is too horrible!". I sat by his side, & he said "I should like to have you come & see me tomorrow". Upon this I left him. His words are few & his feelings private, but his emotions are deep & strong. At about nine I rode up to Cambridge to announce the death to father. He was visiting at Professor [Ε. T.] Channings'.77 I sent for the Professor, but he was at breakfast, & did not come. I had to send again, & cousin 77 A marginal note adds, "Prof. C . was then about 5 6 . " In fact he was to celebrate his fifty-third birthday the following December 12.

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Harriet came. This made a confusion, & father seemed to suspect that something was wrong, so she told him at once "Mr. Allston is dead. He died last night". I knew that father had been predicting his dissolution, & I supposed he would not be surprised at any time to hear of his death. But far different was the effect. Father came towards me, & I went up to embrace him, but he clutched my hand convulsively & said not a word. I led him to a chair. I sat down before him. He looked upon me, but his eye was that of one whose mind had been overthrown. It was not fancy in me. I could not be deceived in it. For the moment his sanity of mind had left him. I placed my hands upon his shoulders as I would upon those of a child or an insane person, & told him to be calm. He heard me not, for his mind had no perception, for the time. My blood retreated to my heart, my limbs were cold, I could not speak, for I looked into his eye again & again & there was no change & I thought I had [crazed] him. At length he said, in a broken, incoherent manner, "how is this? What does this mean? How? When? What is all this? What does this mean?" I said again "Pray, be calm. He has gone peacefully & quietly. If you had been there, you would not feel so". Gradually, like the clearing away of a mist or the rising of a curtain, his natural expression returned to his eye; the cloud passed off, & the momentary aberration, for such it was, ceased. I then told him of all the consoling things, & among others mentioned that Aunt Martha was wonderfully calm, had been in to see the body, & seemed to have had a supernatural strength given to her. This calmed father more than anything else had done. "If Martha is only sustained, I have no fear. I feared her nervous & frail nature". Being assured on this point, he became more composed. I then told him that Aunts had feared the effect of this upon him, but that I had told them that if it had been some embarrassment or trouble of worldly or pecuniary matters it would make him ill, but that so great a thing as this he could stand up against. This hit his feelings where I meant it should, & he said that was just the case with him, & added — "Oh, I have had my mind too much fixed of late upon death, eternity & the spiritual world to be disturbed by the fact of his death. Death seems to me to be the necessary & only true condition of man". W e then talked of the blessings & desirable things attending his death. He had escapted that terrible vision, the night-mare, the incubus, the tormentor of his life, his unfinished picture. 78 If he had lingered on, unable to labor, feeling his power to paint gone, & yet his picture unfinished, every hour would have [been] charged with distress & failing of heart. He died, too, easily, without pain, at once, & yet with time & 78 "Belshazzar's

Feast," noted in detail later.

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notice for preparation. He died, too, not alone, as we had feared he might, but with his friends about him & knowing how he died. From my father's I called upon Mr. Albro. 79 He looked astounded by the announcement & said "It comes upon me like a thunder clap". After speaking of him at length, he added, "He was a glorious man — a glorious man". He then alluded to his last interview with him. It was of this nature. Mr. Allston spoke of himself as breaking up. Mr. Albro said, "I hope that as your outward man perishes, your inward man is renewed". At this Mr. Allston began to speak of his religious feelings & experiences, & Mr. Albro said he talked gloriously, not upon abstractions & dogmas but upon the religion in a man's own soul. Particularly & most solemnly he dwelt upon the doctrine of the Atonement, as the foundation of a Christian's hope. This was about a fortnight before his death. From Mr. Albro's I returned & took my father down to the Port. He seemed calm & spoke of the spiritual state & of the glories opened to that noble & purified mind. But when he came into the house & met Aunt Betsey, he was overcome again. In time he recovered himself & went into the room where the body lay & remained there some time alone. Aunt Martha remained up stairs, & calm throughout the day. Toward night I went into her. She lay upon the bed & held my hand for a long time. I heard her say "Richard, he is happy". Among other things she said "He loved you all very much". When reminded of the reasons for consolation, she said she had everything to be thankful for. She had had all her friends about her. Her only painful thought was that she was not by him at the moment. There might have been a word or a look of recognition. She added that he had often told her lately that one or the other of them must be soon taken away, & how miserable he would be to be left, & she had made up her mind that she would rather suffer all the pain of desertion than that he should do it & be left alone, helpless as he was, & so depending upon constant attentions. In the course of the afternoon Mr. Wm. S. Rogers, & Dr. Shattuck came out. Dr. S. was overcome to tears. His classmate & friend Mr. Benj. Welles heard of [it] by accident late in the evening, & came out after ten o'clock. He was so much overcome that he could not speak, & when he spoke he cried like a child. W e sent for Brackett 80 to take the cast from his face, & he walked out at noon in a broiling sun, with his heavy bundle of materials in his hand, & without dining. His agitation was so great, that he could not go on with 79 John

Adams Albro, Cambridge clergyman.

8 0 Edward

Augustus Brackett

(1818-1900),

a sculptor who made his reputation

doing busts of Bryant, Longfellow, Sumner, Choate, and Garrison, also created a bust from the death mask of Allston at this time.

174

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his work. He took peppermint, & after some time, went on again. Dr. Frank Dana was present at the time. Mr. Metcalf came & brought out Julia. Charlotte needed her aid, for she was in a very excitable state. At night I returned to Boston & Ned came out to pass the night in the house. J U L Y 10. We had agreed that none but the relations & connexions of the deceased should be invited to the funeral; but there was so strong a desire to see the remains of this adored man & to be present at his funeral, that we determined to allow it to be understood that any intimate friends of Mr. Allston who wished to be present would not be intruders. Notice was given accordingly to some extent, by word of mouth; but our previous determination to have it strictly private, got abroad first, & being uncontradicted in many cases kept away, unfortunately, many dear friends. In the course of the forenoon Dr. Shattuck Jr. & Dr. [George] Parkman made an examination of the body. Dr. Shattuck Senr. & my brother were present. They found no one clear cause of his sudden death, nor had he any one or two extreme developments of disease. There was rather a general disorder & diseased state of all the parts & functions. There was an ossification of two arteries called, I believe, corollaries, the heart was a little diseased, the stomach somewhat so & in a state of considerable irritation, the kidneys small & a little affected, a general failure of power in the active parts, & undoubtedly a wide spread & excessive nervous disorder. The brain they did not examine. The funeral services began half past seven in the evening, being put late that we might have a veil of evening to keep the mourners from the common [gaze]. The persons present were, beside all the members of our immediate family, vis: three aunts, Uncles Edmund & Francis, father, Charlotte, Ned, Sarah & myself, — Frank & Isabella, Cousin Sophia & Mr. Ripley, Cousin Mary [Dana], Prof. [Ε. T.] Channing & lady, Geo. & Walter Channing, Miss Gibbs, Mr. & Mrs. Curtis (Mary Channing), Mrs. Rogers, Mr. & Mrs. [J. I.] Coolidge (Mary Rogers),81 the Hastings family, the Willard family, the Gibsons, Pres. & Mrs. Quincy & two daughters, Mr. & Mrs. Waterston, Miss E. C. Peabody, Judge [Lemuel] Shaw, Mr. Krapp, Mr. B. Welles, Mr. Benj. Greene, Chas. Sumner, Prof. [C. C.] Felton, Mr. Wm. Rogers, Prof. [Andrews] Norton, & many others. Mr. Franklin Dexter was out of town & did not get my letter until after the funeral. Many others were out of town, it being mid-summer. 81

W a l t e r Channing ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 7 6 ) , a physician, was the brother of E d w a r d Tyrell and William Ellery Channing. He had been dean of the Harvard Medical School since 1 8 1 9 , and remained in the post until 1 8 4 7 . George Channing was his brother. J. Ivers Coolidge ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 9 1 3 ) was a Boston minister.

1843

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The service at the house was performed by aunt Martha's clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Albro, while the Church service was to be read at the tomb by Dr. Vinton of the St. Paul's Church, Boston, at which Mr. Allston had been confirmed, & of which he had never ceased to be a member. Mr. Albro's prayer was very appropriate, impressive & in several parts, eloquent. In one sentence he prayed that this loss may be blessed to the community in wh. the deceased had lived. "May they remember that great as he was, glorious as he was among men, his chief glory was that he was a humble, childlike believer in the redemption of his soul by the Son of Man". It was eight o'clock before the procession moved. Uncle Francis declined going to the grave, no doubt because he had so recently buried there his wife & his favorite grandson. Uncle Edmund therefore supported Aunt Martha. Father was to have gone with Aunt Betsy, but we feared he might be too much over come to be in the same coach with Aunt Martha, so I was placed with Aunt Betsy. Father & Charlotte came next, & Julia Metcalf rode with Charlotte to attend to her in case she should be ill. Ned went with Aunt Sarah. The others followed in the order of relationship. After our family came the Channings & their branches, then the Hastings connexions, then the Willards, & after them the friends not connected or related. It was somewhat singular that Mr. Wm. J. Flagg 82 from N. Haven, Mr. Allston's nephew, came to town on the very day of the funeral. He called at my office to inquire the way to his uncle's house, as he meant to visit him immediately, having never seen him, & learned that I was at his funeral. He went out at once, & saw his uncle for the first time lying in his coffin. He followed to the grave with my father & Charlotte. The procession passed by Mr. Albro's church & the old Trowbridge house, by Mr. Allston's road to church, & thence by the Brighton bridge street to the grave yard. When we reached the ground it was about half past eight. Here were a great many assembled in the yard about the tomb, & the sexton stood with his lantern. The moon was struggling thro' the clouds & making deep shadows from the grave stones & monuments. The whole was a most impressive scene. The coffin was placed at the grave's mouth, the mourners gathered about it, the men stood uncovered, & the solemn service of the church was read.83 The preacher's voice, wh. is unusually good, sounded like a voice of power from above, uttering words of hope & consolation. At the words "earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes" some earth was dropped upon the coffin, & sounded 82 William J. Flagg was the son of Henry C. Flagg, brother of George W. and Jared Flagg, all noted elsewhere in the Journal. 8 3 Dana has a marginal note which adds: "Judge Story & Sumner were there, in company."

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fearfully & ominously to our ears. Yet the admirable church service seems to sanctify every portion of what attends the burial, even the throwing the earth upon the coffin. At the "Amen", the bearers raised the coffin & entered the tomb, & w e left the yard. T h e moon was shining brightly when w e reached home. Poor Aunt Martha saw us, one at a time, & talked in a manner wh. went at once to our hearts. She said to me "You cannot tell what a consolation the service at the yard has been to me. It has always seemed as though there ought to be something at the tomb". It seemed to take away from the gloom of leaving a body in a cold tomb, & to make real the truths of the resurrection, the spiritual world, the gloryfied body & presence of God. It was late when w e reached town. Cousin Mary spent the night with us, & N e d staid at Aunt Martha's. Father spends the f e w days at Prof. Channing's. JULY I I .

A letter fr. Mr. Dexter saying that he did not hear of the

death until after the funeral & expressing his regret. Sumner called with reference to a monument to Mr. Allston. Judge Story had been quite urgent about it. Judge S., Mr. Dexter, Hillard & Sumner are to control it. Col. Perkins 84 will head it. Brackett says he has made a very good cast, & seems quite encouraged. Father & I called upon Uncle Edmund with reference to the picture. 85 W e agreed to meet at the painting room tomorrow at 4 P. M., with Mr. John Greenough 86 to assist us. 84 Thomas H. Perkins (1764-1854), Massachusetts legislator. He made a large fortune in the China trade and was a noted philanthropist. 85 This was the celebrated "Belshazzar's Feast," now in the Detroit Institute of Art. The following is from the "Catalog," prepared by Edgar Preston Richardson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, in Richardson's Washington Allston, A Study of the Romantic Artist in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948): "The first sketches for 'Belshazzar's Feast' were made in the spring of 1817. After his trip to Paris in the summer of that year, Allston worked on several other things and did not start the large canvas until the beginning of 1818. The composition must have been well blocked in when he rolled it up for transportation to America, for he expected to be able to finish it with six to eight month's more work. The first list of subscribers was opened in 1820, and a form of advance purchase, the 'Tripartite Indenture,' was drawn up. The picture was unrolled in September, 1820. Gilbert Stuart criticized the perspective severely, and the artist unfortunately undertook to alter the perspective, which meant beginning the composition all over again. He worked on it until 1828, altering it again and again without ever being able to satisfy himself. In 1827 the second 'Tripartite Indenture' was signed, with some changes in the list of subscribers. In 1828 Allston's studio was sold, and he had to move to smaller quarters. The painting was rolled up until 1839, when he began to work on it again in the Cambridgeport studio in a new style. The picture was still unfinished at the time of his death" (pp. 201-202). 86

John Greenough ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 5 2 ) , brother of Horatio, was a painter.

1843

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177

Aunt Martha still seems very calm & in the most desirable frame of mind. [ J U L Y ] 12. At 4 P. M. we assembled to enter the painting room & "break the seal" of the great picture. An awe had been upon my mind as though I were about to enter a sacred & mysterious place. I could hardly bring my mind to turn the key. We tried to prepare for the worst, so that nothing could dissappoint us. But to enter this solemn place, so long & so lately filled with his presence & the home of his glorious thoughts & his painful emotions, the scene of his distresses wh. no human eye saw, & few human spirits can comprehend! I turned the key & opened the outer door. W e stood an instant in the porch; but Greenough, whose enthousiasm & interest far surpassed any awe he might feel, rushed in. There before us was spread out the great sheet of painted canvass, — but dimmed, almost obscured by dust & marks & lines of chalk. The eye ran across the picture for the main figures. Daniel stood erect. The queen was there. But where the king should have been, where Daniel's eyes were fixed, was a shroud, a thickly painted coat, effectually blotting out the whole figure. W e stood for some minutes in silence. "How could he have done it?" said Uncle E., "He told me once he had finished the king & was satisfied with it". "Oh, in some moment of darkness, he swept it all off'. Father looked at it & said, "That is his shroud". It was indeed a most solemn tragedy that this revealed. We felt that this had killed him. Over this, he had worn out his enfeebled frame & his paralised spirit, until he had sunk under it. The agonies he had endured here, no tongue can tell! Then in the left of the picture the large figures of three Chaldean soothsayers had been chalked over for alteration, the head of Daniel had been chalked, & there were marks for alteration upon the face of the Queen. A part of the pillars at the left of the picture had also chalk marks upon them. The steps upon wh. he painted were placed so as to bring him against the face of the magicians, & by looking carefully we saw marks of fresh paint recently laid on, upon the face of the magician nearest Daniel. There then had been his last work. To the latest moment he had labored upon this great work. He had almost died with his pencil upon it. Six hours before his death, his pencil was on this picture. The right hand of Daniel was incomplete. He had told both me & my father that this hand was painted open; that Stuart,87 to whom he had shown the picture, had told him to paint Daniel's right hand clenched, to express more intensity of feeling, & that he had altered it to please Stuart, or in deference to his judgement. But no sooner had he done so than he felt, 8 7 Gilbert Stuart ( 1 7 5 5 - 1 8 2 8 ) , celebrated portrait painter, Allston's original version of the picture was so influential.

whose

criticism

of

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Beginnings

what he had anticipated at the time, that it destroyed that idea. Daniel was not to be impassioned, or intensely excited. His attitude was to be that of calm sublimity, & in contrast with the varieties of excitement portrayed about him. The hand writing upon the wall was not finished.88 The sight of all this work finished & then destroyed, & the alterations requiring months of labor to complete wh. he had planned & wh. he doubtless felt he never could execute, & above all the shroud over the king, so broke upon my father's already over taxed spirit, that he hastened away behind the picture & hid himself from sight. He was gone many minutes. When he returned he looked very pale but composed. After examining the picture for some time we opened his closet & took out his unfinished pictures & sketches. Among them we found two sketches of the great picture, one a finished sketch in brown & the other painted, but the latter was merely for color & was done with little regard to form or character. Comparing the sketch with the picture, we found that they differed but little. In the sketch the hand of Daniel was open, as he intended to have it, & the king was completed. Uncle Edmund said Mr. Allston had told him that he had finished the king in the great picture ύ- was satisfied with it. John Greenough said that several years ago he had seen a part of the picture thro' the crack of the door, & that the king was then finished, & from the little he saw he believed it to correspond with the king in the sketch. Knowing that there was a finished king under this shroud, & that Allston had once been satisfied with it, we felt justified in trying to remove the covering. We tried it with spirits of turpentine, & found that the light parts at the extremities started a little, but it was evident that something more would be necessary to remove it entirely. We found ourselves delicately situated. The picture had been partly paid for & had been conveyed by a legal instrument to the subscribers. It was perhaps, then, partly theirs; or, at least, they had a contingent interest in it. We could not, then, well proceed, without reference to them. Yet, covered as the picture was with dirt & chalk marks, & with the king painted out, without cleaning, varnish or frame, the proprietors, not artists, would not understand nor value the picture, & it would be vain & an injustice to Mr. Allston's reputation to subject it to such a test. Would it not be wiser then to call in one or two persons on whose judgment we could rely, & in whom the proprietors would also place con8 8 Dana added this note: "Afterwards we saw that Allston had a grander conception. The writing was not to be visible to the spectator. A flood of supernatural light from between the columns, & the direction of all eyes indicated the place, out of sight, where the mysterious writing was."

1843

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179

fidence, & let them give their advice? We thought it would. Having determined this point, we had no difficulty in deciding who these persons should be. Mr. Allston had always relied more upon the judgment, & was more willing to trust his work & his relations to the public & to the proprietors of his pictures to the good taste & discretion of Mr. Warren Dutton89 & Mr. Franklin Dexter, than to any other persons. We felt that in selecting them we should follow the wishes of the deceased better than by any other course. We agreed accordingly that they should be invited immediately to see [the] picture. Before leaving the room, we looked at his other sketches & pictures. Besides the two of the great picture, there was a finished sketch in brown of Titania's Court, from wh. he was to have painted a picture for the Duchess of Sutherland,90 at the request of her brother Lord Morpeth. Had he finished this, it would undoubtedly have been his most popular picture. The grace of some of the figures, as well as the perfect air of beauty of the whole conception, are not to be surpassed. His favorite part in the picture is the descent of the fairies, in the left. There was a chalk sketch upon black crepe of the angel Gabriel setting the watch; two unfinished female heads one of which was large, somewhat open & low-dressed in the bosom & the face averted. This was painted in London, & he had life to paint from. The other was a large head, painted with the side face, with a straight-lined face & the nose rather long, & presenting the left face. The picture painted in London presented the right side. There were two small unfinished pictures of female figures. The sketch of Una in the desert remained untouched. There was a portrait of his mother painted in Boston before his second visit to England, & one of himself painted in Charlestown S. C. at the age of one & twenty, a finished copy of the celebrated marriage at Cana, unfinished pictures upon the subjects of the death of King John, the Angel pouring out the vial over Jerusalem, & others which I do not now remember. There were as many as twenty or thirty sketches. After spending three hours of great excitement & intense interest in this room we closed it for the night. There were aphorisms & short scenes written in ink upon the door of his closet, which will be very valuable & interesting. After leaving the room we adjourned to Uncle Edmund's, where we talked a great deal about the deceased. Uncle Ned walked the room & 89 Warren Dutton ( 1 7 7 4 - 1 8 5 7 ) , a lawyer and patron of the arts, served in the Massachusetts legislature between 1809 and 1 8 2 1 . 90 T h e Duchess of Sutherland ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 6 8 ) , whom Dana was to meet in England in 1 8 5 6 , was Elizabeth Georgiana, daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle. Her family purchased various paintings from Allston when he was in England.

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talked. He spoke of his goodness of heart & told anecdotes to show his liberality in unfolding to his brother artists those secrets of the art wh. his own ingenuity & labor had discovered. One of these I have given elsewhere. J U L Y 13. (THURSDAY). Called upon Mr. [Franklin] Dexter. He had a design for engraving all Allston's sketches & unfinished pictures in a volume, as outlines, to be called Allston's Compositions. I told him of our determination to consult him & Mr. Dutton about the picture. He seemed much gratified & agreed to meet us at the room at any time Mr. Dutton should say. I accordingly went in search of Mr. Dutton, & not being able to learn that he had been in town, took a horse & chaise & rode out to Brighton. When I reached his place, Mrs. D. told me that he had gone into town, for the first time for many weeks, & that I might hear from him at Mr. Gorham's91 or Mr. S. P. Gardiner's. After leaving a message with Mrs. D., I returned to the city, called at Mr. Gorham's, but Mr. D. had not been there. From Mr. Gorham's I went to Mr. Gardiner's. There Mr. D. was to dine at 2% P. M. It wanted a little of that, so I walked up the street. Going up the street I passed a tall, intellectual looking man, with such a face & manner as one does not see every day. I thought it might be he, but passed on. I next met Mr. Dexter, with his green bag under his arm, at the corner of Summer st. He proposed returning. I told [him] I had [seen] such & such a man. "Oh, that's he! Over hanging grey brows, & a stern expression,—Looks like a dragon. That's the man". We went back & found Mr. Dutton. After some conversation it was agreed to meet at the room at 4 P. M. of the next day. Both the gentlemen showed a great interest in the subject & a very ready zeal. J U L Y 14. FRIDAY. Went out to the Port. Spied uncle Edmund & Mr. [John] Greenough going towards the room. There we found Mr. Dutton, waiting. Mr. Dexter soon arrived, & we went in together. By the use of a sponge with tepid water, the picture had been brought out a great deal & looked like quite another thing. After nearly two hours spent in its examination, we made efforts with spirits of turpentine to remove the shroud from the king. The spirits had a little effect upon the extremes, but none in the center. It was then agreed among us all to make an attempt the next day with the proper materials & solvents, under the care of Mr. Greenough, Mr. Dexter being present. Mr. Dutton, speaking of one part of the picture, said "I have seen nothing in Titian equal to that, for color". And speaking of the group of females between Daniel & the soothsayers, he said "I have never seen a group equal to that, except that in Rubens' Descent from the Cross; and 91

Benjamin Gorham ( 1 7 7 5 - 1 8 5 5 ) , served in the U. S. House 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 2 3 , 1 8 2 7 - 1 8 3 1 , and 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 3 5 . He practiced law in Boston.

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this is better than Rubens' for drawing, & not inferior to it in color". All agreed that that group was a wonderful composition & wonderfully colored. They said that for color, it had not been surpassed by anything in the art. On going away Mr. Dexter said "I can say that my expectations have been fully equalled". "Mine have been more than equalled" said the enthousiastic Greenough. To this, D. answered "It would [be] difficult for me to say that anything could have surpassed my expectations of this work". Mr. Dexter having agreed to meet Mr. Greenough at the room the next morning at 12, we separated. JULY 15TH. Aunt Martha having expressed a desire that no person should go into the room without one of the family being present, Ned went out to meet Mr. Greenough & Mr. Dexter. Every one has something to ask about the "great picture". The public interest is very strong. One man said he had heard there was hardly a picture upon a canvas, at all. The Rev. Mr. Gannet said he had been told that Allston put the last finishing touch to the picture the very day he died. Called upon Daggett, the picture-frame maker, to know if he had seen the picture. He told me that about 15 years ago, when the picture was in Pearl st., he called & measured it for its frame. That then the principal figures were finished. I questioned as to the dress of each. He said the king seemed to be finished ir was dressed in a cloth of gold. This corresponded exactly with John Greenough's description. In the evening Ned came in & said they had [been] through many alternations of feelings, at the room. Greenough tried his solvent & it had some effect, but seemed to bring out the glasing of the form beneath the embrorio, & he was obliged to stop. Mr. Dexter, after considering it attentively for some time, sent for some spirits of wine & mixed them with turpentine & applied a little with his finger, carefully. This evidently produced some effect, but Mr. D. declined doing anything further & suggested that the proprietors of the picture should be got together, & their authority should be obtained before any further experiments should be tried with the picture. JULY 16. (SUNDAY.) S. & I went out to Cambridge to attend church with Aunt Martha at Mr. Albro's. In the morning the note was put up for "a sister of the church" for the "sudden death of her husband", in wh. the friends joined. All our family were present, sitting in the pews wh. they have occupied ever since the church was built, No. 20 in the broad aisle, & the continuation of it, in the side aisle.

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S. & I dined at Prof. Channing's, where was father. In the afternoon, Mr. Albro preached a funeral sermon; and an admirable one it was. In point of delicacy & good taste, feeling, earnestness, rhetorical merit, & philosophy I have seldom heard its equal. There were many passages of great beauty. Some that brot the tears into my eyes. The passage in which he showed how Mr. Allston's piety was an active piety, notwithstanding that he was not engaged in public religious measures, was quite philosophical, just & well adapted to his congregation. "When that right hand wh. had filled the world with its wonders, had lost its cunning", was one of his turns of expression. "Never shall I forget the energy & emotion with wh. he spoke to me, in my last visit to him, of his faith in the atonement of the Son of God". Speaking of his peaceful death, he said "On that night upon wh. he was, — may I say — translated, that he should not see death". — Beside our own family there were present Charles & F. Stedman,92 Mrs. Rogers, Cousin Sophia, Miss E. Peabody, Dr. [George] Parkman, & others. After church we spent an hour or so with Aunt Martha & rode into town. In the evening I went to Dr. Walter Channing's, at his request, that he might read to me a notice of Allston wh. he had written for the Christian World. He read it with great feeling & was several times unable to proceed from emotion. It melted me also to tears, twice; & it is very rarely that I am so affected. 93 I told him, & told him sincerely, that it was beautiful, touching, & calculated to make the public feel deeply & feel truly about Allston. I never knew the Doctor to appear so well as during this short visit. All the tenderness & beauty of his character, with a good deal of force & solemnity, seemed to have gushed out. Could he, or any of us, be in such a frame of mind but once in a year, it would make us better men & wiser. JULY 17. Letters have been written to Wm. A. Allston of S. Carolina, Mrs. Wigfall of do., the Flaggs of N. Haven, Mr. Cogdell 94 of Carolina, & others. 92 Charles

H.

Stedman,

one

of

the

Dana

earlier. Francis D. Stedman ( 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 9 0 )

family

physicians,

has

been

noted

was in the insurance business in Roxbury,

Massachusetts. 9 3 Dana

adds

in

a

note:

"Easily

so

by

anything

unreal — not

easily

by

men

before me." 9 4 These

friends and relatives knew Allston when he lived in South Carolina, where

he was b o m

and raised. T h e

Flaggs

are noted

elsewhere.

John

Stevens

( 1 7 7 8 - 1 8 4 7 ) , a resident of Charleston, was a sculptor, painter, and lawyer.

Cogdell

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Washington Allston s Death

183

Reed, the Ν. Y. papers containing the proceedings of the Ν. Y. Academy. Another interview with Dexter. He is oppressed by the unfinished state of the picture, & the confusion arising from the evident change of plan. Yet he says it is a great picture, that the figures have haunted him ever since, that he cannot get them from his mind, & that there is nothing in the art superior to some parts of this picture. Talked with him about the settlement of the estate. He proposes that administration should be taken out by some of the family & friends, the estate represented as insolvent, & then an arrangement made with the creditors by which the unfinished pictures & sketched can be preserved. [ J U L Y ] 1 9 T H . WEDNESDAY. Mr. Dutton came into town & called at my office with the deed of the picture, made nearly 20 years ago. We went to Mr. Dexter's & read it over. It seems to be a sale for a valuable consideration (one dollar) to Messers. Dutton, Patrick Jackson & Isaac P. Davis95 of the picture, or rather of so many feet of canvas painted upon & partly finished to represent Belshazzar's feast, — but in trust, for these purposes, vis: to deliver the same to Mr. Allston. He to proceed upon [the] work & use reasonable diligence & his skills &c. to finish the same. He to have exclusive possession until finished. The trustees to exercise no unnecessary acts of ownership, & not to interfere in any manner with the artist. Mr. Allston alone to be determiner when the picture was finished. When he shd. give notice to the trustees that it was finished, then the trustees to convey it [as] property to the subscribers.

Now, the conditions & objects of this trust can never be fulfilled nor accomplished. Who then owns the picture? Can the subscribers take the unfinished picture & exhibit it, when by the terms of the trust it is expressly provided that they shall do nothing with it & have no right to it until it is completed in the opinion of the artist? Is the property in the trustees, to the exclusion of the subscribers & the friends, when they have only an official & no pecuniary or equitable interest? What right has [the] administrator to the picture, the terms of the trust becoming impossible of performance, upon assuming or repaying the money advanced? We all agreed that administration must be taken out; & I promised to see the family about it. The gentlemen said that one of the family should be an administrator, & I added that, also, [as] there were delicate questions involved in which the family had an interest, there should 95

Isaac P. Davis ( 1 7 7 1 - 1 8 5 5 ) , a Boston manufacturer, served in the state legislature frequently between 1 8 0 8 and 1 8 4 1 .

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also be one administrator out of the family. I asked Mr. Dexter if he would act. He said he would readily do it, if he could be of any service. Talked with father. He says that there is no one of the family but myself, who can act. Aunt Martha would gladly escape it, if possible; he himself is unfit for any such business, & Uncle Ned is both unfit & averse. He approves highly of having Mr. Dexter. This afternoon, by agreement, Mr. Dexter & Mr. Dutton came out to see the sketches (wh. they had not seen before) & to look again at the picture, in order to form an opinion as to whether the paint can be removed fr. the king, & whether, if removed, the king will correspond with the rest of the picture as it now is. I met them at the room at 4, taking S. out with me in the omnibus, & little Sally & her woman having gone out in the morning to spend the day with aunt M. We spent some time in the room. Dexter sees great signs of changes in the light & point of sight which he fears will involve the perspective in confusion. He seems almost in despair. Dutton is more confident, & thinks that if the king can be brot out, the picture ought to be exhibited. They both feel most sensibly the power of the picture. Mr. Dutton [said] he had dreamed of it, & had it before [him] nearly all his waking hours. The differences between the sketches & the great picture are very evident, the great picture being painted last & constant departures made. All of the changes seem to me to be improvements. Uncle Edmund, father, Mr. Dutton & Mr. Dexter all say the same, Mr. Dexter only doubting [if] the unity is so well preserved, although he admits that the parts are all raised & improved. In the sketch the queen has but little of striking character, & her hand is held up open & a little forward, wh. is rather weak wonderment. In the picture she is full of character & energy, she is the Lady Macbeth, & has a Bonaparte countenance. Her left hand there grasps the hand of an attendant, & her right is pressed against the waist & partly concealed in the dress. The two dusky hand-maidens standing behind her, which give such paleness to her face, & which are themselves in such contrast to each other & so full of character, are wanting. The Daniel is much grander in the picture. The beautiful group of females, too, between Daniel & the soothsayers, is wanting in the sketch. If he had finished the soothsayers, they would have been superior in the picture. Now they are in a chaotic state. In the sketch, the table is above the platform upon [which] the principal figures stand. In the picture, the table is below the level of the platform. Speaking of Martin's picture, Mr. Dutton said it was merely architectural, the figures being not more than a finger's length, tumbling about

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like a parcel of tadpoles, & all affected in the same manner, yet that there was great grandeur in the effects of distance & vastness. Told Aunt Betsy of the plan as to the Administration. I asked her to take a favorable time to break it to Aunt M. Little S. went in in the omnibus with her woman. S. & I walked in at nine. Little S. went to see her great uncle Edmund. He treated her with great kindness & gave her a rose from his own garden. S. & I called upon him afterwards. I went first to announce her approach.96 He said he would be happy to see her if she would excuse his dress. He had a white summer jacket, no cravat, & no vest. He was very agreeable & looked in his best condition. S. was quite charmed with him. She said he was a mixture of my father, Mr. Allston & Mr. Charles Sedgwick, in his appearance. She was prepared to find an intellectual head & countenance, but there was more beauty than she supposed in his expression & features, & great variety. He certainly has a noble head. It is a better one than my father's, as a whole, although father's has more pathos & intensiveness in the countenance. (Little) S. wishes very much to see him again, & seems quite interested in him. J U L Y 22. SATURDAY. Having heard fr. the sexton that when the coffin of Mr. Allston was put in the tomb, one of the old ones was injured & like to fall to pieces, I immediately ordered a new coffin to be made to place the remains in & agreed with Frank to be at the tomb this afternoon at 4 o'clock. Also notified Prof. [Sidney] Willard that he might have the coffins of his sister Mrs. Theodora Dana & his son Augustus removed. Reached the tomb at four, & found that the Willard coffins had been removed. Learned also that the injured coffin was that of Mrs. Hastings, my gr. father's sister. Had her remains collected & placed in the new coffin. When entering the tomb, I found the coffins in the following order. On the left, the lower coffin was that of Mrs. Hastings, next above my mother's, & above her little Susan's. On the right was only my grandfather's. In front, the lower one was my grandmother's, above her's that of Mrs. Sophia W. Dana & above her's little Frank's. There were no coffins of Judge Trowbridge & his wife, who we knew were buried there, & my gr. father had a little son who died at the age of two, who should have been there. On removing Mrs. Hastings' coffin, we found the remains of an old coffin under it, concealed by the elevation of the brick work, & upon examining further we found stowed away in the ^ I t appears that Dana's uncle had reservations about Richard's marriage to Sarah, and had not thus far been willing to meet her. Probably he had felt that the Watson family constituted an unsuitable connection for the Danas.

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beds formed by the elevated brick work made to support the coffins, three complete skeletons of grown persons, & remnants of rotted coffins. As the tomb had a thoroughly built brick floor & had been built by Judge Trowbridge & by him left to my grandfather, I knew that those remains could be only of persons in the family. There could be no doubt that two of them were the remains of Judge Trowbridge & his wife, for no other grown persons had been buried in the family whose coffins were not preserved & identified. The third gave us some trouble to account for. It might be my gr. grandfather Richard Dana, who was the Judge's brother in law, only that he died in Boston & twenty years before the tomb was built. Or it might be his wife, Lydia Trowbridge, 97 or some distant relative or friend. Under gr. father's coffin we found remains of a coffin, but no bones, & we afterwards learned that the sexton said he had placed the bones together as fast as the coffins crumbled, receiving no orders from the family as to their disposal. We then attempted to remove gr. mother's coffin but found it too much decayed. But in moving it a little, we found by the side of it, & a little behind, the remains of a coffin of a child of about two years old. This was, no doubt, her eldest child, who died in infancy, being the only one of the family who had so died, except little Susan. I then ordered two coffins to be made, one to contain the collected remains of Judge Trowbridge & his wife, & the other for my gr. mother (whose was decaying) & her infant son. Appointed Sat. next to meet the undertaker & sexton again. [ J U L Y ] 24TH. An article appeared in the Atlas of last Wed. headed "Anecdotes of Allston", containing two anecdotes. The first of these stated that Allston had been rather skeptical on religious matters, negligent of his religious duties & would [make] a joke at the expense of divine things. That in this state he was, while in London with his wife, reduced to extreme want, so great that in despair, he shut himself up in his painting room & prayed to God for a loaf of bread. That while on his knees, he heard a knock. He went to the door, a gentleman entered, who turned out to be the Marquis of Stafford,98 & who bought immediately from him his picture of "Uriel, standing in the sun", which he had come to procure at any price. This event, it was said, so wrought upon Mr. A. as to make him a devout man. There was also another anecdote in wh. the editor, for political effect, had magnified Mr. A.'s dislike of Gen. [Andrew] Jackson's character, & made him write rather a discourteous 97 A t a later time Dana's daughter Elizabeth Ellery added this note: "It was Lydia (Trowbridge) Dana, buried at Boston but 'removed to Cambridge into the Family Tomb'. See family Bible in writing of her son Francis Dana." 98

Granville Leveson-Gower ( 1 7 2 1 - 1 8 0 3 ) , ist Marquis of Stafford.

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answer to Gen. James Hamilton Jr. 9s of Carolina, who invited him to paint the battle of N. Orleans. The day before this article appeared, Brewer, one of the editors, was in our office & had some conversation as to Allston. Among other things he asked our opinion of the truth of the first anecdote, which however he told in a much more mitigated form than it afterwards appeared in the paper. We both said it could not be true. That we had never heard anything of the kind, & yet that we & those whom we knew & with whom we often talked about Allston, had heard him tell, at different times, the chief anecdotes of his life. We knew also, that the Uriel had not been sold under such circumstances.1 Mr. Brewer said that he heard the story fr. a person who heard it fr. Dr. Reynolds, who was for several years, Mr. A.'s physician & friend. We admitted that if Dr. R. should say he had it from Mr. A.'s own lips, we should hardly know how to disbelieve it, yet it was improbable & unlike the man. Brewer then, after some conversation upon general matters, said he should put into his paper some notice of Allston, but, that, as he knew nothing of him himself, he should make up his article from other papers. We then recommended to him an " J a m e s Hamilton, Jr. ( 1 7 8 6 - 1 8 5 7 ) fought in the War of 1 8 1 2 and was governor of South Carolina, 1830-1832. 1 This note, in what appears to be Dana's hand, is added: "It was hung in the British Institute, received first prize & later was bought by the Marquis. See Life of Allston." If Dana did write the note, then the " L i f e " he alluded to was one in manuscript being written by his father. The older man never finished the work, and his notes and manuscripts were passed on to Jared B. Flagg, who published The Life and Letters of Washington Allston (New York: Scribner's, 1892). In this edition the facts about the "Uriel" purchase are discussed on pp. 72-73. The biography was published ten years after the younger Dana's death, and the possibility exists that some other member of his family — perhaps his sister Ruth Charlotte, to whom the book is in part dedicated — made the manuscript note. Dana, in the belief that his father was on the verge of finishing the full biography, edited in 1850 a volume of Allston lectures: Lectures on Art, and Poems, by Washington Allston (New York: Baker and Scribner, 1850). In 1852 Henry Ware published his own Lectures on the Works and Genius of Washington Allston in Boston; and in 1877 Moses F. Sweetser anonymously published his biography, Allston, in Boston, as part of Volume V of Ticknor and Co.'s series, Artist-Biographies. None of these publications, however, mentions the "Uriel" incident. The best life is Edgar Preston Richardson, Washington Allston, A Study of the Romantic Artist in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948). Richardson ignores the "Uriel" incident, but he relies very heavily, as did Flagg before him, on the present Journal for biographical data. Richardson's book contains a catalog of Allston's works, listing the current location, and various descriptive details, of all of the works mentioned in this Journal. Most of the works still in Allston's possession at the time of his death remained in the hands of the Dana family and were later distributed to various galleries.

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article fr. the Tribune, wh. we thought the best to extract from; & he left us. The next morning, much to our surprise, we saw in the paper these two anecdotes alone, without anything else, in editorial type, & given on the authority of "an intimate friend". The next day the Post said they were authorized to contradict the stories. (The authority did not come from our family). The Atlas of Friday re-iterated the anecdotes saying that they had them from the "intimate friend, & from connexions of the deceased". In the meantime my father had written to me to have this "vulgar & erroneous" article contradicted. Miss Peabody called & narrated the whole story of the painting, exhibition & sale of the Uriel, as she had it [from] Mr. Allston himself, & in wh. account the very opposite of all stated in the Atlas clearly appears. Several other persons volunteered their testimony ag. the story, wh. seemed to shock all alike. Dr. Codman 2 who roomed in the same house with him while at college for two years, Dr. [George] Hayward, & my uncle Edmund who knew him from a boy of ten & was in London with him at the time in wh. this event is laid, say there never was a time when he could enjoy a jest upon religious subjects, but that he was always remarkable for his veneration for divine things, the sacredness with wh. he regarded religious matters, as well as for his own purity & virtues. I then wrote a letter to Brewer (of wh. I preserved a copy in my office letter book) stating the substance of what I have given above, enclosing a short article from Ned, wh. B. published in the Atlas of the 22nd, Saturday. This morning I reed, a letter fr. B. stating that he had the anecdote from Dr. Reynolds, but apparently not directly from him, & expressing his regret that the article should have displeased any one, & offering his columns for a counter statement, &c. Dr. Walter Channing has written a beautiful & touching notice of Allston in the Christian World of the 22nd, republished in the Daily Advertiser of to day. Sent copies to nearly 30 persons, in various parts. Mr. Dexter consents to aot with me as an administrator upon the estate of Mr. Allston. 25TH. TUESDAY. Mr. Dexter shows a letter fr. S. F. B. Morse3 in wh. he consents to come & see the picture, at the request of Mr. D. & ourselves, & that he shall be here Wed. or Thursd. JULY

2 John Codman ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 4 7 ) , a Doctor of Divinity from Harvard, was for most of his life pastor of the Second Church at Dorchester, Massachusetts. 3 Samuel Finley Breese Morse ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 7 2 ) had studied painting under Allston in 1 8 1 1 at the Royal Academy, London. He had begun a distinguished career as a

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Father determines to put off his visit to Rockport in order to see Mr. M., Charlotte, Julia & Ned to go in the steamer tomorrow. [ J U L Y ] 26TH. A little after 9 this A. M. Mr. Dexter calls at my office with Mr. Morse. Write at once to father to meet us at the hourly office at 10%. All punctual at the hour & ride out together. Mr. Morse saw aunt Martha for a while. We then all went into the room together. Uncle Ned & Mr. John Greenough soon joined us. Morse says it is a grand work. It grows upon him. There is no dazzling display of architectural vastness, but it is in the old style, as Ned said in his letter to the Tribune, consequently the first impression is a disappointing one to many minds. Morse & Dexter & Uncle E. discussed the perspective very fully. There has been a change in the point of sight & a partial change of design, the alterations necessarily consequent upon wh. have not been fully carried out. Therefore there is an apparent confusion & evident want of completeness. Morse says that every line & every chalk mark must be preserved, in order to show the intentions of Allston. Morse exhibits great feeling for Allston. He sought out the brushes with wh. he last painted, & selected one of them & said he must have it. We consented, of course. He had cleaned his palette Saturday night, placed the colors wh. he took from it upon a plate, put the plate in water, & then placed the brushes with wh. he had been painting also in water. There were 14 brushes, all of wh. he had probably used on the picture, the last day of his life. Of these Morse took one. We left the others in water. There were also two plates of paints, in water. As to the king, Morse says that he saw the picture about two years ago, & that then the king's head was finished & open. That the figuj^ was painted over. Both he & Mr. D. say that the king must have been painted over, not from dissatisfaction with the conception, but in order to enlarge the figure, to do wh. had become necessary from altering the point of sight. He had begun to raise the Chaldeans in the extreme right & would then have raised the king in the left. The right hand of the king, lately painted but unfinished, is for the larger figure. It would not probably correspond with the figure under the embrorio. (?) The queen's figure, about the waist, is not finished. Daniel's shoulder is incomplete. The Chaldeans are quite chaotic, & the style of the capitals of the front columns had been changed from the sketch & from that of back columns, in the rear of the hall. Morse agrees that he last painted on the head of that soothsayer who has his front face toward the spectator. painter long before 1 8 3 7 , when he patented his invention of the telegraph and the "Morse Code." The telegraph was put into operation in the United States in 1844.

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Mr. Morse says that the chalk sketches wh. are upon canvas must be framed & set in glass & kept just as they are. On many accounts they will be more valuable & interesting than finished paintings. Upon being shown a beautiful female head, Morse said "Ah, he had the true sentiment of delicacy toward the female character. He had as thorough a delicacy as would be necessary to constitute] the most delicate of all female characters". We found an original among his pictures. Mr. Morse said he knew he had one, & the gentlemen all recognized it at once. Mr. Morse is to go out again tomorrow, & Mr. Dutton is to meet him there, if possible. Ned, Charlotte & Julia [Metcalf] left in the steamer for Rockport at 5 P. M. S. is too unwell to go to Hartford tomorrow, so we put it off until Friday. Interesting letters from Miss Peabody & from Prof. [Henry Hope] Reed of Philadelphia with reference to Allston. The last paragraph in Miss Peabody's is very happy & very true of Allston's religious character. (I refer to her letter to the Atlas, sent to me, as she did not intend printing it). Reed's is a beautiful letter. Parts of it were philosophical & well expressed in an unusual degree. JULY 27. Mr. Morse & Mr. Dexter dined with us to-day. Father was present. A very pleasant time. Father & Mr. Morse had a singular comparison of views. Morse is a thorough democrat & a congregationalist, while father told him that he was a Monarchist & a high churchman. They had some humorous & some serious conversation on these points. Mr. D. rather joined with father, especially in his political opinions. Dexter told a story of a man who went to see Von Amburgh4 every night he played, in London, & on being asked why he went so constantly, replied — "Why, that fellow will have his head bitten off some of these nights, & it will be my d—d luck not to be there". Morse spoke of Allston's religious effect upon all who came near him, 6 father told a story of some one speaking to Allston of a young man who was a friend of theirs & expressing a regret that he swore so much. At this Mr. A. expressed great surprise & said, "Why, I can't believe it. I never heard him swear in my life". This was told to the young man who replied, "True enough, whoever did swear before him?". Mr. Dutton, Morse & Dexter agree that the picture shd. remain as it is until administration has been taken out, & that then, if it remains in the estate, an attempt shd. be made to remove the embrorio from the king, 4Von

Amburgh was an entertainer at a London exhibition whose act consisted of putting his head into a lion's mouth.

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& the hand of Daniel be covered with the drapery, as he did not intend to have it remain as it now is, & the figures of the magi be put in order, but that all the additions shd. be done in tempore (I believe it is called) wh. can be removed at any time. At parting from Morse, he said that he had been engaging in his electro-magnetic experiments in order to make for himself a competency, that then he might paint with a feeling of independence, & that his chief motive was to do something wh. shd. please Allston. This had been a powerful motive, almost a ruling motive. As soon as he heard of the death, he felt that he had lost a great motive for pursuing his beloved art. 28. Set off this morning at 7 o'clock in the Western cars, for Hartford & Wethersfield, with S., little Sally & Rachel,® to leave them there for a month's visit, & to spend a few days with them myself. Took little S. into father's room just before the coach left. He was in bed, but awake, & said, "She is a blessed little thing". At the cars met Miss Cath. Day of Hartford, whom we were to take under our charge. Was introduced to Lieut. Hitchcock6 of the navy & his lady, who were going to H—d. H. is a tall, strongly built, hearty man, with an open, pleasant countenance, & a quick observer of men & things. He complains of the inefficiency of our Naval system & of the subserviency of the heads of the department to all expressions of what is called the popular voice. At Springfield, went to Warrener's to dine. There found Mr. Ticknor & his wife & daughter, & Mr. Wm. Gardiner. Mr. T. took me [one] side & asked with great interest after the picture & Mr. Allston's matters. He had been absent ever since the death. He had known, as a secret, from Allston, two years ago, that the king had been painted over, & he said Mr. A. said to him within a year (I think it was) that he had at last fixed upon his final design with wh. he was satisfied, & that he should never change it. Mr. T. asked him if he might not alter his plan in some parts wh. would make labor for him; to wh. Mr. A. replied that it was impossible. Told Mr. T. that I shd. call upon him in Boston as soon as I returned. Met at the same place Miss Lucy Bagley of N. Buryport with a party of Bannisters. Took the boat at 1%, for Hartford. It was crowded with baggage & passengers, — quite weighed down. On board Sarah found an acquaintance, Mrs. John Russ, a widow, with two little children, lately of Hartford JULY

5

Rachel had replaced Olive as the Dana family maid. Catherine Augusta Day, born 1 8 1 6 , was the daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Coit) Day of Hartford. In 1850 she married Samuel I. Andrews of East Windsor, Connecticut. The officer may have been Robert B. Hitchcock, born in Hartford in 1803, who became a captain in 1 8 6 1 , retired from the Navy in 1865. e

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& now of N. York. She was Miss Harriett Burnham of N. York. I had heard a great deal of her from S., & Frank Jackson who met her on a journey fell quite in love with her & had been always sounding her praises. And indeed she is an unusually pleasing person. With a tall & handsome figure, beautiful complexion, handsome hair & eyes, & a dignified carriage, she has also great sweetness & naturalness, a ready wit, kind feelings & a great deal of sound religious principle. She is one of the few young ladies I have seen with whom I feel at ease, but who at the same time commands my entire respect, as well as calls out agreeable feelings of admiration. When we reached Hd. we found that the Wd. coach had left, so we took a private conveyance & went over, — S. little S., Rachel & myself. The good people had seen the coach go by & had given us up; so that when we did come it had the advantage of a surprise. They all ran out, & before S. reached the door she had been greeted by the whole company. The three ladies, Mr. Watson, Mary [Watson], Mr. & Mrs. [Ο. E.] Daggett, & Fanny Henry. Their raptures over little S. were unceasing. The place looks like a little paradise of contentment & virtue, & is, as far as any earthly abode can be. Sue [Daggett] is a fine child, with curling golden hair, hazel eyes, a fair skin & a good figure. But they all say that Sally has a gentle & sentimental way with her, & has such a thoughtful look out of her large gray eye. Sue is fine looking, but is not an interesting child to me, for she seems matter-of-fact & is rather noisy. I fear she is under no discipline. All seemed to be well & cheerful. Little S. went directly to Mary & knew her at once, & even Rachel could not get her away. This was a great event & pleased Mary as much as a legacy. This day was so hot that we did not walk out at all. I read indescriminately, among other things some interesting & curious notes to Southey's Don Roderic.7 In the evening we took tea in the yard & Gov. Ellsworth8 & his daughter, Mrs. [Abner] Jackson, called upon us. Prof. Jackson has just sailed for Europe. JULY 29TH. SAT.

JULY 30TH. SUNDAY. Rained all day, but we went to Church. In the morning we had a good argument upon the obligation to keep the Sabbath. The preacher maintained, & successfully I thought, that the 7 Robert

Southey (1774-1843) first published Roderick, the Last of the Goths in London in 1814. Between that time and 1843, at least seven editions were published. «William Wolcott Ellsworth (1791-1868), whose wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been noted earlier, was governor of Connecticut, 1838-1842. He was a justice of the state Supreme Court, 1847-1861.

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Sabbath was not a Jewish institution, but was established by God when he first made man & had been observed by all those who kept any knowledge of him. Moses merely declared it, using the words "Remember the sabbath day"9 (as though they already knew what the sabbath was, & which day it was) because, God had blessed & hallowed it. The mode of keeping it was more or less a positive & temporary institution of the Jews, & so far was done away with by the Christian dispensation. [ J U L Y ] 31. MONDAY. S. & I read together in the morning & took a long walk, going past the old Chester place which is now spoiled & in new hands. We enjoyed highly being together in the country. In the afternoon went to Hd. to make calls. Left S. & El. & made mine alone. Called upon Dr. [Joel] Hawes, Judge [T. S.] Williams, Miss Cath. Day, Gov. Ellsworth, Mr. John Webb & his sisters, Mr. & Mrs. Sam. Tudor, & Mr. [Daniel] Wadsworth. Found them all in except Judge Williams. At Mr. Wadsworth's, saw the Rev. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, son of the late patroon, & his lady, who was a Hartford lady, Miss Cath. Cogswell.10 She was celebrated for her beauty as well as for her excellent qualities & her religious character. Although much older, she had been a friend of Sarah's. There is something very pleasing about her. She is quite as beautiful as Mrs. John Russ & with rather more of a relaxed manner & something denoting superiority. Mr. V. R. is a well bred, unassuming, simple man, with excellent qualities of heart, & a person whom one feels at first sight disposed to love & respect. Poor Mr. Wadsworth is much broken & very feeble. There is something very interesting in this man. He has high principle, uncompromising rectitude, an excellent heart, & great cultivation & taste in beautiful & agreeable things. Took up S. & E. at Mrs. Tudor's & returned to Wd. to tea. In the evening called at Mrs. Stephen Chester's where we saw her, Mrs. Mitchell, Misses Hannah & Betsey Chester, Mrs. Lewis Strong11 of Northamptom & Mrs. Baldwin. Mrs. Caleb Strong was then very ill, hardly expected to live. Saw a capital portrait painted by Finley Morse.12 It is of the late Judge Mitchell. »Exodus 20:8. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 6 0 ) , son of Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer and heir to a very large fortune, was a Presbyterian minister who was secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Education, 1 8 4 6 - 1 8 6 0 . He married Catharine Ledyord Cogswell in 1836. They had seven children. ilLewis Strong ( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 6 3 ) lived in Northhampton, Massachusetts, and served in the state senate, 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 2 3 a n d in 1828. 12 Dana's reference is to Samuel F. B. Morse. 10

Beginnings ÄUG. ι. Was to have left this morning, but by great persuasions & a still greater inclination, I was induced to stay one day longer. I read parts of Pusey's sermon13 & the Church Communion service with passages fr. the Scripture upon that subject, to S. Took a long walk with S. to the meadows & sat down for an hour on the same stone where we sat three years before while we were only engaged. S. talked upon serious matters & we agreed that we had been too negligent of them lately. Spoke of more attentive reading of the scriptures, & of self examination daily. Determined that we would aid one another in aiming at a better life. Returned to dine. In the afternoon walked out upon the hill. S. & I sat there together by ourselves, & she slept with her head resting in my lap. W e were to part in a few hours, δι our time was passed in precious & delightful intercourse. How vulgar & false is the notion that love, — romantic & sentimental love ceases with marriage! People who are capable of real sentiment may be always lovers. They may be wedded lovers for life. I have felt for S. often all the tenderness, the distant & worshipping deference, & the sentiment & the romantic devotion which first love feels for an object seen but hardly known. This is the greatest happiness in life, — such feelings with actual possession. Two sons of Dr. Woodward called. One had been my pupil when I was tutor of elocution. 14 In the evening had a delightful conversation with all the family upon a variety of subjects. AUG. 2. WED. This day completed my 28th year; but I mentioned to no one, except S., for birth days are not pleasant occasions for hilarity with me, & friends always feel bound to make them so. Left early for Hd. on my way to Boston. My wife & child, the dearest things I have, being left behind. Mr. Daggett took me over with E l i z a b e t h ] , in the carryall. The sail up the river in the boat was most delightful. The site of Hd. as viewed fr. the river above is quite picturesque, & its tall spires & many public buildings give it a very city like appearance. It has become a dear place to me. S. fills it, to my mind. Everything about it is significant of her. Here she first saw the light, here she has experienced all the great emotions of her life, here we first united our love & hopes & here we 13 Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) was a leader of the Oxford Movement. His sermon The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to the Penitent . . ., preached at Christ Church, Oxford, on the Fourth Sunday after Easter, was published as a pamphlet in 1843. 14 Samuel Bayard Woodward (1787-1850), who founded the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane in 1824 and who pioneered in the treatment of mental disease, had two sons at Harvard when Dana tutored there, Rufus and William, both of whom were in the Class of 1841.

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were united in marriage. I bid it adieu with the same feeling with wh. one sees the last glow of evening vanish. On my way I thought seriously & feelingly of dear S. In the cars I had no acquaintance, but just before I reached Boston, I accidentally made acquaintance with a Boston merchant, Mr. N. P. Russell. 15 We talked business, wh. was his only topic. He told me how he made his money fr. nothing, & how he bot a house for $21,000 from the compound int. added to a sum of $1500 wh. he laid aside at 21. He touched upon politics, & spoke favorably of the British Constitution, wh. I was surprised at in a self made American merchant. At the cars found Ned, — as dear & faithful as he to me — waiting for me. He took tea with me & left me at 9, to my solitariness, he going to pass his nights at Aunt Martha's. Fox & his wife 1 6 are living in the kitchen part & take care of me & give me breakfast & tea. I dine down in town. Father & Charlotte are at Rockport. Aunts are with Aunt Martha at Cambridge. Read & meditated at night & made efforts to live a more religious life. My loneliness always helps me in this. I feel then more serious & more full-hearted, as S. says. [ A U G . ] 4TH. This morning, before breakfast, wrote to S. I could write in deep feeling & in such a state as I knew she loves. The letter will reach her Sat. night. [ A U G . ] 6TH. SUNDAY. At church in the morning heard a good sermon from the subject of the journey to Emmaus. 17 The preacher described well the state of the apostles after the crucifixion & before the resurrection. "I go a fishing" said Peter, giving up all hope & going back to his secular employment.18 "We thought it had been he who shd. have redeemed Israel", &c.19 He also impressed upon me in a way I never felt before the fact that Jesus made himself known to these two disciples by no word or miracle, but simply by performing the rite of the communion, just as he had instituted it. He took bread & blessed & broke & gave it to them; & immediately their eyes were opened & they knew him. When I returned I read the last half of Luke; & the whole story, from the last supper to the ascension, so simple so tremendous in its bearings 15

Nathaniel Pope Russell ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 4 8 ) , merchant and insurance agent, served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 2 2 , and in the state senate, 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 2 7 . 16 M r . and Mrs. Fox were caretakers of the house. 17 18 19

Luke 24: 13. J o h n 2 1 : 3.

L u k e 2 4 : 2 1 . " B u t w e trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel."

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& so touching, affected me more than that narrative ever did before. May its effect be lasting! In the evening walked out & took tea at Aunt Martha's. Three aunts & Ned are there. Aunt M. is well & quiet & composed, but rather sad & her heart seems full. She makes me feel great respect for her mingled with much tenderness. Wrote again to S., for Mrs. Fox to take in the morning. [AUG.] /ΓΗ. Sent letter & packet to Hd. by Mrs. Fox. I am now alone, & take all my meals down in town. Yet I like my way of life. My meals are slight & simple, my time is all my own, & I am in the humor for work. It is economising, also.

AUG. 9TH. WED. Wrote to father a full letter. Also wrote to J. Q. Adams with reference to facts for a memoir of Gr. father, to be put into Sparks' American biography.20 [AUG.] IOTH.

Began a suit ag. Geo. Roberts in Eg. in behalf of a

London house. A dear letter fr. S. — answered it this evening. My mode of life has been for a week, as follows. Rise at six, take a swim in the back bay, at Bramin's, read & write until Yi past 8. Breakfast down in town for 12% cents on whortleberries & milk & bread & butter, at office at nine, dine at 2 for .25 cents, & tea at 7 for 12% cents. Yet my meals are as good as I need. [AUG.] 14TH. MONDAY. Called upon Judge Story to get an order for an injunction. Had a very pleasant half hour's conversation with him. From his house went to Prof. [Ε. T.] Channing's & dined. My object in going was to hear them talk about Wethersfield & S., for they had passed a day in Hd. & Wd. in the course of their journey. They did not disappoint me. They said S. looked beautifully, in better health than they had ever seen her, & had a color, & seemed very bright & happy. Mrs. C., too, was charmed with little S. She said she looked so gentle & feeling, & her blue eye was so full of thoughtfulness. Her delicate & graceful ways, too, charmed them. Mrs. C. said she looked, "high born". Their praise of Sarah delighted me, & after Mr. C. left the room, Mrs. C. told me how much she had always been pleased with S.'s voice, its richness, its variety of intonation, & the feelingness of it. Also her manners, the grace she showed in little things, her taste in dress, her motions &c. She told me, too, that Mrs. Sedgwick was struck with the same things. How much all this delighted me! It was music to my ear & my soul. I meditated upon it for hours. They both were also much pleased with Hartford. They preferred it much above N. Haven. It has more variety of surface, a more 20

The memoir never appeared in the series.

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picturesque situation, better public buildings, & more substantial & mansion-house-looking private dwellings. On returning to Boston I found myself so much worn out by the heat, wh. was excessive, that I determined on the spur of the moment, to go at once to the Isle of Shoals & give myself a week of complete relaxation. AUGUST 1 5 T H . TUESDAY. Woke up & found it raining. Gave up my plan of going to the Isle of Shoals. Went down in town to breakfast & found it clearing off. By ten, it was a sultry, close day. Determined again to go. Sent for my clothes, hurried thro' my business, left directions to Ned & Peck, rushed home, threw a few things into my trunk & valise & hurried off. Just reached the steamer at 1 1 . It was the Telegraph, bound to Portsmouth. The run down in her was very pleasant & the sea air, as usual, set me up at once. I walked the deck, to & fro, nearly the whole passage, & felt the freedom of having no labor to perform, & only to follow the will & thought or dream of the moment. As we neared Cape Ann our tiller rope parted & in shipping the tiller aft, I rendered some service by reeving a tackle for the tiller, wh. introduced me to the pilot, & obtained for me an invitation to the wheel house, where I spent an hour or so learning the points of land, their bearings, distances &c. We took off passengers at Rockport & went quite near to Pigeon Cove. This put it into my head to stop at the cove on my way back.

Passed the Isle of Shoals, so called, although they are a group of seven high, rocky islands. The light house & the meeting house were distinctly visible. Reached Portsmouth at 5 P. M., after a very pleasant run. I noted the landmarks carefully, as we went up the harbor, the Whales Back where the outer light stands, the inner light at Fort Constitution, the Navy Yard, &c. The harbor is a very good one on many accounts, being very deep, easily defended, & free from ice in the winter. On the other hand, it is narrow & has a very strong tide, running sometimes 6 & 7 knots. Put up at the Rockingham House. Found there my classmate Ch. W. Palfray, editor of a paper in Salem. Walked about the town with him. I was very much pleased with the situation & construction of this town. It has a slope from a slight hill, with great varieties of surface, the streets being straight, regular & wide & planted with trees, & the houses having a substantial appearance, as if made to last. Returned to the Hotel & sat up until one o'clock writing & copying my letter for the Courier in reply to Mr. Sturgis upon the Mackensie business.21 21 William Sturgis, noted earlier, published three long letters attacking Mackenzie's position, in the Boston Courier, August 4, 5, and September 13, 1843. Dana's reply to the first two appeared in the Courier on August 18, 1843. An exceipt from his letter is reprinted in Hayford, Somers, p. 180.

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AUG. I6TH. Rose between 5 & 6 & began a letter to Sarah. Wrote a long, full & affectionate letter, wh. gave me some satisfaction. She deserves all I can say to her & feel for her, — the precious child! Told her that the next tide would take me to the Isle of Shoals. I know how anxious she will be until I return. Sent the letter to the office & a packet by Express to Ned. Engaged a boat to take me to "the Shoals", to start at ten. Left my trunk with all my better clothing, & my hat & umbrella in charge of the bar keeper, & putting on my Halifax jacket, blue sailor's trowsers, a black glased cap, & stowing a few changes of linen & stockings into my valise, took my departure. The boatman's name was Jackson, & his boat's the Temperance. On our way down he pointed out the chief landmarks, & gave me much interesting information. After passing the Whale's Back & steering for the Shoals, wh. were barely in sight, I took the helm & he went to sleep in the bottom of the boat. As I neared the Easternmost island, Duck Island, a large wood sloop tried to go to Windward of me. Being on the starboard tack & she on the larboard, I kept on & passed across her hawse. We came so near, however, that the noise of the water under the sloop's bows woke up Jackson, who started to see a heavy sloop so near upon him. After looking about a few minutes he took another nap, & I waked him as we came round Duck Island. I kept the helm & steered by his directions through the channel between Hog & Smutty Nose islands & into the cove of Star Island, where he was to leave me. The prospect was not very encouraging as we walked up to the house where I was to put up. The whole island was less than a mile square, girt with rocks, with very little vegetation, & with about 20 unpainted, weather stained houses scattered about near the landing place, without any marks for streets or fences. The whole island had a strong fishy smell & in going ashore we had to walk over a surface of fishes' head & bones, wh. the fishermen leave on the beach, just where they throw them, in cleaning. Jackson took me to the house of Joseph Caswell, the best on the island, & the only one where any company is received. Caswell is a pilot as well as a fisherman, & seems to be a leading man on the island. Jackson soon left me & returned to town. As he went I told him I shd. be going up Monday or Tuesday. "Oh," said he, "you won't stay here more than a day or two". He did not know the motive wh. brought me.

After a walk round the island I returned to supper at six. They had on the table apple pie, fried fish, cake, hot bread &c. My exercise & the clean sea air gave me a glorious appetite, & I ate a large meal, as much as would last me for a whole day in Boston. After tea another walk upon the rocks. I staid out until between 8 & 9 listening to the roar of breakers upon the rocks, watching the beautiful

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revolving lights of the light house on the neighboring island, & thinking not a little how much I could enjoy it with S. by my side. Found on the rocks, in an exposed & desolate situation, the most delicate, tender, little flower in nature, with the most exquisite tinges of purple on its leaves. I took it up, & for the first time in my life made the flower completely a person. The impersonation was so entire that I unconsciously talked to it as to a hearing & feeling thing. How perfect, I felt, is the system of the universe. Here was a thing perfect in beauty, solitary, & but for this accident, to die unnoticed. What is its end? What are the objects of such things? Do they not answer their end in the universe, if they do no more than give to man the idea of the boundless beauty of God's world? [Is it] not worth many flowers to have given expression to Gray's beautiful thought, & raised all the emotions wh. have been excited for generations by these lines?22 I said to it, — "Poor thing! You have answered your end in the Providence of God. You have lived your few days in matchless beauty, in a purity wh. man cannot reach to, & now you will die without sin or offense to a human being. You have done no wrong, caused no pain, but given to one being a thrill of exquisite pleasure!" I could not forbear kissing the delicate little thing with a feeling of gratitude, pity & protecting care. What a world is this! What beasts, what sinners, what insensible creatures fill this earth! What is to be the end, the explanation of this mystery? May my heart be kept open to all that is simple & pure in nature! I need such helps, or my state will be fearfully hard & cold. AUG. 1 7 T H . THURSDAY. Rose early & at six walked round the island. Breakfasted with great relish & appetite at seven. Ate hot bread, fish, pie & everything, with coffee. Such a breakfast would have made me hot & uncomfortable all day at home. When free from care, in exercise in an open bracing air, nothing is injurious. After breakfast went fishing in a whale boat, with two boys. I managed the boat, & the boys showed me places. Caught a few mackerel & hadduck. Returned to dinner at 12. After dinner sailed out again in a small boat with one sail & beat over to the light house against wind, tide & a heavy head sea. This light house has a romantic situation. It is built upon a small island not more than a stone's throw across, & which is nothing but a huge rock with a small green patch in its centre. On the highest point of this rock, between forty & fifty feet above the level of sea is built the light house wh. itself rises forty feet higher. In the midst of the green patch, at an equal height from the sea, stands the cottage of the keeper, a small, one story, white washed stone cottage. Between the 22

Thomas Gray ( 1 7 1 6 - 1 7 7 1 ) , " E l e g y in a Country Churchyard": "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

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cottage & the light house is a deep ravine through wh. the sea breaks at high tide. To cross this there is a covered gallery built, made of strong timbers bolted into the rock. A gallery built in the same place was carried away in the Sept. gale of 1841. The keeper had just left it & got into his light house when it was swept away in the twinkling of an eye, & the return sea brought back a mere wreck of broken timbers. So high was the sea that it tore the shingles from the deck of the light house just under the lantern, at a height of 70 or 75 feet above the level of the sea. The keeper, whose name is Cheever, showed me all about the place with great civility, & took me up into the lantern. This is kept in the neatest possible manner. He has fitted straight curtains wh. he keeps down by day & raises by one cord, at night. His oil, scissors, burners, reflectors & all are in the nicest order. There are three sides which show themselves successively as they revolve, one of which has chimnies to the burners stained of a deep purple color, wh. throws a beautiful light by night, of this beautiful deep purple tint. Returned to Star island to supper. Afterwards walked again upon the rocks, which are very grand, ragged & broken. Some large crevices & ravines seem to have been formed either by the wasting of many centuries, or by some great convulsion of nature. They are the grandest rocks I ever saw, as I now remember. None wh. I have seen, can equal them, unless it be those of Nahant, & a part of the shore of San Juan Campestrano in California. AUG. 18. FRIDAY. After breakfast took a boat & went fishing. After fishing for some time, landed on Hog island. This is the largest island of the group, being, I should judge, about 1V2 miles in length & averaging a mile in breadth. It is, like all the others, a mere bed of rocks, with a few patchs of vegetation. This island, together with Smutty Nose, the next largest, have been bought, during the last year, by two traders fr. Portsmouth by the name of Laighton. They were noted rum sellers & loco focoes, & the people on the islands are afraid that they will revive intemperance, wh. has been quite driven out from among the people by means of religious efforts & the total abstinence pledge. They are coarse & vulgar looking men, & one of them is exceedingly blasphemous. They seem inclined to get the whole group in their possession if they can. On this island I found an abundance of berries & there are a few fertile spots. It is rock bound like all the others, & there are some grand caverns & ragged blocks of granite. Being so high above the level of the sea, so remote from the main, & so entirely without trees or anything to obstruct the view of the surrounding ocean on all sides, you are more impressed with the fact that you are upon an island in the midst of the great waters than in any other islands I was ever upon.

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Returned to Star Island to dine. After dinner Cheever, the light house man, came over in his boat to take me to sail, with an invitation to me to spend the night at his house. For the sake of the change, & for the novelty of spending a night in such a place, as well as because Cheever seemed to be a clever fellow & desirous of my company, I accepted the invitation, although I had made arrangements to go off after hake with Shoalsmen, who go every night. Cheever's boat is a new one, just built, belonging to the government, & a very neat boat & a fast sailer. He takes great delight in her & spends hours every day in sailing about among the islands. I got into the boat, he gave me up the helm being a stranger, the breese was brisk, the afternoon clear & pleasant, & putting her thro' Hog Island passage & sticking her right off to seaward, with the foam flying from her bows, a bright gurgling wake behind, & the cool sea breese about us, we had a glorious sail. Having sailed several miles due East, we wore round & stood again for the islands. Passing thro' the passage between Hog & Smutty Nose, we landed upon the latter, wh. I had never visited. A small pier or break water makes a snug harbor for boats, much better than either of the other islands has. This however is in rather a ruinous condition, & only two houses on the island are inhabited. It once contained a population of 4 or 500 souls. This, however, was before the Revolution, & there are no signs of its former prosperity, but the pier, a few hollows where cellars were once dug, [&] some moss covered tomb stones. One of the Laightons was living here. He is brother in law of Cheever, who was very anxious I should see him & introduced him to me. C. has quite an admiration of Laighton's abilities, & told me that he has been for many years in the N. Hampshire Senate, was the Honorable Thomas Laighton, & next to Levi Woodbury23 had more influence with the dominant party, which is loco foco, than any man in the state. All this may be, for many such men we have. He was seated on the pier, dressed in the roughest manner, with a coarse dirty handkerchief about his neck, with an unwashed & uncombed appearance, a bloated vulgar face, chewing tobacco & whittling a stick with a jacknife. There was something very unprepossessing about him. I thought he was the rankest specimen of a vulgar demagoge I had ever seen. He kept his seat, & kept on his whittling & chewing as before, & only made an unintelligible sound, in answer to Ch.'s introduction. I saw that he was a character, & determined to try him. I sat directly down beside him & entered into conversation. At first he said but little. After some time he inquired what 23

Thomas B. Laighton moved to the Shoals in 1839, died in 1866. Levi Woodbury ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 5 1 ) was governor of New Hampshire in 1823, U. S. senator, 1 8 2 5 - 1 8 3 1 and 1 8 4 1 - 1 8 4 6 , when he retired to become associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. He was a Democrat.

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had been the result of Wyman's trial.24 Having told him all I knew, I said "How is it Mr. L. that men seem hardly to be trusted to manage money matters?" He admitted that it was so. I inquired the reason. He said it was because of foreign luxuries & foreign notions wh. had corrupted our republican simplicity. To this I answered that public faith & mercantile honor were higher in the old countries, especially in England, than here. To this he again assented, & said that was because money was everything here, & all could make it & he who could make the most was at the head of society; while in England this was qualified by hereditary rank & blood, wh. no money can buy. The competition & the temptation were less universal & overpowering. I then said a word in favor of the British Constitution, but here he bolted, & said he hated England & all her ways, — that he liked France better. He then spoke highly of Bonaparte. I told him I never knew a radical who did not like a despot, while a conservative liked a government of law. He said he had thought a good deal about the state of things & doubted if our institutions could stand. Every republic before ours had been a failure, &c. &c. I found that he had read a good deal, & was a sagacious man, but had strong prejudices & a dislike of established laws & orders, & of any persons who had positions better than his own. At this time it began to look like a thunder shower & we left. Cheever took me over to his light house, & as the weather looked rather threatening, I consented to spend the night. The breese was cool & sea-ey, & the view, in the midst of thunder clouds, quite grand. After tea we walked out upon the rocks, & at sundown I went up with him into his lantern. The evening we spent in a very primitive manner, he showing me a parcel of old views of the Tuileries & Sans Souci, wh. I looked over carefully & approvingly, translating the French for him at the bottom, & on my part gave him & his wife a detailed account of the battles of Lexington & Bunker Hill. His wife is a very pretty young woman, under thirty, & he has three little children. On going away, I gave him a half dollar to lay out in presents for the children when he next went to Portsmouth. He disliked receiving money, but I told him I wished to make his children a present, & he knew I could get nothing at the islands. AUG. 19. SAT. About nine this morning he took me back to the Shoals. There was one thing in the case of Cheever wh. illustrated most forcibly the unhappy state of our country. He had been appointed to his 24 WiIliam Wyman was tried in November 1843, at Greenfield, Massachusetts, for having embezzled the funds of the Phoenix Bank at Charlestown. The case was celebrated and involved the legal services of Rufus Choate and Sydney Bartlett.

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present office 2 years ago upon the accession of Gen. Harrison. He has taken great pains to perform his duties well, & being an intelligent, temperate man, with a good deal of ingenuity & the organ of order well developed, he has filled his place better than it has ever been filled. All persons who know anything of him agree in saying this. His salary is $600 per annum, out of wh. he has to pay for an assistant whom [he] is obliged to keep always on the island in case of sickness or accident to himself, & to support his family. Lately the collector of the customs at Portsmouth, by whom he is appointed, has been removed & a Tyler man put in his place. Cheever now trembles in his shoes & is utterly at a loss to know what to do. The state of politics is so confused & the movements of parties so unintelligible that he cannot for his life tell where to look for help. He has everything at stake, for he has a family to support & gave up a good trade for this office. If he loses it, he loses a support & may not easily find another. The temptation is too great to be resisted, & all the time he bored me with questions about politics. Not that he inquired at all about the principles & opinions of public men & parties, that was unnecessary, but who would succeed? What would turn up? What if a man shd. support Tyler, could Tyler support him? What were the chances of Clay, Calhoun & Van Buren? In the medley presented to him, he knew not where to put his foot, & yet his [living] depended upon his putting [it] down somewhere & that soon. I tried to talk upon fishing, boats & the like, but he always went back to his one subject of guessings & schemings. The state of servitude this poor man was in was truly pitiable. With good feelings & good principles in the main, he had come to look upon politics as a game, & one in wh. every [man] lay down his money upon the point most likely to win. All other notions of politics & public duties were effaced from his mind. This is not wholly nor chiefly his fault, but a necessary consequence of those pernicious practices wh. have been prevailing so for the last 15 years, — wh. began with Jefferson, were revived with full vigor by Jackson, wh. Van Buren had little need to exercise, but never repudiated & wh. his party always pursued, wh. the whigs of 1840 were afraid fully & heartily to disavow & wh. when in power they carried out as far as any before them had done, & wh. now have become the standing rule of practice in the country. This afternoon, being Sat., the Shoalsmen, who never fish on Sundays or Sat. evenings, cleaned out their boats, took ashore their bait & lines, washed & cleaned themselves & put on clean Sunday clothes, &, the afternoon being pleasant & the breese good, sailed about in their boats for pleasure. This is the only recreation the islands afford, & I am told that they depend upon a pleasant Sat. afternoon to take their families out to sail, & to turn into a pleasure what has been a labor to them during

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the week. The Clergyman & his two daughters went out in one boat, upon invitation of two of the Islanders, & in another I saw an old woman seated in a chair wh. her descendants had placed for her in the stern of their boat. Some of these parties went to the other islands & roamed about them, picking berries; some went to the light house, & others merely sailed to & fro. I took one sail by myself & another by invitation of a fisherman, in his boat. Called upon the clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Hale. Found him a very illiterate man of the Christian Baptist persuasion, & apparently as weak as illiterate. He was very much awed by the presence of a Boston lawyer who had been educated at Cambridge, for he had reed, nothing that could by courtesy be called an education & had never been in a town larger than Portsmouth. His ideas of Boston & her wealth, intelligence & greatness were quite magnificent. He told me that he had had no advantages, & that a difficulty in the head wh. came on whenever he tried to read much had always prevented his studying. He had a wife & three children, all supported upon $300 a year. Went over to Cheever's after tea in a wherry, taking with me two strangers who were on the island to see the lighthouse. Found C. watching the clouds & doubting whether to take his boat in. The shoalsmen had told him it was going to blow, but there was so little appearance of it that he at last determined to anchor her off with two anchors ahead, & let her ride. AUG. 20. SUNDAY. Woke up this morning with a heavy gale fr. the Ν. E. & the raining beating ag. the windows. The vessels of the Shoalsmen were safe, their cove being protected on that side. At ten walked to Church in a violent rain & gale. Found the people on the hill watching Cheever's boat, wh. was pitching at her anchors, the sea breaking outside of her. The congregation consisted of about 25 persons, 3 or 4 of whom were hard favored women, ten or a dosen rough fishermen, & the remainder white headed & brown faced boys. Some of the boys were bare footed, & some had on red shirts & no jackets. The men were dressed in pea jackets, or round blue jackets. The text was fr. the text "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain". 25 Flat, wandering & miserably weak was the performance. The poor preacher was evidently much impressed with the presence of strangers, & preached for us as much as Vincent Crummies' company played for the London Manager. 26 Once 26 Exodus 2e See

20: 7. Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, chap. xxx.

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he alluded to his own want of education & said that there were some present who could tell better than he could how such & such things [were]. This was pitiable & only served to lower him in the estimation of his people. I doubt if he can do much good among these people, for although it is not necessary that their clergyman should be learned, yet they are shrewd & need a man of some force & common sense. P.M. On coming to Church learned that Cheever's boat had swamped close by the rocks on his island, but was kept clear of the rocks by her anchors wh. still held her. With a telescope saw her white streak rising & falling with the seas, as she lay water logged on her beam ends. After Church walked out to the Ν. E. end of the island, the rain having ceased, to see the breakers. The sea was very grand. The long heavy swell set into the land, forming into high combing seas as it neared the shoaler water, & breaking & rushing up upon the steep craggy rock with terrific force & a deafening clamor. I never saw so large seas break up any shore before. They rushed over rocks of the height of 40 & 50 feet & sent their spray far higher into the air. While standing on a high rock, perhaps the highest on the island, & at a distance from its edge wh. seemed perfectly safe, I was wet thro' to the skin by an unsually large comber. The swell that set in between Star & Cedar islands was tremendous, & over Cedar Island ledge, wh. lies about half a mile from the island, the seas broke & threw themselves up into sparkling columns, looking like the fountain in the Park when at its highest play. In the afternoon, when the seas were less high, the boys took a large Newfoundland dog down to the rocks, & in spite of all their efforts to keep him back, he dived off from a low rock into the foaming billows, & after being sucked oft to a distance & then thrown up toward the rocks, & turned round & over several times, he was at last thrown upon a rock to wh. he clung & fr. it scrambled upon the island. We thought his limbs would be broken, but so little frightened was he that he wished to go off again, & the only way by wh. we could prevent was to walk directly back to the houses, to wh. he followed us. The sermon in the afternoon was fr. the text for wh. expresses the keeping of the Sabbath. This congregation amounted to 50, & with a fuller house & pleasanter weather, he was more ambitious & more unfortunate than in the morning. I could not have endured another such an exercise that day, nor for several days after it. Remained on the rocks until quite late. AUG. 21. M O N D A Y . This morning the rain had ceased, the sun was out bright, & the wind had moderated, but still the seas ran high. The

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elder Caswell, the pilot, tried to raise a party to go off in a whale boat & save Cheever's boat. I volunteered to go for one, & one other man offered, but he could raise no one else. Some said that the seas were so high that we could not go near the boat, & others said it was Government property, & Cheever must raise a signal if he wanted help. Finding that a crew could not be raised, I determined to go off & see what was the situation of the boat & communicate with Cheever if possible. Taking a small sail boat, & the two strangers who were on the island, who could barely pull an oar but were entirely unacquainted with the management of a boat, I went off. On approaching the boat, I found that the sea did not break so violently as I supposed, & I ran close by the side of it. She lay on her beam ends filled with water, the sea washing over her, one mast with the sail on it being gone & the other lying broken alongside. Seeing Cheever upon the rocks opposite the boat I ran in to speak with him. He pointed out a smooth place under the lee of a ledge wh. lay just off the island, & there I put the boat. Taking in my sail, I made the two men row while I steered. Keeping the boat's head out & her stern in towards the shore we rose & fell regularly in the swell, now & then pulling an oar to keep off the rocks. My men were awkward with their oars & a good deal alarmed by their new position, & sometimes failed to pull as I told them, but we kept ourselves safe. At length I let the boat back in toward a large steep rock, & Cheever, watching his chance, jumped on board, while we pulled off briskly. We took him round the boat, wh. he examined, & then going round to the lee side of the island & watching a smooth chance, landed him again. He told me not to ask the Shoalsmen to come off & help him, but that if they wished to come, he should be happy to have their help, as they must know. Returning to the island, I found that the men had been watching my boat with great anxiety from the hill, & learned that one old fisherman said we should be lost, that no boat could land where we did, & when we went under the lee of the ledge, they all thought we had gone over it. They were a little shamed, yet persevered in refusing to go & aid Cheever, putting it on the ground that as the boat was Government property, he must ask for help or they could not get salvage, for the boat was safe where she lay. They said that if the boat had been Cheever's private property, they would have gone at once. In this state of misunderstanding, the boat seemed likely to remain untouched. After dinner the Shoalsmen went off to catch mackerel wh. the N. Easter had driven in. The place they went to was off Cedar point, just past the Cedar island passage. The sea was very high there, & the great rollers came in with such sise & force as to make it dangerous & very disagreeable to encounter them in small boats. Nevertheless, as the

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Shoalsmen were out I determined to go & taking the same small boat with a stiff breese I ran thro' the passage & off to the ground where the fishing boats were at anchor. The rollers were so high & pitched the boats about so that only a quick helm with a stiff breese kept them from being capsised or swamped. I came to anchor off the point, close by two other boats which were pitching up & down so as to stand nearly perpendicular. My boat being small, we were pitched & tumbled about at such a rate that it completely confused me & made me dissy & in a short time I felt sea sick & vomited a little. Yet I kept at fishing & caught several mackerel. The sea was so rough that few of the boats stayed there, & I was not sorry to take up my anchor & be off. As I got under way, a man fr. another boat hailed & told me not to go thro' the Cedar island passage, before the wind, — that all the boats were going round Star island. I accordingly braced up & went round Star island, & it being late ran in to hail Cheever before night. The surf was breaking so loud upon the rocks that he could not hear, & so high that it was impossible to land. He made a signal for me to go to leeward. [There] I could communicate with him, half the words being lost in the roar of the surf. He made it a point not to hoist the signal, because he thought the Shoalsmen ought to come without one, when they saw him in need. I could not make myself heard well eno' to explain to him that they would come if it was his own boat &c., & was obliged to leave him. The wind was ahead for returning, & the sea was very high, but I beat the little boat over in three tacks & came safely to moorings before night. AUG. 22. TUESDAY. This morning it looked cloudy with promise of rain, & the fishermen said we should have several days of bad weather. As there was a boat leaving for Portsmouth at ten, I determined to take passage in her, since I had given myself a good spell at fishing & boating & the fair weather seemed to be at an end. My bill at Caswell's for a week's board was $2.50, & he would take nothing for the use of his boat & lines, since he had the fish I caught. I gave his daughter half a dollar to buy something for herself in Portsmouth when she next went up, & took my leave well satisfied with my stay & the treatment I had received.

We had for passengers in the boat the clergyman & his two daughters. The elder, Miss Mary Ann, about 18, had never been on the island before this visit, & never in a boat before but once, & said she did not expect to visit the island again. I did not ask her if she was agoing to be married. She had some smartness, had been well taught at a boarding school, I presume, & seemed to treat her father with far too little respect. The younger, a black eyed, dark complexioned girl of about 14, was more pleasing. She had been at home, & was to return to the island after

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parting with her sister. The parson appeared better in the boat than in the pulpit, tho' but indifferently here. As we passed Whale's Back it began to rain & continued raining quite violently for half an hour. The parson produced an old umbrella with wh. he covered the young ladies, while I, having my boating clothes on, wh. I had worn during the whole expedition, took the rain as it came δι got pretty well wet. We reached the wharf at about noon & in a quarter of an hour I was in my chamber at the Rockingham House. The group called the Isle of Shoals consists of seven islands. These are mere beds of rock with spots of vegitation here & there. Two of the islands, Duck Island & the Londoner's are not inhabitable, being mere rocks, upon which ducks & sea birds alight & to which fishermen make fast their nets. White Island, on wh. the light house stands is also little else than a steep rock with a single patch about the keeper's house. It would not sustain more than one goat fr. its own produce. A fourth island, called Cedar, is not inhabited, & although I did not land upon it, yet my impression is that it is hardly if at all habitable. The remaining three, wh. are the largest, have always had a population upon them. Of these, the largest & most fertile is Hog Island. Smutty Nose, or Smotinose, as it is spelt in the old ms. records, or Smyna, wh. tradition says is its proper name, is the second in sise & fertility. Star Island, so called from its shape, being nearly circular, with rock projections, is now the most populous & has always had as much prosperity as any of them. At the present time the entire population of Star is 114 souls. On Hog Island there are but two houses, recently built by the Laightons, who mean to make it their head quarters. Smutty Nose has about half a dosen houses, in a decayed condition, & a population of about 20 souls. It seems likely to be soon deserted. Before the war of the Revolution, these islands enjoyed great prosperity. The fisheries were very profitable & they offered security fr. the attacks of the Indians who molested the people on the main. In 1730 the population of the group was 11 or 1200. Hog Island had 600 of them, Smutty Nose & Star dividing the remainder. There was a good deal of property, many men of influence in the State, physicians, lawyers, a well paid clergyman, & men of different trades & mechanic arts. The war opened a new danger ag. wh. the islands were unprotected. This, together with the decline of the fisheries & the removal of fear fr. Indian incursions, soon reduced the prosperity of the Shoals. I do not know how low they got, but have an impression that the entire population has been as little as 80 or 90 souls. Some twenty years ago there was a good deal of money made on the islands by three men of the name of Haley, Newton

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& Caswell, the former living on Smuttynose, & the others on Star. They were reputed to be worth fr. 10 to 30,000 apiece; but the other inhabitants were quite poor & intemperate & indebted to these three. The Haleys ran out their property & have disappeared. The descendants of Newton & Caswell still live [on] Star Island, but their property is all gone & they labour as common fishermen. There are two or three houses on Star & one on Smutty Nose wh. look as tho' they might have been inhabited by people somewhat above the class of day fishermen, but excepting these signs, & the decent grave stones of the Haleys, Newtons & Caswells, & of one or two clergymen, I saw nothing to indicate a previous population. Indeed I could hardly credit the story that these islands had supported so many persons, & shd. not but upon the best authority. They must have imported all their wood, & nearly all their hay & vegitables. There is a tradition, too, that a school flourished on Hog Island at wh. the sons of men of fortune in Boston & other parts of the main were fitted for college. The inhabitants have very much improved in their moral condition within the last three years. Temperance has spread among them, & no ardent spirits are allowed upon Star Island. Drunkenness has been unknown there the last year. It is said that the Laightons mean to sell spirits. If they do there well be a fierce contest, for either they or the islanders will be broken up by it.27 At Portsmouth I fell in with Mr. Waldson a purser in the Navy, of one of the old Portsmouth families & connected with the Sheafes, & thereby with my uncle Francis' wife & children. He showed me every attention, took me to the Atheneum, to the house of Mr. Cutts, & introduced me to a number of officers who were boarding at the R. House. Among these were Col. Crane, commanding the Ν. E. division of the army,28 Lieut. Stevens of the Engineers, who married a daughter of Ben. Haward of Newport, & a Lieut. Baker 29 of the marines, a long limbed Tennesean, & a very shrewd, agreeable & natural man. He had been in the Columbia 27

T h e contest was resolved in favor of the Laightons. Throughout the whole of the second half of the nineteenth century, Laighton's Hotel, on Hog Island, was a flourishing summer resort. The advent of the automobile brought an end to the popularity of the islands, and now they are noted largely for annual summer meetings of Unitarian and Congregational religious groups. 28 Ichabod B. Crane (d. 1 8 5 7 ) in the service since 1809, had become a lieutenant colonel in 1 8 4 3 . He was governor of the Military Asylum at Washington, 1 8 5 1 - 1 8 5 3 . 29

Isaac I. Stevens ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 6 2 ) , first in his West Point Class of 1 8 3 9 , received his commission in 1 8 3 9 , served with distinction in the Mexican War, and died a majorgeneral. D . D. Baker (d. 1 8 5 3 ) was commissioned in 1 8 3 2 and was promoted to captain in 1 8 4 7 .

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in her cruise round the world, & gave very amusing accounts of the attack upon Muckie, tiger hunting &c.30 He is a perfectly natural, unpretending, unambitious man, with great quickness of mind & a shrewd observer of men & things, & — wh. is a great relief — not a book man. Spent a few hours in the ev. with Col. Crane & his family, that is, his lady & a son who is in Yale College. A lieut., probably an aid of the Col.'s, was present. Wrote to S. to tell her of my safety. AUG. 23. WED. Left in the steamer at 7 A. M. for Rockport. Passed the Shoals at the distance of two or three miles, in so thick weather that we could see but little & reached Rockport at noon. Dined at R. & went round to Pigeon Cove in Brown's passenger boat. When I reached Mr. Wheeler's, I saw nothing of father & Charlotte, & sat down in the parlor while Mrs. W. called them. I had on my rough Halifax jacket, sailor's trowsers, open shirt with a kerchief tied in sailor's fashion, & was burnt & blackened in the sun. Father hardly knew me at first. I believe my arrival gave them some pleasure, for they were alone & father was rather dull. C. looked well, was quite brown & had gained flesh. After an hour or two spent in pleasant conversation, a stage coach drove up, & in it were cousin Sophia, Frank & Isabella, 31 come to spend a few days with our party in R. After tea we walked out upon the rocks. The house being full, I slept at Norwood's. AUG. 24. This morning went fishing with Ch. Wheeler in his boat. Caught about a dosen hadduck, hake & cod. It was very foggy & the wind light. From him I learned the landmarks about the cove, — the reef, the sunken rock, the lights, &c. &c., for I expected to often [go] out sailing in the harbor. Returning, found that Frank had gone to Portsmouth in the steamer. Went to Nutsford's 32 in the woods. Towards night, went to the cove to get a sail boat. Wind was very light, & was obliged to scull. Took father out round the point in a [boat], sculling him out & back. Feeling a little breese I took C.'s boat, wh. was moored in the cove, pulling out to her in 30

F r o m M a y 1 8 3 8 to June 1840, the U. S. Frigate Columbia, together with the Sloop-of-War John Adams, commanded b y Commodore George C. Read, sailed an adventurous voyage around Cape Horn to China, around the Cape of Good Hope, and then back to the United States via Cape Horn. The pair were constituted the " E a s t India Squadron," and as part of their mission they undertook the destruction of the Sumatran town of Muckie, when the local Rajah refused to make diplomatic overtures, and where, it was strongly suspected, were harbored the pirates responsible for an attack on the barque Eclipse. The town was destroyed without the loss of a single attacking marine. See Fitch W . Taylor, A Voyage Round the World, 3rd ed. ( N e w York: D. Appleton, 1 8 4 3 ) . 31 32

D a n a ' s cousin, Francis Dana, and wife. Marginal note adds: "Nutford's."

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a wherry & fastening the wherry at the boat's moorings, & set off upon a sail. It was already six o'clock & thinking I might be out after dark I took the bearings of everything carefully. I stood off towards Straitsmouth, but when I had got out about two miles the wind died almost entirely away & the night came fast on. I wore round & stood in for the cove. I could see nothing but Pigeon Hill, wh. stood out against the horison, & steered for that. The lights were burning at the lighthouses on Straitsmouth & Thacher's Island, & it was a beautiful, tranquil evening. Before I got close in with the land it became very dark & the wind quite light, so that I feared I might not be able to get in & shd. have to lie at anchor thro' the night. I kept my sail out, however, & watching sharp for every sign of the landmarks, stood in for where I thought the opening of the Cove must be. Gradually I thought the white appearance of the water contrasted with the dark land extended further in a little on my left, & I kept on in that direction. The surf, too, wh. was breaking heavily, seemed silent there while it roared among the rocks on each side. Steering for this mark, I gradually discerned a low point on my starboard hand, & soon after saw distinctly, on the same side, the buoys to wh. the nets are attached. I now knew exactly where I was, & kept directly off at right angles to avoid the sunken rock. I stood on in this direction, just moving thro' the water almost imperceptibly until I saw the sheds raised by the workmen who were getting out stone. Keeping close in to the larboard shore, I drifted up until I saw the point of the breakwater on my starboard hand, & passing that, I was safely in the cove. The difficulty now was to find the boat's moorings among so many little vessels. Here I had made careful marks, & again without failing reached the right place, made my boat fast, furled the sails & sculled myself ashore in the wherry. It was about nine when I reached the house. The Nutsfords, two old fishermen, had told father I could not get in as the wind was so light & I was unacquainted, & he had nearly given me up for the night. AUG. 25. FRIDAY. This was my wedding day, & in connexion with Rockport, I thought much & happily of dear S. At nine got Ch. Wheeler to take father, Charlotte, cousin Sophia, Isabella & myself over to Straitsmouth. I had sent the greater part of my baggage to Boston fr. Portsmouth, & took the remainder with me as I meant to be set on board the steamer. On the way over to Straitsmouth, cousin Sophia, Charlotte & a boy whom Charles took with him were sea-sick, cousin Sophia very badly so. Isabella, who had never been in a boat before, enjoyed herself hightly & was not sick at all. We landed at Straitsmouth island, & walked about a little, but Sophia could do little else than lie down. Soon the steamer hove in sight & Charles put me into

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Brown's passenger-boat, wh. was waiting for him, & thus I reached the steamer. Frank was on board, & as w e passed close to Straitsmouth Island, we waved our hats to the party on the rocks who returned our salute. Frank was to return for Isabella & Sophia on Monday. Reached Boston at 4V2 P. M. Found Ned & Mr. Peck at the office & all well. A letter fr. S. Poor little Sally has been quite sick, dangerously so, with a swelled eye & face. There is yet some danger of trouble fr. it. Otherwise S. is happy & well, but anxious to hear that I am safe at home. They say I am very much burned, roughened & improved in healthiness of appearance. Was glad to enter my house & see the places made dear to me by so many months of happiness, & sanctified by the relations of a husband & father. Dear S., how you do throw a charm about all that you move in! Yet it was solitary & somewhat sad. AUG. 26. SAT. Ned left this A. M. for Nantasket to spend Sunday, & Mr. P. went to Provincetown, — both for recreation. Mrs. Fox came this ev. fr. Hd., but brot no letter fr. S. She had seen little S. the week before & said she looked very badly. This alarmed me a good deal & I wrote pressingly to Sarah to tell me at once how S. was & that I wd. go to Wethersfield if necessary. Went out to Aunt Martha's to spend the night, at her request, as she had no man in her house. Found her & Aunts E. & S. well. [AUG.] 27TH. SUNDAY. This morning was so anxious that I went into town in a boiling heat, & went to the Post Office, a thing I had not done before but once in my life. No letter fr. S. Dropped another line to her, begging her to write at once. Went to St. Paul's half the day. In the afternoon yielded to the temptation to stay at home & read. Read thro' Judges, Ruth, & a part of 1 Samuel, also a little in the New Testament. After tea walked out to Aunt Martha's. [AUG.] 28TH. Letter fr. S. saying that the little darling is much better, & fast recovering. This was a weight indeed off my mind. I had tried to be resigned to all. Had asked that we might feel that she would be taken fr. sin & sorrow to purity & joy & heaven. Yet the image of the dear little thing was constantly before [me], just waking into life & knowledge, following me to the door every morning, & coming to me when I enter the house. And then, how could the mother lose her first child? So dear & at such an age. Mrs. Fox being here, I tea & breakfast at home & dine down in town. Employed writing up my journal, covering my visit to the Shoals & Rockport.

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AUG. 30. WED. Called upon a Mr. Simms of Carolina, a novelist,33 who brot letters to father fr. Bryant. He was not in. This P. M. Ned & I went out to take an inventory of Mr. Allstons' property. Went into the painting room & began with the pictures. At the head of the list is the Belshassar. Finished the pictures & sketches just at dusk. Took tea at Aunt's. Frank & Isabella came out. Is. appears very well. There is something very pleasing about her. She is picturesque, & looks like a heroine. On the whole, I do not know a handsomer couple. Walked into town. [AUG.] 3 1 S T . Went up to the old town to see the Assessors. No abatements are made on our taxes, though the tax on the land is nearly equal to its income. They go upon its value for building lots, when sold. From the assessors went again to the painting room to finish the inventory. On my way fell in with Dr. Jennison. He told me that Judge Remington was buried in the same tomb with Gov. Belcher,34 wh. is the tomb now used [by] him (Dr. J.), next to ours. The reason of the Judge's being buried there was fr. his friendship for Belcher. This was his request, notwithstanding that all the Remingtons were buried in graves in one spot. Made an inventory of all the ingravings except a trunk full, & Ned made an inventory of all the books except what were in one trunk. Put the ingravings in three piles, according to their sise, in the closet.

SEP. 1. Ned left in the steamer on a visit to Rockport, to be gone a week or ten days. Ned becomes very dear to me. I feel sadly to have him go. He is a very faithful & affectionate brother. [SEPT.] 2 . Spent the afternoon in making an inventory of Mr. Allston's books & engravings. Took tea at Aunt M[artha]'s.

Read the Communion service attentively before going to Church. Had a good service. This afternoon looked into S.'s bureau & table drawers to see things to remind me of her. Read over some of her letters. Read from the writing desk. Met with an affliction of spirit this day, 35 wh. God grant may be for my good. May it elevate me fr. the miserable things of life & make me noble & pure in thought & feeling. May my better nature be strong in [SEPT.] 3 . SUNDAY.

33 William Gilmore Simms ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 7 0 ) was gradually becoming acknowledged, in the North, as the best of the southern fiction writers. His most recently published work was Beauchampe, in 1 8 4 2 . His spirited support of the Confederacy during the war eventually alienated him from Dana's world. 34 J o h n Belcher ( 1 6 8 1 - 1 7 5 7 ) , Harvard, 1699, was governor of Massachusetts and N e w Hampshire, 1 7 2 9 - 1 7 3 0 . 35

D a n a is referring here to one of his periodic visitations of depression, for which there was no apparent external cause.

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me. I know it will die away. Would to God I could be kept in a high state. Wrote to S. about it, this evening. I can do nothing without tears & sighings. Come to me, S., my comforter, for I am alone & none can help me. How I loathe the business & petty things of the world. Yet I must give myself. Could it be possible that if independent, I could lead a more satisfactory life, be open more to nature & art, & have my soul, & my best affections & most elevated feelings more alive! [SEPT.] 4TH. A letter fr. Sarah. Little S. is better & growing daily stout & well. S. is not coming until the end of the week. God bless her. She has not yet seen my letter of yesterday. May she be able to console me, for from her this must come. Could hardly get thro' my duties at the office. I worked with tears in my eyes. At noon could not endure the dullness of another half day & went out to Cambridge & worked upon Mr. A.'s inventory. It was intensely hot, but I worked hard, & cared for nothing, could I only relieve my spirit. At night, felt suddenly relieved & happy. The change was as sudden as a relief from bodily sickness frequently is. [SEPT.] 5TH.

Finished my work at Mr. Allston's room.

[SEPT.] 6TH. Wrote to S. in a delightful state of mind. Told her to stay in Wd., & when she came to me to come well. 36 FRIDAY [ S E P T . ] 8TH. Rev. Ch. B. Dana fr. Alexendria called. Is at the Tremont with a party of Lees from Virginia. Then called Mr. Geo. Cooke, who had brot a letter of introduction from Mr. [J. S.] Cogdell to Mr. Allston. He is fr. Georgia, & a very pleasant man. Hon. Wm. Young called fr. N[ova] S[cotia].

Mr. Bradenbaugh, 37 Pres. of the Baltimore Merc. Lib. Assoc. called to invite me to lecture there this winter. Agreed upon the 9 & 10th January. Wrote to the Ν. Y. Copy Right Club who had elected me a member, stating that I had not formed an opinion upon the subject of an international copy right, & requesting to decline if they had elected me under a mistake, or if accepting would commit me to the Society. (Preserved a copy). [SEPT.] QTH.

36

F r o m this period on Dana and his wife spent longer and longer periods apart. Sarah's health and her desire to enjoy the company of her mother, aunts, and sisters seem to have been the cause, though nothing very specific seems to have been the matter with her health. 37 Charles Bradenbaugh (c. 1 8 1 9 - 1 8 6 2 ) was a wealthy merchant and president of the Baltimore Mercantile Library Association.

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Also sent note to Hillard, upon the subject of his address. As I had had no letter fr. S., confidently expected her to-night. Came home early & got all in readiness. Went to the depot, waited, cars came, but no wife or child for me. Went to the office & found a letter fr. S. saying that she had got all ready to start, when my letter came telling her to stay longer. Mrs. Fox sat down & cried when Mrs. D. did not come. Rarely is it that the head of a house attaches a domestic so to her, that she will cry when she does not return. "So gentle, so lovely, so faithful, so kind!" SUNDAY SEP. 10. Went to the Roman Catholic Church this A. M. Attended as well as I could. The music was impressive, but the sermon poor & ostentatious, & the service a mummery. The priest with a great cross on his back, looked so like the clown at a circus, that the impression was painful. The ringing of the bell, & all the forms were far too idolatrous for me. [ S E P T . ] 13. Called on Pres. [Leonard] Woods & Mr. Mackensie, late commander of the Somers. Went to Cambridge to obtain an injunction before Judge Story in Roberts v. Roberts. The judge had the whole school collected, & I was obliged to make an ex parte argument coram omnibus. Dined at Prof. Channing's. At 5 P. M. met by appointment, at the family tomb, Frank Dana, & the undertaker. The new coffins having been completed we cleaned out & rearranged the tomb. This is the present order of things. On the left, as you enter, the lower coffin contains the collected remains of Judge Trowbridge & his wife, & one other person whom we do not know. Over this is the coffin of Mrs. Hastings, & above Mrs. Hastings' rests that of Mr. Allston. On the right, as you enter, the lower coffin is that of my Gr. father. Over his is that of Mrs. Sophia W. Dana, who died in 1840, & over hers is that of her grandson, Francis Dana 3rd who died in 1843. Opposite the entrance the lower coffin contains the remains of my grandmother & of her son Edmund who died in childhood. The coffin above that is my mother's, & upon hers rests that of little Susan. New coffins have been provided for all who died before the year 1820, excepting my grandfather, whose coffin seems to be in good preservation. [ S E P T . ] 14TH. Ned returned fr. Rockport, looking well & having gained flesh. [ S E P T . ] 15TH. Left at 7 A. M. for Wethersfield, to spend a few days & bring home Mrs. Dana. Took a vol. of the Spectator with me & read 60 or 70 pp. in the cars. Dined at Warrener's. Found there & had for a

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companion in the boat to Hartford, Col. [I. B.] Crane, of the Army, whose acquaintance I made at Portsmouth. It rained & blew severely upon the river & we spent most of our time in the cabin. Among the passengers were a dozen or more women bound to a Millerite Camp Meeting at Windsor locks. Being full of the spirit they sang their Millerite & Methodistic hymns a great part of the way, one of which had for its burden "I want to die in the army". Col. Crane said this was not the U. S. army, he presumed, but the army of Martyrs. W e landed them at the locks, in the midst of a cold rain, to go into the woods & pass their night. Took the Wd. coach at Hd. Wharf & reach the parsonage just before six. Mr. [Ο. E.] Daggett came to meet me, & at the door of the house I found myself in the arms of S. & the little child. All were well, & I had been brought to them in peace. Little S. hardly knew me, & it was not until I had taken out my watch & pencil & carried her about a good deal that she seemed to be at home with me. Mrs. Watson, the dear aunts, Elis. & Mary were all there & all well & enjoying very much the visit of S. & child, & apparently also, my arrival. In our chamber had a second, a private & a full hearted & grateful meeting with S., whom I found spared to me & improved in health & spirits. SEP. I6TH. SATURDAY. This day opened beautifully. The rain had laid the dust & washed the trees & grass, & cleared the air, & now a clear sun rose with an autumnal breese to prevent the sultriness of the summer's heat. The birds sang, & thro' the trees wh. surrounded our window we could just see the patches of sunlight on the grass. The happiness wh. the day ought to carry with it, was shown in the expression & manner of the whole family as they assembled for prayers & breakfast. After breakfast, S. & I went into our room & spent an hour in religious reading, conversation & prayer. We then took a long walk together, among the woods & along the meadows. No day could have been more delightful. The temperature of the air was neither hot nor cold, but just so that one could lie down with pleasure upon the grass under the shade of a tree. Just before tea we walked out upon the hill & sat down together upon a grave stone. The view was most enchanting. The distant hills, the greenness of all the earth & its growths, the smooth, quiet stream of the Connecticut, partly hidden by trees, & partly winding amidst green, raked meadows, & now & then a sail gliding over its surface or showing its top above the trees. I told S. the story of [Robert] Bartlett, who is now dying at Plymouth, & of the renewal of his early attachment. She was much interested in it. Peaches are abundant in the garden, & the family seemed to eat them half a dosen times a day; at breakfast, immediately after, at noon, for a

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dessert after dinner, once in the course of the afternoon, & then at night just before time. They seemed to profit by this use of fresh fruits & to be in excellent health. SEP. 17. SUNDAY. Read with S. before Church. In the afternoon, S. staid at home with little S. I read Dr. Chapin's funeral sermon on the death of Dr. Marsh.38 Before tea S. & I went out upon the hill & sat together in the grove, delightfully enjoying the beautiful air, the waving & rustling of the trees over our heads, & the stillness & freshness of all nature. We wished it were so that we could spend days & weeks, as we had spent these two. Passed a pleasant evening with the family. [ S E P T . ] 18. MONDAY. Left at before 7 for Hd. on our way home. There was not a dry eye at parting. They all love S. & her child dearly, & her graceful & affectionate ways bind them to her closer & closer. The sail up the river was delightful, & S. & I stood together to watch the receding town of Hd., the scene of nearly all that had ever happened to S., & the scene of so much that was momentous & rapturous to myself. We had among the passengers, Mr. Henry Webb of Albany, who was very attentive & made much conversation. Mr. Delavan of Albany, the famous temperance man, was on board, but I was not introduced as he & Mr. Webb have quarreled. At the hotel in Springfield found Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Minot (Senr.) of Boston, Mr. & Mrs. Van Lennep 39 (Mary Hawes, of Hd.), & Mr. John Hooker; —also Ch. Justice [Lemuel] Shaw. In the cars were also Mr. & Mrs. Ch. H. Mills & their child. Reached home at 7. Ned was at the station, waiting for us, & took tea with us. Mrs. Fox seemed as glad to see S. & the child as if they were her own kin. It is delightful to see a wife [&] child making themselves so dear to persons employed as domestics in the family.

SEP. 19. Rose at six. Read & engaged in religious exercises alone in the front chamber before breakfast. Mean to do this every morning, if possible. Sat at my secretary, writing in my journal, by the window side, while S. was trimming & watering her little garden, & little Sally playing about her. 38 Alonzo B. Chapin ( 1 8 0 8 - 1 8 5 8 ) conducted the funeral services for Sarah's grandfather, John Marsh. 39 H e n r y Delavan ( 1 7 9 3 - 1 8 7 1 ) had been cofounder of the N e w York State Temperance Society in 1 8 2 9 and edited several influential temperance journals. Henry J. Van Lennep ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 8 9 ) was an American-educated (Amherst, 1 8 3 7 ) son of European-bom missionary parents in Turkey. He went out to Turkey as a Congregationalist missionary in 1 8 3 9 , returned in 1 8 4 3 , a widower, to marry Mary Elizabeth Hawes, close friend of Sarah and daughter of his former tutor, Rev. Joel Hawes. They married September 4, 1 8 4 3 , in Hartford, and Mrs. Van Lennep died slightly more than a year later.

2l8

Beginnings

Commander A. S. Mackensie called with Lieut. Davis.40 His appearance & manners are very prepossessing. He is quiet, unassuming, free fr. all military display in manner, self possessed, & with every mark of a humane, conscientious man, with sound judgment & moral courage. He is unusually interesting, & creates a feeling of personal affection towards him in those whom he meets. Such was the impression he produced upon me, & I find he made a similar impression upon all who fell in with him during his stay here. James [T.] Hodge came up fr. Plymouth, to spend a few days with us. Leon. Woods took tea. Aunt E., Ned, Jas. Hodge, S. & myself, present. Leonard is very anti-Roman, not much Episcopal, but very Catholic, in his sense of the term, having a notion of a general church, which shall be an institution & a regular organization, but wh. may include much that is now protestant & dissenting. FRIDAY SEPT. [22]. Went with S. to see Weir's picture of the embarkation of the pilgrims.41 In the afternoon went to Cambridge & called at Mrs. [Andrews] Norton's & upon Mrs. Lucy Russell at Mrs. [Ε. T.] Channing's. The Nortons present the most charming family group that I know of. An affectionate, intelligent mother, with many graces & faculties of mind & person, three daughters just coming into society, well educated, domestic, agreeable, good looking, well principled & with remarkably happy temperaments. Add to this a large house & beautiful estate in the country, with reading, writing, drawing, music & conversation. Took tea & spent the evening at aunt Martha's. Staying with her is Mrs. Cook (Betsy Earl) who was at my Grandfather's when my father was born, & now has seen my father's grandchild.

23. Went with S. to see Weir's picture of the embarkation of the pilgrims. It struck me as well colored, & in excellent drawing, tho I am not a judge of such things. Several of the faces, too, I liked very much, as the handsome & well born expression of Winslow with its dash of puritanism, Robinson, Standish, the oldest female & the sick child. But I cannot understand the full dress, ball room array of Mrs. Winslow,42 & thought her over dressed, fantastic. SAT. SEPT.

40 Charles Henry Davis ( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 7 7 ) received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1 8 4 1 . He was in charge of Naval Coastal Survey work in N e w England from 1 8 4 1 to 1 8 5 6 . He went on to fight in the Civil W a r with the rank of rear admiral. 41 Robert W . W e i r ( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 8 9 ) had just finished the painting and was showing it before having it placed in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D . C. His commission from the government was $10,000. 42

T h e Pilgrims in the picture are E d w a r d Winslow ( 1 5 9 5 - 1 6 5 5 ) and his wife Elizabeth (d. 1 6 2 1 ) , John Robinson (c. 1 5 7 3 - 1 6 2 5 ) , and Miles Standish ( 1 5 8 4 - 1 6 5 6 ) .

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219

SUNDAY [ S E P T . ] 2 4 T H . In Mr. [A. H.] Vinton's sermon this day he touched upon the idea that the enmity of the natural heart, to God, needs only an opportunity to exercise itself in acts of violence, as proved by the fact that in the only instance where it could be done, when God became incarnate & placed himself, in a manner, in man's power, then so did the divine requirements & purity press upon & irritate men that they needs must crucify him. Hillard spent the evening with us.

Breakfasted with Hillard to meet Weir. Was charmed with Weir. I do not know when I have seen a man who gained my affection & confidence so soon & so completely. Took him out to see the Belshassar. He stood motionless & silent before it, for full a quarter of an hour. His interest in it was intense. He says it is now in the confusion of a change of horison & point of sight. Some parts of the picture are in one design & other parts in the other. It is chaotic; but beautiful in its parts, & grand in its design. After seeing the large picture I showed him the small sketches in chalk & brown, & the unfinished sketches in color. Nothing could exceed his delight & admiration at these. He said that as exalted as had been his notion of Allston's genius, these things raised [it] higher. He says they must be engraved & preserved. He particularly mentioned the Christ healing the sick;43 the female figure from life, with the bare arm & neck; the chalk sketches on crape; & the Titania's Court. [SEPT.]

25TH.

TUESDAY SEP. 2 6 . Went with S. to Brackett's room. Called upon Mr. Robt. Allston44 of S. Cfarolina], nephew of W. A. He took tea with us. Rarely have I seen a more deeply religious man, with more tenderness of feeling, & gentleness of manners. He was educated for the army, but is now a planter & somewhat engaged in politics. He feels so much about his uncle that I have asked him to see the great picture. [SEPT.] 2 7 T H . Went with Mr. Robt. Allston to see the Belshassar. No one has seemed more affected by the sight of all that room presents to one who knew the departed glory & life of it, than did Mr. R. A. His feeling too was genuine, & of a kind wh. he endeavored to control & conceal. He venerated & loved his deceased relative in a manner rare even among the venerators & lovers of that man. All he said & did endeared him to me very much. His manner to aunt Martha, too, was very kind & considerate. He requested that a sketch might be preserved for him at any price. He seemed to wish for the Christ healing the sick. 4 3 In

the margin, Dana's son Richard Henry III notes: "Now at Brattle st. (1908)." Francis Withers Allston (1801-1864), nephew of Washington Allston, graduated from West Point in 1821, was governor of South Carolina, 1856-1858. He was a very wealthy rice planter. 44 Robert

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If I am not much in error, this is a man of deep religious feeling, a tender heart, & all the niceties of a cultivated & well bred & well born man. ι. Communion at Church. Partook of it with better preparation & consequently with more comfort, & with a more decided consciousness of benefit received, than almost ever before. SUNDAY OCT.

[ocr.] 2. Reading carefuly, with meditation, every morning, in a room by myself, has been very delightful & I trust improving to me. S. does the same, but separately. This afternoon went to Roxbury with S. & took tea with Mrs. Atkins. WED. ocr. 3. Called upon Mr. Van Lennep, & invited him & his lady to tea. They came, as did also Mr. Putnam & Miss Sarah Day. It was a Hartford party, & a pleasant one. SAT. [OCT.] 7TH. My friend & former shipmate B. G. Stimson,45 called this morning, being on a short visit to his friends. He had seen two of our shipmates, Meyers & Libby, along the wharves. 46 Cheever, the keeper of the Isle of Shoals light, called. Poor fellow! He has been turned out of his office, but worse than all, he seems to have lost his integrity & self respect, & is ready to sell himself & his principles to any party for the sake of his place. He had a timid, secretive & fawning manner, & talked in whispers, mysteriously, & seemed afraid that each person in the room was a spy. He said he was going to Washington to try for a re-appointment, & had letters stating that he was & had always been a friend of the administration & that his successor was not a real but only a pretended friend of the party in power. Nothing was said about his fitness for the office, or the manner he had performed his duties, — those were no considerations. He asked me to give him a letter to Buckingham, 47 the editor of the Courier, who, he had learned, had some influence with the Sec. of the Treasury. His successor was Laighton, 48 whom I saw at Smutty Nose, & who had fairly manoevered 45 Benjamin Godfrey Stimson ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 7 1 ) , whose name Dana often misspelled "Stimpson," had been on the 1834-1836 voyage to California with Dana, and afterward made a successful career in business in Detroit. He is cited earlier as having written Dana a mocking letter concerning the absence from Two Years of any account of the sexual activities of the sailors with the native girls on the California beaches. 4e William Hyson Meyers (b. 1801) shipped with Dana on the Pilgrim. In 1834 he was twenty-nine years old, a resident of Boston. Joseph E. Libby, not mentioned in Two Years, shipped with Dana on the Alert. In 1834 he was twenty-three, a resident of Boston. Dana misspelled their names "Myers" and "Libbey." 47 Joseph Tinker Buckingham ( 1 7 7 9 - 1 8 6 1 ) , editor of the Boston Courier, often in the Massachusetts legislature between 1828 and 1851.

served

4 8 The present descendants of Thomas Laighton take the view that Cheever was always merely Laighton's assistant and that Laighton had been lighthouse-keeper since 1839.

1843

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221

him out of his office. Cheever said "He has tricked & lied me out of it. He has stated that I am Clay Whig; & I defy him to prove it! I have been a friend of the administration, — to a reasonable degree" — the last words he said in a low tone, & in no part of this did he dare to look me in the face, for he knew very well that I knew he was a Whig, & only ready to join any successful party who could keep him in. At last, he said as much as that he would support the administration, if they would give him his place. Poor fellow, his self respect, & his integrity are fairly beaten out of him by this cursed tyranny. The temptation is too great, & he is ruined. He cannot conceal this from me, nor from himself. I gave him a letter to Buckingham, stating how well he discharged his duties, & how intelligent & capable he seemed to me to be; but adding that I would say nothing about the political part of the matter, for I detested this ruinous system which was corrupting the political morals of our republic. WED. ocr. 11TH. Went with S. on board the Stanboul to see Mr. & Mrs. Van Lennep & their party sail for Smyrna. The passengers were Dr. [Joel] Hawes of Hd., Mr. & Mrs. V. L., John S. Tappan & lady, Miss Maria Watkinson of Hd., Dr. Anderson, Sec. of the A.B.C.F.M., Dr. Pickering,49 & others. The day was mild & clear, the wind fair & gentle, the vessel a new one of the best class, a great crowd assembled on the wharf & on board, there was singing & a prayer for the missionaries, & all the circumstances were as pleasant & exciting as possible. As the vessel moved off from the wharf the people gave her three cheers, which her crew returned, & the shore gave one in closing. As she passed the end of the wharf she fired a gun from each side, & passed swiftly & beautifully down the harbor. There was great waving of hats, handkerchiefs & hands between ship & shore, & Mrs. V. L. very prettily put her hand upon her heart. This ev. Mrs. Robt. Sedgwick 50 & aunt El. took tea with us. S. & I had called upon Mrs. S. last Tuesday, at Cambridge. FRID. OCT. 1 3 .

SAT. [ocr.] 14TH. half day.

Went with S. to Mt. Auburn. Had a delightful

49 Rufus Anderson, like the others in this group whose identities are known, has been noted earlier. He was Executive Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Dana's abbreviation of this entity appears often in the Journal. Charles Pickering ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 7 8 ) , physician and naturalist, had just returned from a four-year expedition in the South Seas. The voyage on which he was now embarking would provide him with additional information, and the two voyages combined produced his first important published work: Races of Men and Their Geographic Distribution (1848). He received greater historical recognition for his monumental Chronological History of Plants, published posthumously in 1879. 50

Dana misspelled this name "Sedgewick."

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[OCT.] 16. Meeting of the board of managers of St. Paul's society. A warm discussion arose as to the appropriation of funds to missions. Instead of appropriating the funds to the Board of Missions, designating what shall be for foreign missions & what for domestic, leaving the special distribution to that board, a number of the gentlemen present wished to designate the special mission & the special person to whom all should go, & the reason of this seemed to be, upon discussion, a difference of opinion as to the conduct of the board with reference to recalling a man who was supposed to be Puseyitish, 51 & who the board continued to retain. The new course was supported by Dr. Hale, Wm. B. Reynolds, E. S. Rand, et. als., & opposed by Wm. Appleton, 52 Robt. Appleton, Mr. Parker & myself. It was voted down by 7 to 6, three members having left. [OCT.] 1 7 T H . Fr. Eustis, Geo. Gibbs & Wm. Fr. Channing took tea with us.53 Dreamed that Dr. Vinton & some of his parish had got up a society in wh. each member pledged himself to sacrifice one idol each week. There was to be a weekly meeting at wh. synopsis of the idols sacrificed by each member was to be presented. This is too good a satire for a dream.

OCT. 26. THURD. Having reed, a letter fr. Rockport saying that father was very ill, & Charlotte in a nervous state fr. being left alone with him, Ned left in the early train to take care of him.54 Dr. Shattuck kindly offered to go to R. to visit father if it shd. be necessary. This ev. Wm. Watson & Adele, his new wife, arrived. I met them at the station, & took them home. Walked out with Wm. & talked confidentially with him upon recent things of his own. 5 1 E d w a r d B. Pusey (1800-1882), this same year, was tried for heresy in England and removed from his post as university preacher at Oxford. His position was High Anglican — like Dana's — and the controversy on Dana's St. Paul's Board between the L o w and High Churchmen was, in microcosm, the struggle within the Episcopal Church everywhere. 5 2 Edward Sprague Rand ( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 3 ) had a highly successful career in the East India trade, established woolen mills in New England after 1827, and was president of the Mechanics Bank at Newburyport. William Channing Appleton ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 9 2 ) was a lawyer and philanthropist. 5 3 Frederic Augustus Eustis ( 1 8 1 6 - 1 8 7 1 ) , Harvard, 1835, turned from the ministry to teaching and horticulture in Milton, Massachusetts. He married the only daughter of William Ellery Channing. George Gibbs has been noted earlier. William Francis Channing ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 9 0 1 ) was an inventor who, with Moses G. Farmer, patented the magnetic-electric fire alarm. 5 4 Dana's sister Charlotte never married, and the role of personal attendant to the often ill, very demanding elder Dana began to tell on her from about this time.

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FRIDAY [ocr.] 2 7 T H . Rained all day. Wm. called at my office, & I took him to the U. S. Court Room to see Judge Story. In the evening went to Mrs. Minot's by invitation. Present — the family (who know Adele), Mr. & Mrs. Harmanus Bleeker of Albany, Mr. Saltonstall55 of Salem, Ch. Sumner, & a Mr. Greene, son of an Eng. country gentleman of Lancashire of large estate, who has been to our great lakes, Superior &c. SAT. [OCT.] 2 8 .

Rained. Nothing important occurred. Ned found father

well. SUNDAY [OCT.] 2 9 . Went in the morning to Trinity Church, in the afternoon to St. Paul's. In the ev. Geo. Gibbs & Mr. John Hooker called.

[ocr.] 30. S. went with Wm. & Adele to Mt. Auburn & to call upon Aunt Martha. [ocr.] 31. Went to the Atheneum with Wm., A. & S. In the morning they had been to the top of the State House. WED. NOV. 1. Went with Wm., A. & S. to Bunker Hill & to the Navy Yard. Commodore [John B.] Nicholson, who is a friend of A.'s father showed us about, & gave us every information. Among other things he spoke of good luck & ill luck & said that Decatur,56 with whom he had sailed seven years, told him, at parting, that he would give him as a young officer one piece of advice, which was, — never to trust to luck, but always to fore thought. I can give you this advice, said Decatur, because I have always been what is called a lucky man, — but I owe nothing to luck. People say I was lucky in getting out of port after the affair of the Philadelphia, but the truth is I had calculated upon the happening of the very things that did happen. I learned the time the tide turned, & the time the land breese usually began to blow off, & I chose my opportunity with reference to them.57 In the evening went to the Misses Inches' where we had a very pleasant party. Present, Henderson Inches, son & 2 daughters, Martin Brimmer & sister, Mr. & Mrs. John Parker, H. G. Otis Jr., Mrs. John Welles, & others. NOV. 2 . THURSD. This afternoon William & Adele returned to Ν. Y., after a visit most delightful to ourselves & to all appearances not less so to themselves, of just one week. S. & I are much pleased with A. & 55

Leverett Saltonstall ( 1 7 8 3 - 1 8 7 5 ) . A lawyer in the state legislature between 1 8 1 3 and 1 8 4 4 , 1 8 3 8 to 1844. 5e A marginal note adds: "Stephen Decatur ( 2 ) must have liked the anecdote, since he told it recorded in the Journal. 57

and scholar, he served frequently and was in the U. S. House from 1 7 7 4 - 1 8 2 0 . " Commodore Nicholson to Dana in an earlier interview,

A marginal note adds: " F e b . 1804 — in the harbor of Tripoli."

Beginnings

224

interested in her. She is sensible, affectionate, natural, serious minded in religious matters, well bred, & fine looking. William was very agreeable & fine, & seemed to enjoy himself & to be pleased with every thing. The affection that subsists between him & Sarah is of a most interesting kind. She is his favorite sister, & he her favorite brother. They each have much that they love & esteem in the other, & each knows this of the other. [NOV.] 3. Father, Ch. & Ned came up from Rockport to day; & the house in Chesnut st. is reopened. Charlotte is nervous & her eyes are quite weak. Father looks very well for him. He says that before his last bilious attack he was better than he had been for ten years. SAT. [NOV.] 4. The family & Danl. Fitshugh dined with us to day on a couple of wild ducks wh. Ned brought up fr. Rockport. SUNDAY NOV. 5. Communion this day. Read "New Week's Preparation" before going to Church. More & more do I become attached to the sacraments as means of grace. Never have I had so real a sense of the facts of Christianity, the death & life of Christ, his present mediation, & his presence with his Church, as since I have attached more importance to the sacraments. Father & Charlotte called in for an hour this evening. [NOV.] 11. Lemuel Caswell, the son of the man with whom I boarded at the Isle of Shoals, called at the office. He is in search of employment in the city for the winter, saying that it is too dull at the Shoals to live there. WED. [NOV.] 15. Lectured at Cambridge this ev. on "American Loyalty". Took tea at Prof. Channing's. After lecture went to Aunt Martha's & staid until 10. Found that Wm. Ellery had come to spend a few days. Got him a place in the Paul Jones, bound to Canton.

18. Introduced to Macready 58 at Sumner's. Had no time to converse with him, as I was in the midst of a deposition. [NOV.]

22. Mr. Leo Jarvis59 called. Spoke most affectionately of Mr. Allston, who had been his classmate, & whom he had known intimately ever since their college life. He said "I loved Allston as a brother, & so did every one who knew him. He had friends of various descriptions, & people who agreed in nothing else, agreed in their admiration of him". He then spoke of his religious character & said that Allston had always [NOV.]

6 8 William

Charles

Macready

(1793-1873),

eminent

English

actor,

was

on

an

American tour at this time. MThis

may have been Leonard Jarvis ( 1 7 8 1 - 1 8 5 4 ) , Harvard, 1800, who lived in

England, 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 2 9 , was in the U. S. House, 1829-1837, and was navy agent for the port of Boston, 1838-1841.

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been a remarkably pure minded man. There never was a time when the Atlas story of him could have [been] true. He never could have laughed at religious subjects. After loss of friends & health he became more decidedly religious, but he was never irreligious. THURD. NOV. 23. This ev. went to a party at Jerem. Mason's. Mr. Webster & his wife were present. He had just got out of Court from a tedious & exciting cause, & was rather fatigued. Besides Mason & Webster, we had Choate, Ch. Bell, the three Curtises,60 & Sumner, a good representation of the bar. MONDAY Nov. 27. Father & Charlotte returned fr. their visit to N. Bedford. Spent the evening there. [NOV.] 29. Saw Macready again at Sumner's. Had but a moment's conversation with him as strangers were introduced. A. O. Aldis in town fr. Vermont. THURSDAY [NOV.] 30. Thanksgiving day. Father was too unwell to go out, & only Ned, Charlotte & Mr. A. O. Aldis 61 (from Vt.) dined with us. Aunts went to Cambridge; & on acc. of the two deaths in the family within the year, we had no general dinner. DEC. 3. SUNDAY. Communion Sunday. Did not go out in the afternoon as the morning service lasted until within % of an hour of the beginning of the afternoon service. In ev. heard the Creation performed by the Handel & Hadyn Soc. A grand & various piece, very well performed. Letters fr. Wethersfield, telling us that Elisabeth had a child born on Monday, but not living. It had died an hour or two before birth. She is well. [DEC.]

7.

Lectured at Brookline. "American Loyalty".

Expecting Miss Nancy Marsh, fr. Wethersfield. Snowing very violently. Waited until ten o'clock, & she did not come. FRIDAY DEC. 8. Waked at six, by a violent ringing at the door, & looking out of the window saw a hack in the deep snow, & a man calling out 'a lady fr. the Rail Road'. Sure eno', Miss Nancy had come, having spent the whole night on the road in the snow storm. She was bright & eo Benjamin R. Curtis and Charles Pelham Curtis have been noted earlier. T h e third man was George Ticknor Curtis ( 1 8 1 2 - 1 8 9 4 ) , Harvard, 1 8 3 0 , a lawyer who served in the Massachusetts legislature, 1 8 4 0 - 1 8 4 2 , and was U. S. Commissioner in Boston during the fugitive slave troubles in 1 8 5 1 . el

A s a O. Aldis was a lawyer, a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court after 1 8 5 7 , and later U. S. Consul at Nice.

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cheerful, & had not suffered from cold, but only from fatigue & trial of patience. [DEC.] 20. It having been agreed that the Belshassar should be cleaned & varnished, without any thing done in the way of change or restoration, we employed Chase to do the work, which he has performed to our entire satisfaction. The subscribers were invited to see it for this day & the two next, & accordingly the room has been open. The picture is so changed, & so completely brought out, that we hardly knew what was there before. The various parts so brought into harmony, & the strong parts so noble & so complete. Mr. [George] Ticknor, Mr. [Franklin] Dexter, Mr. [Warren] Dutton, Mr. Jona. Mason, Mr. Harding (the artist) 62 are all in a state of highest admiration. Father, too, is so encouraged about it, that it has quite put him up in health & spirits. It is now agreed that Chase shall make an effort to restore the king, which had been covered up by Allston. We do not hesitate to attempt this, as we know that he covered it up not from any dissatisfaction with its character & execution, but merely to enlarge it in conformity with an altered perspective.

DEC. 28. Little Sally has the measles, this morning, having broken out fairly all over her body. 62 Chester

Harding (1792-1866), a self-schooled portrait painter from Kentucky, after 1823 had a great popular success. He painted a portrait of Allston.

4. Pilgrimage to Mount Vernon 1844 1844 JAN. 13. Moved my office from the Old State House to rooms in the second story of Gray's New Building, 30 Court st. where we have two new rooms, with every convenience & in a good neighborhood. [ J A N . ] 16. TUESDAY. Left this morning for Hartford & New Haven to lecture. Miss Nancy Marsh returned with me, having finished her visit. Left B. at 7 A. M. & notwithstanding a severe snow storm, reached Springfield at \o>k. Dined & reached Hartford at 6 P. M. Left Miss M. at Mr. John Webb's & went to the City Hotel. Took tea, dressed & lectured. The night was very stormy, & the audience rather thin, but they told me much fuller than could have been expected. Returned to the Hotel & read the 4th book of Cowper's Odyssey.1 The three first I had read in the cars. [ J A N . ] 17TH. WED. Took the coach at 9 A. M. for Wethersfield. Found them all well. Dined & left at 4 P. M. Called at Mr. Wadsworth's & took tea there. Mr. W. was very agreeable, & is certainly an uncommonly sensible & high minded man. Called at Mr. John Webb's, Mr. Tudor's & Mr. Killam's. All inquired with great interest after Sarah & the little child. Hartford is full of her to me. I saw it first on [my] visit to her, the great step of my life was made there, & so many happy hours. It is a peculiar, almost an enchanted place. I ought to visit it often, in order to have my early feelings kept alive. [ J A N . ] I8TH. Left at 6V2 A. M. in the cars for N. Haven. Reached the Tontine at 9. Took a room & ordered fire. Called & spent an hour with Judge [David] Daggett, & then at Mrs. Henry C. Flagg's. Spent an hour in Geo. Flagg's room. Dinner. After dinner, called upon Prof. Olmsted & left cards with the Silliman's, jr. & senr., who had called upon me. Lecture before the most crowded audience I ever addressed. Many people had to go away, & they sat upon the steps leading up to the desk. I never lectured with so much satisfaction before. Notwithstanding the rule prohibiting applause, they broke out 4 or 5 times; & persons of the 1

William

1791·

Cowper

(1731-1800)

first

published his translation of the Odyssey

in

228

Beginnings

best judgment & taste present, spoke to me with great zeal in favor of my doctrine of "Loyalty". Saw Mr. [William] Craney at the hotel. He is studying law, but, I fear, is not doing very well. [ J A N . ] 19TH. FRIDAY. Left in the early cars for Hd. At the. Hd. station, found Mr. [Ο. E.] Daggett, who had brot over El. & Mary, & drove with them over to Wd. Spent a pleasant half day, returned to Hd., called upon Mr [Daniel] Wadsworth, took tea & went to Mr. Coxe's2 Church for ev. prayers & lecture. Never have I been so much pleased with any lecture upon the Old Test, as with this. Not less gratifying were all the services. The church was well lighted, hung in green (for Christmas), the congregation was large, & the whole evening service was gone thro' with great interest. When this was concluded, Mr. C. came outside the altar, & standing by the steps, gave an extempore address upon the opening of the book of Joshua. I never heard the bearing of the Old Test, upon the faith of all Christians, & its importance as a part of a complete system, set forth in so striking & interesting a manner. Indeed, I was carried away with it, & my heart was completely warmed up, & I felt an elation of spirit at the thought of the reality of things he set forth, wh. I never had brought out in me before upon that subject. After the benedicion, a class of catechumen remained, who were in a course of preparation for confirmation. Among these, about 50 in number, were several poor women, quite advanced in years. Being introduced to Mr. Coxe, he invited me to call upon him at his house at 9 o'clock, which I did after calling on Miss [Catherine] Day & Mrs. [L. Η. H.] Sigoumey.

Mr. Coxe is a full hearted, enthousiastic man, full of zeal in all he is about, full of the catholic & primitive features of the church, in opposition to Methodism, Calvinism & Revivalism, on the one hand, & either Papacy or mere high churchmanship on the other. We sat up until after twelve, & had a glorious time, talking over all matters of common interest. [ J A N . ] 2 0 . SAT. Left Hd. at 8 % , reached Springfield & Boston at the usual time. Found both the Sallys well, & little S. struggled to get to me. S., of course, was glad to hear from Wd. [ J A N . ] 2 1 . SUNDAY. Heard an admirable sermon this ev. fr. Dr. Bethune of Philad. upon the Christian faith, as distinguished fr. Natural religion, & mere moral philosophy. It was strong, manly & eloquent. The audience was large, & the aisles filled with standers up. [ J A N . ] 2 6 . FRID. 2

Dined at Mr. Ticknor's. Present, besides Mr., Mrs.,

Arthur Cleveland Coxe ( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 9 6 ) was rector of St. John's Church in Hartford from 1 8 4 3 to 1854, when he moved to Baltimore, where Dana was to meet him again.

1844

Pilgrimage to Mount Vernon

229

& Miss Τ., N. Appleton, Wm. Prescott (Ferd. & Isabella), Hillard, S. Austin Jr., Judge Phillips, Ch. Lyman,3 Benj. Welles, & Comm. Nicholson. Mr. T. told an anecdote of Judge Story & Jer. Mason. When Mason was at the head of the Ν. H. bar & a high federalist, Story, a young man at Salem, was employed by the leading democrats in Portsmouth to come down & engage in cases there, to counteract Mason's influence. It was understood that he was to have the democratic practice δε be pitted ag. Mason. M. said that he understood the movement very well & prepared for it. The first case was opened by Story, & M. listened attentively to him, & searched him through. M. said, as soon as S. was done, "I said to myself, 'This young man will go for the law', & invited him home to dine, & we have been good friends ever since". Mason saw that S. was a lawyer at bottom, & that his political opinions were only accidental & external, & that he would come right in the main. Frank & Ned dined with us today on salt fish, cider & apple-pie, after the old fashion. SAT. J A N . 2 7 T H .

Tea party at R. B. Forbes'. Had the best tea I ever drank, sent to Mr. F. by Howqua,4 with whom he is on intimate terms. Howqua's portrait hangs in the parlor, & shows a high, narrow, sallow face, with nothing of the Chinese about it, but looking more like Richelieu than any one else. [JAN.]

30.

[JAN.] 31. Large & superb party at David Sears'. This house, the most tasteful & sumptuous in Boston, was beautifully lighted & filled with highly dressed women, & enlivened by a band of 7 pieces led by Kendall. Madame D'Hauteville looked very prettily & was much attended to. My friend Miss Jane Norton, whom I was very near calling my dear Miss Norton, was there, & [we] talked pleasantly together thro' one dance, she refusing to dance, as she said, for me. There is something very agreeable & interesting to me in her, as well as in her mother before her. Gov. Briggs5 was there, & others of note. Music very inspiring. 3 Samuel Austin, Jr. ( 1 7 9 1 - 1 8 5 8 ) was a prominent East India trade merchant who served in the Massachusetts house, 1 8 2 6 - 1 8 3 3 . Charles Lyman ( 1 7 9 9 - 1 8 8 1 ) also served in the house in 1823. 4 Howqua was the name applied by Western merchants to the great Chinese trader Wu Ping-chien, or Woo Pingkien ( 1 7 6 9 - 1 8 4 3 ) . He had a fortune of at least 2 6 million Spanish dollars. Dana was to meet his son, the heir to both name and fortune, in Canton in i860. Forbes, who has been noted earlier, knew Howqua through his own activities in the China trade. 5

Jane Norton was the daughter of Andrews Norton, sister of Charles Eliot Norton. George N. Briggs ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 6 1 ) served in the U. S. Congress, 1 8 3 1 - 1 8 4 3 , and had just been elected governor of Massachusetts on the Whig ticket. He retained the office until 1 8 5 1 .

230

Beginnings

Feb. ι. Went out to C. Port with S. to call upon Mrs. C. D. Gibson, & to see the picture again. Aunt M. was getting ready to come into town for the winter. The king has been restored, as far as possible. He is in a very defaced state, from the use of the pummice by Mr. A. before he painted it over, but it adds greatly to the effect of the picture. P. M. The harbor being frosen entirely over, thro' its whole width, & as far down as the Long Island light, & a company having engaged to cut a ship channel thro' the whole length, from the wharves, I went down to see the work in company with hundreds or rather, thousands of others. The scene was peculiar & exciting in the extreme. The whole harbor was one field of ice, frosen on a perfect level, tho' somewhat roughly in parts, & strong eno' to bear heavy loads of merchandise drawn by cattle. Two gangs of men were at work, one beginning at the wharves & cutting down, the other beginning at the clear water & cutting up. Each gang numbered over a hundred. Perhaps there were 400 workmen in all. For lookers on, there seemed to be half the city & surrounding country, some in sleighs, some on skates & some on foot. Females & children walked fearlessly from Long Wharf to the Castle & enjoyed to highly. Among other persons, I met Mr. Theod. Lyman with his 2 daughters. There were merchants, lawyers, clergymen, & people of every description, some of whom had not been on skates for 20 years. There were booths erected for the sale of refreshments, at different parts of [the] track & from the end of Long Warf to the place where the lower gang was at work, a distance of 5 miles, there was a well marked foot-way, & travelers upon it were as frequent as on the great highway to a city on a festival day. I skated down as far as the ice wd. allow, wh. was within about a mile of Long Island Light, & across to Fort Warren & East Boston. 7% P. M. Went to a meeting called for the purpose of erecting a church near the Lowell depot, in the midst of a large district which is without any place of worship of any description. Present, Geo. C. Shattuck Jr., Wm. F. Otis, Ch. R. Bond, [H. G.] Otis [Jr.], Salter, Dale 6 & Coale & a few others. Committee of 12 to meet Tues. ev.

feb. 2. frid. Being so much pleased with my excursion on the ice, I went again this A. M. & skated down as far as before, but a fall of snow with some rain will make this the last day of skating on the harbor for this season. This ev. Aunt Martha came into town to take up her abode with aunts, after having been separated from them 13 years. e WilIiam Foster Otis (1801-1858), son of Harrison Gray Otis, Sr., was a lawyer and served in the legislature, 1829-1832. William Johnson Dale (1815-1903), a Boston physician, entered the Army during the Civil War, rose to brigadier general, and after the war became surgeon general.

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